Melbourne Victory - Wellington Phoenix 14-02-2025

While both of these finished last year's season strongly, finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively, only Melbourne Victory have managed to replicate that success. To a certain extent. But even though the New Zealanders have been very weak at times this year, we see no value in betting on the home team at the low odds on offer. But the clear signs we find in the corner statistics mean that that's where we're turning our attention this time.

Melbourne Victory

0-2-3 in the first five games as manager was not the start Arthur Diles had in mind when he took over from Patrick Kisnorbo. And the criticism was about to increase in strength when the first win finally came, at the sixth attempt, in the home game against Sydney. Victory in "The Big Blue" trumps most, and Diles thus got peace of mind. And his team also followed up by winning 0-2 away against Perth. The dark blue train was back on the title track.

But then they just had to go to the east coast to take home three points from the game against Newcastle Jets. A game you can't lose if the plan is to win the league. With three goals in overtime, the Jets surprisingly won 3-0, and once again Diles' feet are burning.

The introduction of Mitch Langerak between the posts stabilized the home team at the back. And they should be strong enough up front to punish all teams in the series. They have players with complementary skills, because in Piscopo, Arzani, Velupillay, Machach and Fornaroli/Vergos they have both precision, technique, overview, physics, speed and intensity. And in the middle Teague is sailing up as one of the best players of the year.

Wellington Phoenix

So what about Wellington Phoenix? Can we make sense of the yellows from NZ? No, not really. They are actually undefeated in their last four, and are 1-3-1 in their last five, but they are not impressing anyone. At least not up front. But despite a cumbersome playing style and a fairly risky playmaking pattern, they have been solid at the back. This year too.

In goal, they have replaced Paulsen with another solid keeper. A typical shot-stopper. And they have a sacrificial defense that, despite not really being technically gifted enough to play the football they play, still throws itself in with its teeth only when things go wrong.

With a back five, and a deep second in the middle, it's Barbarouses and Ishige who will do it themselves, by a long shot. And against a team that rarely finds itself outnumbered at the back, Wellington will have a tough time. But fortunately, Alex Rufer is finally back. The captain was the team's best player last year, and the defensive work he does in the middle is absolutely crucial to the way Wellington plays football.

Bet suggestions

At 1.48 we do not consider a bet on the home team. Although we also think they will win. Anything can happen in this league, and we saw how Wellington won away against Macarthur without being anywhere near the best. So if there is any value in marking bets here, then you should add an Asian handicap to 1.80. Possibly a European handicap to 2.30. But we still know this league too well to jump on such a bet. However, we found two other bets that can be considered well;

Under 3 goals – asian

Because with an average of 2.3 goals per game, there are few teams that average lower than Wellington Phoenix. As mentioned above, they don't often get outnumbered with their elaborate style of play, and when teams dare to stand tall on Wellington, they often struggle to play their way out. And with an Asian game, we will get our money back if there are three goals. We know that Wellington has gone over 3.5 goals in 1 out of 15 games this year, so it feels safe.

But the danger here is that Melbourne gets a full-on win. Then they can quickly score a couple. And we should also note that Wellington averages 3 goals in their away games. So far higher than the overall average. And it is rare that we recommend under bets in this league. Then we should be reasonably safe, as we were when we recommended the same bet in the match between Wellington Phoenix and Brisbane Roar.

-2.5 corners to Melbourne Victory

But it's interesting to look at the corner numbers. And that's perhaps where the value lies. Because with 5.69 corners per game, there are few teams that produce more than Melbourne Victory. And with 3.27 corners per game, there are actually no teams that produce fewer than Wellington Phoenix. We need to take advantage of that.

And if we get the match picture we think we have, where Victory presses and dominates the field play, Wellington struggles to play out, Wellington's goalkeeper continues to stand strong and the defense continues to give it their all, then Melbourne Victory can quickly produce many corners.

It is also interesting to see that the statistics match the impression we have. Because Wellington also gives away an extremely high number of corners. In fact, a full 5.93 per game. And as if that were not enough, we know that only Sydney finishes more often than Melbourne Victory. Today's home team shoots a full 16.25 corners per game. While Wellington is definitely at the bottom of that statistic too with their 8.53 shots per game.

But it doesn't stop there. Because only Perth Glory allows more shots against them, and with 17.07 shots against, there is much to suggest that Wellington could be hard pressed here too. Because do you know who allows the fewest shots against them in the entire A-League? Yep, you guessed it right; Melbourne Victory. Only 10.44 per game.

Conclusion

Although these are goals we often land on in our analyses from the A-League, and we know that corner bets can often be a bit of a bingo, we feel the numbers are so clear this time. And not least that this is where the value lies. And even if we end up on a handicap bet, you can run over 6.5 corners to Victory at more or less the same odds. But we think that if Victory gets 7 corners, they will also, most likely, have three more than their opponent. And therefore our main bet will be;

Australia at 09:35: Melbourne Victory – Wellington Phoenix: Melbourne Victory most corners -2.5 (1.67)