Victory should be able to ease past Adelaide with something to spare on Saturday.
Melbourne Victory v Adelaide United – Saturday 08:50, BT Sport 2
Adelaide stopped the rot in the last round of the A-League with a victory over the Newcastle Jets, but they remain rooted to the bottom of the table with just 14 points and now face a testing fixture at Melbourne Victory. The Victory appear to have reversed their poor form from late January, and while they are eight points behind leaders Sydney, they are under no immediate pressure in second and look like they’ll remain there until the end of the regular season.
Adelaide have had a very poor season, and are yet to win on the road as they’ve scored just five times in nine matches. Moreover, they’ve lost five of their last six matches against top-half sides regardless of venue, with all those defeats by at least two clear goals and all coming to nil. By contrast, Melbourne Victory have been excellent against bottom-half teams at home, winning all five such games this season by a two-goal margin or more. They’ve already beaten Adelaide 2-0 and 2-1 away, so they’ll be expecting to put the visitors to the sword this time.
Adelaide suffered a bad loss midweek to Gamba Osaka in the AFC Champions League, and given they face a trip to China next week and have nothing really to play for domestically we expect them to put up little resistance here. As such we’re backing Victory to cover the -1 handicapat 2.25.
