A-League Round 9

I may be only previewing the one match this weekend with a view to investing at value;

Brisbane Roar $1.60
Draw $3.75
Newcastle Jets $5.25


Once again here we see Brisbane Roar at a very short quote at their home of Suncorp Stadium. It isn't warranted though because they haven't managed to establish anywhere near the consistency of the past 2 seasons, and find themselves languishing near the bottom of the table, certainly not a familiar place for them to be. They have only scored 6 times in their past 5 matches (4 in one game) and have conceded far too many (10) in the process.  And they have  lost 2 of their last 3 home matches.
Defensively they could have major problems with Captain Matt Smith and fellow defender Ivan Franjic away on Socceroos duty. That is a massive hole to fill and one of the replacements could be Matt Jurman who hasn't been in great form of late.

Added to that this has to be the most bizarre matchup in the A-League with this fixture only providing 1 win for the home side (Brisbane) in 11 games. Even worse, only 2 others have been drawn with a total of 8 losses. Interestingly 6 of those have been 1-0 losses! Coincidentally when looking at the reverse fixture in Newcastle it is an almost identical situtation with the home side (Newcastle) winning only 1 of 12 with 4 draws and 7 losses.

Newcastle are probably the only A-League team this week to field a full squad unaffected by call ups to National duty. They have had no trouble scoring so far this year but also have struggled to plug the gaps at the other end of the park . You'd have to say that they are far better placed coming into this fixture than on most other occasions in the past few seasons, and with a better and more experienced squad. So they should come North feeling very confident of taking the 3 points especially after their fighting performance of last week, coming from behind to snatch a 3-3 draw against Melbourne Heart, also on the road.

At $5.25+ they are tremendous value of causing an upset here. A draw is a big possibility but once again the $4.10 required (only approximately 25% of Soccer games world wide are drawn) isn't offered as yet and is highly doubful to be.

Newcastle Jets 1-0 is being offered @ $13 so that too might be worth a speculator.