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The battle for Victorian bragging rights heats up tonight at AAMI Park as Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory lock horns. Join The Roar from 7:30pm (AEDT) for our live blog coverage of this Round 11 meeting.
Last week it was Sydney, this week Melbourne City; the big games keep on coming for Kevin Muscat’s charges as they look to consolidate their strong early season form and maintain their unbeaten record.
Archie Thompson was in red-hot form last time out, scoring a hat trick in a frustrating draw with Sydney last weekend. Thompson will be hoping to help his side take their frustrations out on struggling neighbours City.
Melbourne City are refreshed after having a weeks break due to their match against the Wanderers being rescheduled. The A-League strugglers are in the rare position of looking for back-to-back wins, coming off a 1-0 home victory over Brisbane Roar.
Currently Melbourne City are placed 7th while Victory sits 2nd on the ladder. The last time these two teams met was back in Round 3 when Victory came from behind to win 5-2.
How City can win: Simple; it’s a derby.
City haven’t played since defeating Brisbane 1-nil 13 days ago.
In all honesty they weren’t that impressive, but they got the result and frustrated Brisbane out of the game. The defensive changes that Van’t Schip had made (he changed his whole backline with exception of Kisnorbo) paid off.
Young Connor Chapman made a solid club debut, and Velphai looked in good touch in goals.
Victory showed in the “Big Blue” that they still have a tendency to get frustrated and lash out when things aren’t going their way. If City can stop the Victory midfield getting a good rhythm then they are a huge chance of springing an upset.
Aaron Mooy will be key for the home side once again. The midfielder has been in sensational form to start the season, and one more huge effort could see him named in the national team for the Asian Cup.
City have lost Damian Duff who left the field at halftime against Brisbane. He will be a massive loss for them as he was just starting to find his feet.
How Victory can win: Victory have been in scintillating form this season and so far they have proved if one man drops out another one will inevitably step up to do the job.
The loss of Milligan will hurt them as he does a lot of cleaning up in defence, however there are still a number of very classy players in the squad.
Kevin Muscat will be frustrated they didn’t take the points in the “Big Blue”, and City could very well find themselves marking a fired up Victory side.
Archie Thompson wound back the clock with a vintage performance against Sydney, and his newly rediscovered scoring touch has thrown down the gauntlet to Berisha and co.
If Victory score first there is every chance that they will run away with the match. Look for them to play a high-tempo game with plenty of short interchange of passes. City’s defence has been unlocked a lot by opposing sides with the short ball this season.
Likely Result: Derbies the world over has a habit of throwing up surprising results that defy all logic and formbooks. Head-to-head there is very little between these two sides, although on paper Victory have the advantage of greater squad depth.
As Mike Basset (fictional English football manager) so famously said: “I’m a firm believer that if you score one goal, the other team have to score two to win.”
Unfortunately for City, Victory have a team that is certainly capable of scoring more than one-goal.
My prediction is Victory 3-0.
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