Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC renew hostilities in their now traditional Australia Day clash to wrap up round 15 of the A-League.
This is the first time these sides have met in Melbourne since the grand final and after both recording impressive victories on the weekend, they will want to keep that winning feeling.
The Victory made a huge statement defeating league leaders Brisbane Roar 4-0 in a dominant display at AAMI Park. Goals to Fahid Ben Khalfallah, Besart Berisha and a brace to Kosta Barbarouses saw Melbourne put in the 90 minute performance they had been lacking for almost two months.
The reigning champions will be aiming to prove that the win was not a one off with an equally impressive and whole performance against their traditional rivals.
The Sky Blues left it late in their derby win over the Western Sydney Wanderers. Shane Smeltz’s 90th minute winner extended Sydney’s unbeaten run in the derby fixture and saw them secure their seventh win of the season.
Last year’s grand finalists currently boast the tightest defence in the competition and will be hoping to maintain their brilliant defensive record, especially against one of the most prolific goal scoring teams in the league in the Victory.
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Key Battle – Jacques Faty v Besart Berisha
The last time these sides met the French defender had a torrid time trying to contain Berisha which resulted in the Albanian scoring a brace.
Berisha has always been the driving force of Victory’s attack, having scored five goals in his last five games, and shutting him down will be a key objective for Sydney’s centre back pairing.
Team News
Both squads will be buoyed by the return of their Olyroos. Scott Galloway, Thomas Deng, Connor Pain, Giancarlo Gallifuoco and Jason Geria will be available for selection, as will Daniel Georgievski who served a one match suspension last week after accruing five yellow cards.
The Sky Blues see Alex Gersbach, Brandon O’Neill and Andrew Hoole return while Alex Brosque is on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.
Head to head
These sides have met 36 times. Melbourne have won 12 of those encounters to Sydney’s eight with 16 draws. At Etihad Stadium the ledger is a little closer with Victory having won five matches to Sydney’s four with five draws.
Previous Meeting
These sides last met earlier in the season in Sydney with the Victory coming out 4-2 winners on the day.
Prediction
This match always provides the goods and Tuesday’s match should be no exception. Victory fans will expect nothing less than a total performance and can be comforted by the fact that this match is being played at Etihad; the boys in navy haven’t lost a match there in two years. However, that loss just so happened to be against Sydney FC in the Australia Day fixture in 2014 where the Sky Blues demolished them 5-0.
Sydney have the chance to go top of the table with a win which undoubtedly will provide Graham Arnold’s men with even more motivation.
There is almost a pressure on the Victory to perform as well as they did against Brisbane, while it can be said that Sydney have been coasting along and are set in their style of play which, despite being criticised, has gotten them the three points multiple times.
The draw is the most common result in this fixture and it seems likely that these teams will share the spoils come Australia Day.
Melbourne Victory 2 Sydney FC 2
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