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Last placed Adelaide United will welcome Perth Glory to Coopers Stadium on Friday night as they attempt to move a step closer to avoiding the dreaded wooden spoon. Join The Roar from 7:50pm (AEDT) for live scores.
Adelaide United hold an unenviable mantle at the moment – the worst ever performance by an A-League defending champion. They sit stone cold last after 18 matches in 2016/17, and are still five points clear of their nearest wooden spoon rivals, the Central Coast Mariners, as we head towards the end of the season.
Contrastingly, the Glory find themselves in fifth place and a potential finals berth following an inconsistent campaign by their lofty standards. Six wins from 18 matches normally wouldn’t make for pleasant reading, however, a segmented A-League table sees the Glory still well and truly in the hunt.
Adelaide have won just two matches this season, with the most recent coming four rounds ago in the form of a huge upset 2-1 victory over Melbourne City. Most recently, they went down 2-1 to the Mariners on the Coast in the battle of the cellar dwellers.
The Glory lost just once in their last six matches, and are coming off an important 3-2 home victory over fellow finals contenders the Newcastle Jets.
Historically, it’s been fairly even between the two sides, with Adelaide just holding the advantage three wins to two over their past six encounters. However, this season has seen a seriously different Adelaide side take to the pitch and the Glory will go into this one as significant favourites.
In team news, the home side have added George Mells, Ben Warland, Nikola Mileusnic and Daniel Margush to their squad for this clash. With goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic and midfield star Isaias both to miss out owing to injury and suspension respectively.
The Glory will be without Shane Lowry and Jordan Thurtell while a raft of names return to the squad. Keeper Liam Reddy, Marc Warren, Aryn Williams and Kosta Petratos all find themselves named in the squad to take on the reigning A-League champs.
Prediction:
Perth Glory 3-1 Adelaide United
Adelaide have been seriously poor this season and travelling to Perth is no easy trip. Add to that the absence of Galekovic and it could be a field day for the likes of Diego Castro and Andy Keogh who could easily tear apart the A-League’s second leakiest defence.
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