Sydney FC entertain Wellington Phoenix in the Australian A-League on Monday morning as both teams aim to build on impressive victories last time out.
The hosts saw off Macarthur 3-0 after Mark Milligan received an early red card for the Bulls, while Ufuk Talay's men ran out 2-1 winners when they faced the Central Coast Mariners on Sunday.
Match preview
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The Sky Blues became the A-League's most successful club last season after they lifted their fifth top-flight crown.
Steve Corica's side will be looking to win their third consecutive league title in 2020-21, and their defence has got off to a decent start.
Seven points from their opening four games is a respectable return for the reigning champions, who are five points behind league leaders Brisbane Roar with a game in hand.
Putting back-to-back wins together could really kickstart Sydney's season, although Corica will be well aware that Wellington will have aspirations of their own when they arrive at the Netstrata Jubilee Stadium.
Wellington enjoyed a successful 2019-20 campaign, where the New Zealanders finished in third position.
The Sky Stadium outfit were knocked out of the playoff series by Perth Glory and will be hopeful of going one step further this time around.
Talay's side have had a tough start to the current campaign, though. The Phoenix picked up just one point from their opening three games before the surprise victory over the Central Coast Mariners at the weekend.
After lifting themselves off the foot of the table last time out, Wellington will be hoping that they can continue their surge up the standings with another three points on Monday.
Sydney FC Australian A-League form: WDLW
Sydney FC form (all competitions): WDWDLW
Wellington Phoenix Australian A-League form: LDLW
Team News
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Teenage goalkeeper Adam Pavlesic is still unavailable after suffering a heavy blow in the AFC Champions League back in December.
Corica's main decision will be who plays upfront. Eighteen-year-old striker Patrick Woods scored a brace after coming on as a substitute against Macarthur and will be pushing to feature from the off against Wellington.
Talay is unlikely to be able to call upon the services of Reno Piscopo, with the winger continuing to struggle with a calf injury.
That means former Brighton and Queens Park Rangers striker Tomer Hemed is set to lead the line once again as the 33-year-old searches for his first goal of the campaign.
Sydney FC possible starting lineup:
Redmayne; King, Warland, Wilkinson, Grant; Brattan, Baumjohann, Ninkovic, Caceres; Barbarouses, Buhagiar
Wellington Phoenix possible starting lineup:
Marinovic; McGarry, Laws, DeVere, Payne; Lewis, Devlin, Rufer, Davila; Hemed, Ball
We say: Sydney FC 2-1 Wellington Phoenix
This should be a close game between two evenly matched teams with lofty ambitions this season. However, we fancy Sydney to come away with all three points, thanks to the added attacking quality within their squad.
Top betting tip
George Cannon
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Sydney FC win with a probability of 43.06%. A win for Wellington Phoenix had a probability of 31.62% and a draw had a probability of 25.3%.
The most likely scoreline for a Sydney FC win was 1-0 with a probability of 9.6%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.99%) and 2-0 (7.2%). The likeliest Wellington Phoenix win was 0-1 (7.99%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.98%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with an 9% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Sydney FC would win this match.
