Fresh off a 5-0 thrashing of Western United, Western Sydney Wanderers travel to HBF Park to take on Perth Glory on Sunday.
With two wins from two games respectively, both sides have been in resurgent form in recent weeks and will aim to maintain their decent run of results.
Match preview
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Perth Glory ended their six-game winless run when they grabbed a hard-earned 2-1 win at home against fellow strugglers Melbourne Victory.
Bruno Fornaroli and Christopher Ikonomidis were on target to give Richard Garcia's men a two-goal lead before Rudy Gestede pulled one back for the visitors in the 79th minute.
The Glory were able to build on that performance, claiming successive wins for the first time since February when they beat Western United 3-0 last time out.
Fornaroli and Ikonomidis continued their fine form by scoring to give the Glory a two-goal lead going into the break before Joel Chianese completed the rout in the 77th minute.
While Perth Glory remain in 10th place in the A-League table, they are now 10 points clear of 11th-placed Melbourne Victory and six points behind Brisbane Roar in the final playoff spot.
They will feel confident in their chances of moving up the table in the coming weeks as they have a game in hand over most of their rivals.
Meanwhile, Western Sydney Wanderers kept their chances of making the playoffs alive when they claimed an emphatic 5-0 win over Western United last Saturday.
Prior to that, the Wanderers beat fourth-placed Sydney FC 3-2 at the Bankwest Stadium to bring an end to their six-game winless run.
Carl Robinson's side have now climbed up to seventh place in the log, level on points with Brisbane Roar, who have one game in hand.
Western Sydney Wanderers will now aim to move into the playoff places this Sunday by grabbing a league double over the hosts, after they cruised to a comfortable 3-0 win back in March's reverse fixture.
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Team News
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Besides defender Sebastian Langkamp, who is sidelined with a groin injury, Perth Glory have a clean bill of health heading into Sunday's game.
With 10 goals to his name so far, Bruno Fornaroli has been a standout performer for the hosts and we expect the 33-year-old to once again lead their attack.
Goalkeeper Vedran Janjetovic remains a doubt for the hosts, having missed last week's game against Western United through to a shoulder injury.
In the absence of any other late fitness issues, Robinson has the luxury of a fully fit squad with no suspension concerns at his disposal.
Perth Glory possible starting lineup:
Reddy; Lachman, Aspropotamitis, Ota; Armiento, Bodnar, Timmins, Ikonomidis; Bramwell, Castro, Fornaroli
Western Sydney Wanderers possible starting lineup:
Margush; Gordon, McGowan, Mourdoukoutas; Russell, Baccus, Dorrans, Aquilina; Ibini-Isei, Yeboah, Cox
We say: Perth Glory 1-1 Western Sydney Wanderers
With both sides heading into this game in similar form, we can expect a cagey affair in this tie. The two squads are also evenly matched on paper and so we fancy a share of the spoils with each team scoring one goal apiece.
Top tip
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 Perth Glory win with a probability of 41.62%. A win for Western Sydney Wanderers had a probability of 34.55% and a draw had a probability of 23.8%.
The most likely scoreline for a Perth Glory win was 2-1 with a probability of 8.81%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (7.42%) and 2-0 (6.03%). The likeliest Western Sydney Wanderers win was 1-2 (7.93%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.84%). The actual scoreline of 5-1 was predicted with a 0.6% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Perth Glory would win this match.
