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Defending champions Adelaide United continue to struggle at the bottom of the table as they play host to a Melbourne City side looking to close in on the top two. Join The Roar from 7:50pm (AEDT) for all the live scores, highlights and action.
Both sides come into this Round 15 opener in less than stellar form but at very different spots in the A-League right now.
Adelaide have had one of the worst title defences off all time across any sport, sitting in dead last with just a single win from 14 games.
Another two-nil defeat to Melbourne Victory last week kept them at the bottom of the barrel with the Mariners sitting just three points ahead.
Having scored just ten goals this season, they have the worst attack in the league by far, a far cry from when they won the title less than 12 months ago with the second best goal difference in the competition, now they have the worst.
While sitting a little better in the grand scheme of things, City are in just as bad a form as their opponents tonight.
Despite sitting third, the light blue Melbourne side haven’t won a game since winning the FFA Cup at the end of November last year, going on a run of five games without a win to fall a long way behind league-leaders Sydney FC.
Once the Sky Blues’ main competition earlier in the season, City needed a vital win last week against the Wanderers to stay ahead of Brisbane Roar in fourth place.
They now sit 16 points behind Sydney and six behind crosstown rivals Melbourne Victory.
In amongst that they’ve lost their coach John van’t Schip who resigned from the club, who is now being managed by interim coach Mike Valkanis.
These two sides have met this season, the last time being a 2-1 win in favour of City, making it three wins from their last five games against Adelaide.
Team news
Adelaide welcome back two players from injury this week with the returns of Marcelo Carrusca and Iacopo La Rocca who both come back from Adelaide’s draw with the Phoenix two Rounds ago.
Nikola Mileusnic has been ruled out with a quad injury and is expected to miss a couple of weeks for it. Tarek Elrich is the other omission for tonight’s clash thanks to a fifth yellow of the season last week.
Coach Guillermo Amor has also brought Mark Ochieng and Ben Warland into an extended matchday squad.
George Mells and Riley McGree are both still fighting ankle injuries but are expected to be ready for next week.
For City, cult hero Fernando Brandan will make his return to the side after serving a two-match ban for his scuffle with Dino Djulbic in a heated clash with Perth Glory.
While they welcome back Brandan, City have lost Neil Kilkenny who racked up his eighth yellow card of the season last week and will have to sit out for the second time this season thanks to his bookings tally.
Daniel Arzani and Paulo Retre are the other two to be brought into the City squad.
Prediction
It’s hard to see Adelaide winning any more games this season at this stage, they’ve just played so consistently poorly each week and their results are showing that.
While Melbourne have been shaky at best across the last two months, they’re still in very good position in the league and will need a game like this to get their confidence back.
City to win 3-1
Join The Roar from 7:50pm (AEDT) for all the live scores, highlights and action.
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