Sydney FC will aim to make it three wins from three when they host Brisbane Roar at the Leichhardt Oval Stadium on Saturday.
The Roar are winless in their last two outings, with one defeat and one draw against Macarthur and Newcastle Jets respectively, and they will be looking to bounce back to winning ways.
Match preview
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Sydney return to action this Saturday after their clashes with Melbourne City and Western United were postponed due to a government-imposed lockdown in Victoria.
Steve Corica's men had a shaky start to their title defence, picking up one win, one draw and one defeat in their first three outings.
They quickly bounced back from their defeat to Central Coast Mariners and grabbed a comfortable 3-0 victory over Macarthur at Campbelltown Stadium.
Sydney followed this up with a hard-earned win over Wellington Phoenix last time out, where Kosta Barbarouses's brace inspired the Sky Blues to a 2-1 victory.
Sitting third in the A-League table, Brisbane Roar have picked up from where they left off last season and are pushing for another playoff-place finish.
Warren Moon's men have grabbed four wins and one draw from seven games, and have scored the third-most league goals with 13.
They went on an impressive four-game winning run, including a 2-1 win away to Newcastle Jets and an emphatic 5-2 victory over Melbourne Victory, before falling to a 2-0 defeat against Macarthur.
The Roar played out an uneventful goalless draw with Newcastle Jets in their last outing, failing to bounce back from their loss to Macarthur.
Sydney have a slight upper hand in this fixture, winning six of their last 10 meetings across all competitions, while their visitors have picked up three wins.
The spoils were shared in their most recent meeting, where Dylan Wenzel-Halls opened the scoring for Brisbane early in the first half, before Luke Ivanovic restored parity in the 40th minute to hand Sydney a 1-1 draw.
While Sydney are unbeaten in four of their last five league matches against Brisbane Roar, the visitors come unbeaten in five of their last six league matches.
Sydney FC Australian A-League form: WDLWW
Brisbane Roar Australian A-League form: WWWWLD
Team News
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Sydney midfielder Chris Zuvela has been ruled out with a long-term injury after rupturing his ACL in the win over Wellington Phoenix.
Veteran striker Bobo is expected to make his highly-anticipated return, after fully recovering from an injury, while defender Michael Zullo could make his first appearance since picking up a calf injury in January.
Brisbane have a clean bill of health and Warren Moon has the luxury of a full strength squad to select from.
Japanese signing Masato Kudo could be handed his first league start as he returns to full fitness following a 14-day quarantine.
Sydney FC possible starting lineup:
Redmayne; King, Warland, Wilkinson, Grant; Brattan, Baumjohann, Ninkovic, Caceres; Barbarouses, Buhagiar
Brisbane Roar possible starting lineup:
Young; Aldred, Gillesphey, Trewin; Brindell-South, Brown, O'Shea, Akbari; McDonald, Danzaki, Wenzel-Halls
We say: Sydney FC 3-1 Brisbane Roar
The hosts are on a good run of results against Brisbane Roar, and considering both teams are scoring freely at the moment, we predict a high-scoring game with Sydney stealing all three points come 90 minutes.
Top tip
Joshua Ojele
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 41.98%. A win for Brisbane Roar had a probability of 32.94% and a draw had a probability of 25.1%.
The most likely scoreline for a Sydney FC win was 1-0 with a probability of 9.05%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.9%) and 2-0 (6.81%). The likeliest Brisbane Roar win was 0-1 (7.85%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.81%). The actual scoreline of 0-0 was predicted with a 6% likelihood.
