The A-League produced a stunning weekend of action in Round 4, with Western United and Central Coast Mariners the stars.
The panel stumbled bar Tom Williamson, who managed three correct selections.
Things are very tight at the top and the round ahead looks anything but a walk in the park when it comes to tipping successfully in the A-League. Be sure to enter your tips into the sheet below and have a say as the interactive voice of the crowd.
Mike Tuckerman
Tips: City, Perth, Draw, Victory, Draw
Melbourne City are the Jekyll and Hyde of the league. You never know what you’re going to get with Erick Mombaerts’ side and last weekend’s 3-2 win over the Phoenix was no exception. If ever there was a game for City to set down a marker, this is it. The Mariners are tough to beat but even without Jamie Maclaren, it should be the home side who get the biscuits at AAMI Park.
The thought of Tony Popovic running his players into the ground all week is almost enough to make you glad you’re not a professional footballer. It’s hard to know whether listening to Ernie Merrick’s deadpan jokes is an even worse punishment, but one thing is certain: the Glory should bounce back from last week’s shock defeat to the Mariners with a comfortable victory here.
Western United are the real deal and they proved it with their incredible come-from-behind win over Melbourne Victory last weekend. They don’t necessarily look watertight at the back, yet Western Sydney’s attack is yet to really start firing. These two sides could cancel each other out on Saturday night in Geelong, particularly with two of the league’s best goalkeepers on show.
It will be a backs-to-the-wall win for Melbourne Victory. They’re out of form, down on confidence and playmaker Kristijan Dobras looks like he was plucked straight from park football, but if Victory have proved anything over the years, it’s that they know how to grind out wins when they need them most. Wellington are a dangerous side but the hosts should prevail at AAMI Park.
Adelaide probably needed the week off after their FFA Cup exploits and Al Hassan Toure declaring his allegiance to Australia is more good news for the Reds. They’ve proved tougher to beat than I expected under Gertjan Verbeek and they always seem to fire up for the visit of Brisbane Roar. Robbie Fowler’s side are much improved defensively, so this one may finish all square.
Al Hassan Toure starred in the FFA Cup final. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)
Stuart Thomas
Tips: City, Draw, United, Victory, Adelaide
There is little to say about Melbourne City’s victory over the Phoenix last week, other than the fact that it came via a little bit of fortune and led to a blue tirade from Louis Fenton after the match. It was VAR coming to the fore again and a win that saw Erick Mombaerts’ men climb to the top of the A-League tree. This Friday they meet a cock-a-hoop Mariners side off the back of a stunning and season building triumph against Perth Glory. Doing it again will be tough for Alen Stajcic’s new-look squad. City to win.
The Jets have a chance to secure their first win of the season against a smarting Perth. Tony Popovic will have read the riot act this week yet there is something not quite right in the west and Newcastle looked decent in their first two matches. Draw.
Western United have the chance of claiming another major scalp in the shape of the Wanderers at GMHBA Stadium in Geelong. Should they win, another skip up the ladder is possible and the Wanderers will need to find some more attacking and polished play if they are to topple the expansion club’s applecart. The Wanderers sit deep and look far too reactive to me. United in another glorious win for the new club.
Two sides desperate for a win will front up when the Victory host Wellington on Sunday afternoon. After starting well last week, United showed that Marco Kurz’s side are, at the moment, more than beatable. Frankly, home ground status at AAMI Park is the only way I can split them. Neither have impressed aside from that electric Victory start in Round 4 and the loser here could well be under some pressure.
Adelaide are back in action after the bye and host the winless Brisbane Roar at Coopers in the final match of the weekend. The Reds look a dangerous attacking unit and well organised under Gertjan Verbeek. The Roar do not as yet, despite snatching two creditable points in the opening month of the season. Adelaide comfortably for me in this one as the Roar continue to gel and become more familiar with the direction Robbie Fowler wishes to take them.
