Melbourne City vs Brisbane Roar Prediction: The wait goes on for winless Roar

Another game, another defeat last Tuesday for Brisbane Roar who lost 1-0 at home to Newcastle Jets, and the question remains: just how is head coach Ruben Zadkovich, yet to oversee a victory in the Australia A-League Men's this season, still in a job? Nine losses and two draws in 11 games is a shocking record, and things aren't unlikely to get any better after Saturday's trip to AAMI Park (06:00, TNT Sports 1) where they take on a Melbourne City side unbeaten in their last six.

Below is my Melbourne City vs Brisbane Roar prediction, complete with all the latest team news and match odds.

Team News

Melbourne City's injury list hasn't shortened since last Tuesday's 2-0 win over Western United. Andrew Nabbout, Mathew Leckie, Jimmy Jeggo, Yonatan Cohen, Marco Tilio and Max Caputo, among others, remain in the treatment room.

Football Odds

Brisbane Roar have defender Hosine Bility back from suspension after the 23-year-old missed Wednesday's defeat at Suncorp Stadium, but Ben Warland is still injured and Neicer Acosta has dropped out of the squad.

Melbourne City vs Brisbane Roar Odds

Unsurprisingly, Melbourne City are huge favourites to beat winless Brisbane Roar, with odds of 4/9 giving Aurelio Vidmar's side an implied win probability of 69.2%. The visitors, meanwhile, are priced at 5/1, or a 16.7% chance, to triumph in an ALM match for the first time since April 5 when they beat Western Sydney Wanderers 2-1 at CommBank Stadium.

The draw is available at 3/1, both teams to score at 4/6, and over 2.5 total goals at 8/15.

City's 17-year-old forward Medin Memeti (7/5) is the favourite in the anytime goalscorer market followed by 19-year-old teammates Arion Sulemani (13/8) and Benjamin Mazzeo (7/4) with another 19-year-old, Thomas Waddingham (23/10), first up for the Roar.

Match Result & Total Goals Over/Under 3.5 - Melbourne City & Under 3.5 Goals @ 7/5

Despite their injury issues, Melbourne City just keep rolling on and picking up points, beating Wellington Phoenix and Western United (both 2-0) back-to-back in the space of five days at the start of this year. Those clean sheets were their fourth and fifth of the season and while their attack is extremely youthful, Vidmar does have the likes of 34-year-old Aziz Behich and 35-year-old Samuel Souprayen to call upon in defence which has been a great help in this testing time.

On Saturday, City will face one of the bluntest attacks in the league with only Perth Glory (seven) and Central Coast Mariners (11) scoring fewer goals than the Roar (12) so far, and Zadkovich's side have scored just once across their last four games, blanking in 1-0 defeats to the Glory, Western United and Newcastle Jets during that run as well as in 2-0 losses to Auckland and Melbourne Victory earlier in the campaign.

City and Brisbane faced each other three times last season and all three games produced plenty of goals with the former thrashing their opponents 8-1 and 4-1 either side of a shock 5-1 defeat to the Roar; however, given the injury's in City's attack and the difficulties Brisbane are having scoring, I can't see those sorts of scorelines being replicated.

City's last four matches have seen exactly two goals scored while three of the Roar's last four have ended 1-0 to their opponents. I'm going slightly safer and backing a City win and under 3.5 total goals which still comes out at a nice 7/5.

Anytime Goalscorer - Harry Politidis (MCI) @ 2/1

Before the start of this season, 22-year-old Melbourne City left-back Harry Politidis had never scored a goal in professional football. He played 16 times in his debut campaign in 2023/24 without finding the net.

However, Politidis scored City's second in their 5-4 Australia Cup defeat to Perth Glory on August 3 and a switch to a more attacking position has really paid dividends in the last couple of games as he struck his first ALM goal against Wellington on January 3 before doubling his tally in the competition against Western United four days later.

With all the injuries to attackers, Politidis has the left flank locked down for a little while now, and at 2/1, he's slightly underpriced to score anytime on Saturday, compared to others in the market at least.

Against a poor Roar outfit, he's worth taking on to score in a third successive game.

Offers

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