Melbourne Victory vs Brisbane Roar Prediction: Bruno could land knockout blow to visitors

A 2-0 home defeat to Newcastle Jets last Saturday has all but ended Brisbane Roar's play-off hopes this season, with the Lions five points behind the top six with just two games remaining. The first of those sees them take on Melbourne Victory at AAMI Park on Saturday, and the Australian A-League Men's match is available to watch live in the UK via TNT Sports 4 (KO, 08:30).

Saturday's hosts have already confirmed their place in the A-League finals and can no longer finish in the top two, but they will still want to hold onto their third position. Read on for our Melbourne Victory vs Brisbane Roar prediction, alongside all the latest team news and match odds.

Team News

Melbourne Victory trio Ryan Teague, Nishan Velupillay and Jordi Valadon are currently out in Qatar representing the Olyroos in the AFC U23 Asian Cup, but there are no other absentees for the hosts this weekend.

Brisbane Roar are missing Keegan Jelacic again with the midfielder still in Qatar with the young Australia squad.

Match Odds

Melbourne Victory are 12 points in front of their next opponents and that gap is reflected in their odds of 3/5 on Saturday, which gives them an implied win probability of 62.5%, while Brisbane Roar are 7/2, or a 22.2% chance.

The draw is available at 3/1, both teams to score at 8/15 and over 3.5 goals at 5/4.

Melbourne Victory to win & over 2.5 goals @ 9/5

It's very difficult to see Brisbane Roar qualifying for the finals now after last week's defeat, which means they have very little to play for in their final two games.

Melbourne Victory's own aspirations were crushed last weekend as they suffered a late defeat to Wellington Phoenix which means they can no longer finish above the New Zealanders or Central Coast Mariners, who have the top two spots all wrapped up.

However, there is still an incentive for them to keep on pushing to ensure they finish third ahead of Sydney FC and maintain momentum heading into the play-offs.

Victory have won over half (6/11) of their home games this season and have won three of their last four at AAMI Park, dropping points only to A-League Men's leaders Central Coast Mariners (0-1).

The Roar beat Western Sydney Wanderers in their last away match but had failed to win any of their last seven away from Brisbane.

I expect MVC to continue their good form at AAMI Park and win, but they have failed to keep a clean sheet in their last six games there and could be breached again by a Brisbane outfit that has only scored one fewer goal (39) than them in the league.

Bruno Fornaroli to score 2+ goals @ 5/1

The A-League Men's leading scorer this season blanked against the Nix last week but prior to that had scored in each of his last two appearances.

Fornaroli will be looking to extend his lead at the top of the charts ahead of Perth Glory's Adam Taggart and Newcastle Jets' Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, who are one and two goals behind, respectively, his tally of 18 in the competition.

The Australia international is no stranger to finding the net multiple times in the same game - the 36-year-old scored four times in a 4-3 win over WSW in December and bagged a brace against both Adelaide United and Perth Glory last month.

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