Paul Nicholls
Tips: City, Perth, Draw, Draw, Adelaide
I went with all home teams last week and came a cropper. As an exercise I analysed home and away form and came up with the following: home teams have won six times and away teams have won nine times. So home ground advantage in the A-League means zilch.
Central Coast haven’t won in Melbourne for a zillion years and they’ll have their work cut out against league leaders Melbourne City on Friday. The Mariners are playing well under Alen Stajcic but City should have them covered.
You could almost call Newcastle versus Perth the disappointment derby. Dimi Petratos seems to be doing everything on his own and although Abdiel Arroyo has shown glimpses of form, the Jets are barely flying above the treetops. After last week it’s obvious Perth have some problems to sort out but coach Tony Popovic should fix it. Based on my flimsy statistical analysis, I’ll tip an away win.
(Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Here we all were thinking Western United would be a dud franchise yet now they are taking the A-League by storm. I am loving the combinations of Alessandro Diamanti, Scott McDonald and Besart Berisha. Can they beat the hard-nosed boys from the banks of the Parramatta River? They’ll go close but will settle for a draw.
Melbourne Victory are struggling at the moment. Can they turn their season around against a winless and slightly luckless Wellington Phoenix? The move back to AAMI should help but Phoenix should be good for a draw here.
As Stuart pointed out the other day, all the buzz is around Adelaide United’s Riley McGree. He’s a top drawcard and one of a bunch of exciting youngsters in the A-League including teammate Al Hassan Toure. While Adelaide are exciting, doctors are prescribing Brisbane Roar highlight tapes to people with sleep deprivation symptoms. Adelaide by two.
Tom Williamson
Tips: City, Perth, Draw, Wellington, Draw
Melbourne City are celebrating their ten-year anniversary and aren’t we looking at a stark contrast from the Melbourne Heart days, who after five rounds of their debut season, sat in equal second last position with the North Queensland Fury. Only one team was performing worse than them, the hapless Sydney FC. Oh how times have changed.
City proved last round that they don’t need Jamie Maclaren on the park to find the back of the net, as they dispatched of the Phoenix with relative ease and took top spot on the table. Elsewhere, the Mariners ruined many tipsters’ weekends by upsetting the Glory in Perth – a shocking result sure, but how refreshing is it to see Central Coast contest and win games?
City will enjoy their anniversary game with a win here, and they’ll take a two-point lead at the top.
Unease is the current vibe going around the Perth camp, and with good reason. With shaky results thus far besides the win over Wellington, their defence is lacking composure and it’s proving to be of great detriment to the reigning premiers.
Newcastle were exposed by Sydney last week. It was honestly hard to watch. Matt Millar was their only shining light – he’s a very talented footballer – and with a better team around him, he is going to be very dangerous in the future.
Perth to bounce back and get the win here, 2-0.
What’s not to love about Western United?! They play an exciting brand of football and are staking a real claim as a contender in their inaugural season. Last weekend’s win against the Victory was a delight for both the neutrals and the black and green faithful.
(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
As I predicted, Western Sydney’s ship hit its iceberg last weekend, they were sluggish and genuinely struggled to get past Brisbane’s bus. They’ve got some A-grade players and at any given moment can turn into a brilliant team. It just depends which Wanderers side shows up: the brilliant one, or the sluggish one.
I predict we’ll see flashes of both, and these teams will grind out a hard fought draw.
Sunday opens with the Victory hosting Wellington in a game that has ‘must win’ written all over it. The Phoenix desperately need to stem their bleeding and Victory are in all types of strife, currently sitting as the third best team in the state. They are distinctly lacking that X-factor they have had in previous seasons and after their complete capitulation on Saturday night, alarm bells must be ringing at Victory HQ. Anything less than three points here would be a disaster.
Wellington were unlucky against City last round, and with Gary Hooper leading the line, are going to win in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon.
The final game of the round is the toughest to tip. Adelaide are coming off a well deserved rest and Brisbane are something of an enigma. With a team featuring players who could set the league alight, but with no real cohesion, this game could very well go any direction.
