Owatalk

• Home
• Contact
• About

Draws dominate A-League season start

Twelve matches have so far been played this season in the A-League and of those twelve matches, only four have been wins and the rest have been draws and with one team, the Central Coast Mariners, having 75% of the wins.

If we look at the previous two seasons it was the complete opposite picture. In the 2005/6 season, after three rounds there were four draws and eight wins with 25 goals scored and by then all teams had at least scored a goal.

The start of the 2006/7 season had even fewer draws by round 3 with just three draws and nine wins plus a staggering 30 goals. So far this season a total of 22 goals have been scored which is not as bad as it sounds if you consider that these have been scored in just nine matches compared to eleven and ten in the 2005/6 and 2006/7 seasons respectively.

The Mariners have won all their matches so far with three clean sheets and they are one of only two teams still to pick the ball from the back of their own net. The other team is Perth Glory but in different circumstances as I will show below.

It is interesting to see that that three of the four wins so far have been 1-nil wins and all these have been away wins and the only home win resulted in a 3-nil win. This was in the match between the Mariners against the Wellington Phoenix.

Therefore, this season's start is not the kind of start that I had expected but having said that its also not surprising given the fact that the A-League is a fairly balanced league and the salary cap helps even things out. What may make a difference is whom you recruit as marquee player and Sydney seem to have done well on that front.

Now if you look at Perth Glory then it doesn't look very good for their fans with the team so far failing to register a single goal. They have got three points to their name which is the third highest points tally on the league and thats not bad from a points perspective. I wonder how much celebration will greet their first goal when it comes and in round 4 they host Queensland Roar.

The Wellington Phoenix started brightly against reigning champions Melbourne Victory but have since gone on to lose their next two matches and therefore now anchor the ladder with just one point but they should fancy their chances away to Sydney FC in round 4 after a spirited display in their loss to Newcastle Jets.

It is therefore not surprising with these draws dominance that on TipsChallenge very few points have been scored out of a possible maximum of 48 points. I hope to see more wins in the coming round 4 especially as I will be at Telstra Dome to see if Melbourne Victory can hand the Mariners its first defeat of the season. I think its high time for a Victory win in the league at Telstra Dome with the last league win happening some ten months ago.

Post a comment:

Name

(required)

E-Mail

(required, but not published)

Website

(optional)

Comment
Enter Code


Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail