There’s nothing quite like the Melbourne derby. Fans have no idea what they’ll be seeing on the night, as more often than not the form book goes out the window.
Tickets have already sold out to tonight’s blockbuster Melbourne Victory Melbourne City match, and AMMI Park won’t disappoint.
If bookies have it right, Melbourne City are in for a tough time as the Victory continue to power through the season without conceding a match.
Still the top goal scorers of the League, Victory are in a better place at the moment but do need to deal with a pretty big blow.
Captain Mark Milligan will more than likely be out of the squad till February.
His three match ban for elbowing Terry Antonis in last week’s Sydney FC match will be a hard pill to swallow, but it has been made even worse with the his likely subsequent call up to the Socceroos squad for the Asian Cup.
It means Victory will need figure out how to spend the next couple of weeks without the key player.
Coach Kevin Muscat doesn’t seem too worried, as Leigh Broxham is likely to move from centre-back to a more familiar midfield role against City.
Melbourne City on the other hand might be seventh on ladder, but were able to pick themselves up from a 5-1 thrashing and get three points off Brisbane Roar.
They’ll also be buoyed by having Socceroo Josh Kennedy join in with training. He’s booked to start in January on his 18 month deal, but would have given the other players some confidence.
They’ve had a week off thanks to the Wanderer’s international forays, and will be much better placed to take on Victory than they have in previous weeks.
That is if they’ve done enough to fix their leaky defence and lacking attack.
City have won only one of their last six meetings with Victory, losing four.
A match that might not be so easy to predict might be the Perth Glory match against Central Coast Mariners.
At face value, it’ll be easy to give the win to Perth as they still rightfully hold the top position.
But, Perth couldn’t secure a win when it counted in the FFA Cup final, conceding to Adelaide United on Tuesday.
Central Coast Mariners have had a full week to get into training, and will be looking to exploit Perth’s tired players.
Off-field matters have also plagued the Glory this week, with reports emerging of the club failing to properly declare agent fees, player accommodation and cars provided to players in previous seasons.
But, there isn’t much else standing in the way of a win for Glory.
The Mariners by contrast haven’t won a match since round one, drawing three and losing two of the previous five games.
They drew 1-1 against Wellington Phoenix last week which was better than what Melbourne City could do.
Wellington will be giving Sydney FC a hard time this week, and as both sides are pretty equally matched, fans will be the winners.
Both sides have made impressive starts to the campaign, and while Wellington couldn’t come out of their last match with three points, Sydney FC couldn’t either.
In a crucial match that both Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory were desperate to win thanks to their last meeting ending in a draw, they were deadlocked again, this time 3-3.
Sydney FC’s coach Graham Arnold has to deal with a mini-injury crisis, with Nick Carle joining Ali Abbas and Corey Gameiro on the long-term injury list.
He’s hoping defender Sasa Ognenovski can finally make the difference after shaking off his hip problem.