Both teams need the win to keep up with the top six, and I don’t think either will get it. 2-2 draw.
| Round 5 | Mike | Stuart | Paul | Tom | The Crowd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCY vs CCM | MCY | MCY | MCY | MCY | MCY |
| NEW vs PER | PER | Draw | PER | PER | PER |
| WUN vs WSW | Draw | WUN | Draw | Draw | WUN |
| MVC vs WEL | MVC | MVC | Draw | WEL | MVC |
| ADL vs BRI | Draw | ADL | ADL | Draw | ADL |
| Last week | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Total | 8 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 8 |
digbick23
Guest
well wsw to win with a last minute screamer in front of 9k at geelong expecting a big noisy traveling contingent of rbb/wsw fans should be a noisy one
Socceroos
Roar Rookie
The underdogs will get away with something this weekend. All matches dodgy and favorites have won much times looking at the H2h.
Waz
Roar Rookie
I’ve tipped them for the GF this year
Melange
Guest
I agree Buddy, I only tip Roar as lower table cause they haven't picked up points yet. I think it'll be a very tight year this year so if teams fall behind they'll find it harder to string wins together to play catch up.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Agreed. If anything sports forecasting performance can be partially measured by assessing the hypothetical return from betting agencies should the pundits have placed a dollar on each forecast. The problem there is that betting agencies offer odds that are lower than their forecasts in order to make money on the margin. Not that there's a strong link between tipping capacity and knowledge of football as the topic covers a vastly wider field than the narrow focus of A-League on-field performance.
Nick Symonds
Guest
One scenario: If Mariners beat City and Western United beat Wanderers then WU, City and Wanderers will all be equal on 10 points each at the top of the ladder and Sydney will drop to 4th with 9.
josh
Guest
WSW have Schwegler back so i'm feeling more confident.
josh
Guest
Maybe i'll live long enough to see Waz tip WSW one day.
Jordan Klingsporn
Roar Guru
City Glory Draw Victory Draw COYGB!
Griffo
Roar Guru
2 - 1 : City vs CCM 0 - 2 : Jets vs Perth 2 - 2 : WU vs WSW 2 - 1 : Victory vs Nix 2 - 1 : Adelaide vs Brisbane Quite a few sides are capable of scoring this weekend - except for the Jets - but CCM will break their own record to go 37 games in a row without a clean sheet: tough game for City but will prevail. Similar for Victory but Nix have that air of a good side that can't win without some luck. A possible draw for WU vs WSW - two good sides which could end up being a good game - while Brisbane will go close but Adelaide too strong at home. Much will remain unchanged at the Jets: Burns will warm the Aussie cedar, Arroyo will have to score with six defenders swarming him instead of running like the wind past a static Perth defence onto a through ball, and Kanta may start in place of Ridenton but the Hoff will either score a hatrick, or waste a hatrick of gilt-edged chances while reliving his early days as a successful striker...
Waz
Roar Rookie
Both sides are very watchable this season so it could be the best game of the round.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
But forecasting in business is a different type of model altogether than sport forecasting. Where I work we do not allow sales and marketing staff to put in forecasts for inventory as history repeatedly tells us we will be carrying far too much stock for long periods. Equally, we do not use accountants as we will be running out of stock continually and never have enough for standard orders. We replenish our stocks according to a reliable replenishment time against average monthly sales and we input market intelligence into the equation - large projects that have moved beyond DA. This system works really well for us and I’d love to be able to use it for forecasting sporting events but there are too many variables so I don’t tip and I don’t forecast - I just get prepared to be surprised, happy or sad depending on the teams involved!
Nemesis
Guest
Forecasting is an art. It's extremely useful & if you're good at it you can gain an edge in business, or any endeavour. Everyone who owns a business uses forecasting to plan for the future to make investment in new equipment, allocate labour allocation, etc. Always there are 3 broad possible forecasts: - business conditions will improve - business conditions will get worse - business conditions will stay the same If you're only getting it right 40% of the time your business is going to struggle... UNLESS your returns when you forecast correctly are hugely more profitable than when you get it wrong 60% of the time. If you invest heavily in new equipment, putting on new staff & stocking up the warehouse with inventory & you've read the market badly you'll fail. With sports tipping of the type we're using here, there is no weighting for different predictions. A successful outcome is worth the same as an unsuccessful outcome.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
"Mariners will be desperate not to lose so will play 10 at the back again." Agree and City will be desperate to win given it's our 10-year anniversary game this Friday. Nothing like a milestone game to get the lads over the line. City to win.
Garry Jr
Guest
At risk of giving this comment more credit than it deserves... In league play there are three possible outcomes of any match: Team A wins Team B wins Draw Over a long enough period of time, random selection will result in a success rate of 33%. So you can look at that as your floor. If you are putting effort into your tips and running at less than 33%, you should probably give up, or maybe switch to tipping at random. More than 33%, though, shows that at least you are performing better than someone choosing at random. 8 out of 20 correct tips is a 40% success rate. Whether that's enough to constitute a "pass" in some hypothetical institution of tipping education and assessment is another matter.
Nemesis
Guest
20 matches played. The leading tipsters have got 8 out of 20 correct. When I was a student, that was considered failure. In most endeavours, if you're getting this type of success from your analysis of information to form predictions about the future, you probably need to accept that you're not very good at what you're attempting to prognosticate. Either your input data has gaps, or your methodology is invalid.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
I’d be inclined to look at BR and suggest that they still need more time getting to know each other. They look like strangers some of the time and I like the Holloway Wenzel Halls pairing when the side needs a change up front. Don’t know how long it will take though to get things right?
Melange
Guest
Mariners - could have won by 4 last week such was their dominance until they decided to shut up shop with 40 to go, a brave approach. Newcastle - such a hard one to tip but I think Newie are due to score a few. Draw - I’m not sure WU have enough against a team that seems to play not to lose. Victory - home ground is the only reason. Adelaide by a few, a polished team against a solid lower table team that lacks ideas and composure.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
The only good thing about having a bye in the competition is that every once in a while there is no talk about SFC – even though I’m mentioning the name right here! The battle of the “west” might just provide a wake up call to the visitors and hand them their first defeat of the season and by a fair margin too which, if it does come to fruition will upset the RBB who have the game as one of their designated away trips for the season. Surely there is no more good fortune left in the pot after dipping into it as much as they have so far this season? Daniel Lopar is pretty good in goal but a highly motivated attack that is scoring goals rather than teams that find the woodwork or run foul of VAR could well bring WSW down to earth with a thud. There were plenty of injuries being collected against Brisbane last weekend and combine that with a midfield that is not driving the team forward with any meaning or real creativity and it could be a tough night in Geelong. My other question for the weekend is whether Wellington’s luck might change or are they going to come up against a Victory side determined to atone for last week’s defeat to the new kids on the block? There are many sayings concerning luck, making your own etc and some don’t believe in it at all. Last week’s handball decision and a freakish Ryan Grant goal are two incidents that come to mind but then I recall they looked poor against Western United and patchy at best against Perth so maybe they just naturally find ways to lose games. MV have regularly been a team that finds ways to win games so I will be tuning in with great interest to see what unfolds at AAMI park this weekend.
Waz
Roar Rookie
City v CCM; Draw - City rode their luck last week & Mariners will be desperate not to lose so will play 10 at the back again. Jets v Glory; Glory should win this but they’re not the team they were last year so it’ll be tight. WU v WSW; WU for me. It was Wanderers who parked the bus last weekend and they look like they’re scared of losing now; WSW have the best keeper in the land right now though so again, another close one. Victory v Nix; Victory should win but will they? Strange start for them, they look better on paper than they’ve played. Nix don’t look fit and are a bit lazy and that’ll likely cost them. Reds v Roar; Roar have the best defence in the league, if it holds firm Reds can’t win. Whether Roar win is down to which boots ROD packs - the ones that send chances flying over the bar or the ones that score?