A-League Betting Tip: Melbourne City can win Grand Final debut at expense of Newcastle Jets

Recommended bet:

To Qualify – Melbourne City @ 2.03 with Unibet

We’re now at the semi-final stage of the Finals Series, with Newcastle Jets welcoming Melbourne City to the McDonald Jones Stadium on Friday evening in the first game.

Newcastle will be seeking to reach the Hyundai A-League Grand Final for the second time in the club’s history, having won the tournament a decade ago in the 2007-08 season.  City will be looking to secure for their first ever Grand Final appearance. 

The Jets qualified automatically for the semi-finals by virtue of finishing second in the table over the regular season, but City had to overcome Brisbane Roar in the Elimination Finals to get here.  They beat Roar 2-0 at AAMI Park last week, with goals from Stefan Mauk and Nick Fitzgerald seeing them progress.

With their place in the play-offs assured, the Jets form did tail off towards the end of the season with three straight defeats (including a 3-0 loss at home to City), although they did finish their campaign with a resounding 8-2 derby win away to Central Coast Mariners, which included a hat-trick from 19 year-old Riley McGree.

Despite finishing the season seven points adrift of the Jets, City had much the better of things when the two teams met over the course of the campaign, winning 2-1 and 3-0 at the McDonald Jones Stadium and drawing 2-2 at AAMI Park.

The Jets have had the advantage of an extra week’s rest ahead of this game, but City didn’t need to unduly exert themselves in seeing off Roar in their Elimination Finals, so there is unlikely to be any fatigue issues here.

There’s very little to choose between the two terms according to the bookies, with the Jets going off as narrow favourites at 6/4 (2.50) with William Hill.  City can be backed at 9/5 (2.79) with bet365 at the time of writing.  The draw (which would necessitate extra-time and potentially penalties thereafter) is 5/2 (3.50) with Centrebet and certainly looks tempting.

Taking into account previous meetings between the teams this season, the bet to be on could be Melbourne City to Qualify for the Grand Final (whether in 90-minutes or after extra-time or penalties), which is available at 2.03 with Unibet.