Soccer match preview: Home crowd has high hopes when Melbourne City welcomes Newcastle Jets

Melbourne City have less rest than Newcastle Jets in this fixture, as the hosts were involved in a A-League game only four days ago. That game was an away game at Brisbane Roar, so at least Melbourne are thankful to return home in this one. Game on!

Newcastle Jets have a very long trip to this away game, as there's more than 1000 kilometers in distance to cover. This could prove a challenge, at least for the supporters.

Melbourne City form and stats

Home games in the A-League have been a walk in the park for Melbourne City so far, with 31 points won from 12 matches; 10 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. In general it's been a long time since Melbourne tasted defeat here at AAMI Park, as they have taken at least one point from their last ten home games in the league.

In their previous game, the manager P. Kisnorbo led his Melbourne City to a defeat in the A-League match away at Brisbane Roar. The manager is hoping to put things right immediately here at AAMI Park. Taras Gomulka (midfield was the top team player in that game with a rating of 7.24/10. Gomulka hit one key pass, dribled passed the opponent 2 of 2 times and had 64 successful passes (of 70 total).

Before that, Melbourne City had a home game versus Central Coast Mariners which ended with a victory 1-0.

Melbourne are believed to win this game, given a winning chance of about 70% by the bookmakers. We have checked our records for their performance in similar circumstances and found four matches and the win/draw/lost stats: Won four, drew zero and lost zero.

Melbourne are an "over 2,5 goals" team alone here at AAMI Park in their league games, having scored an impressive 35 goals in 12 matches. Melbourne's goalkeeper has had to pick the ball out of their own net 13 times. For more goal stats, check the Statistics tab above.

Newcastle Jets form and stats

Newcastle Jets, who have the fewest scored goals (19) in A-League, have only collected 9 points from their away games in the A-League, after 2-3-6 (11 played). Newcastle are desperate to end a 14-game winless run, as they haven't won a game since the Melbourne Victory fixture.

The manager C. Deans was unhappy after their last game, a A-League match played at their home ground McDonald Jones Stadium. Newcastle Jets suffered a 1-2 loss to Brisbane Roar (placed 4th). Midfielder Matthew Millar was the best performer of that match, with a rating of 7.0. Millar .

A loss against Central Coast Mariners was the result prior to that, in a home game.

We have done a similar check as we did with the hometeam, looking up recent matches where Newcastle played away with similar odds. This revealed one game. The visitors overcame the odds to win zero times, zero were draws and the home team won as expected one time.

The visitors will be packing their bags again in only three days as another away game awaits: The A-League trip to Central Coast Mariners.

The visitors have scored 10 goals from 11 away games in the league, an average of less than one per game. Newcastle have conceded 16 goals in these away matches.

Head 2 Head

Melbourne and Newcastle Jets have met before this season: Melbourne City - Newcastle Jets 3-1. Head-to-head totals (for the last ten meetings): Melbourne won six games, zero matches ended with a draw and Newcastle Jets has four wins. Over 2,5 goals / under 2,5 goals: seven / three

Top Goalscorers

J. MacLaren 25 goals

C. Noone 6 goals

R. O'Donovan 6 goals

Melbourne City missing players

Newcastle Jets missing players