Melbourne Victory captain Carl Valery has admitted that Sydney FC are the favourites when the two sides face off in a Big Blue clash at the Docklands Stadium on Australia Day.
The two sides come into this fixture with Graham Arnold’s men sitting pretty at the top of the table, eight points clear of the second placed Melbourne outfit.
Meanwhile, the New South Wales club are currently on a record unbeaten run this season, after going 16 games without a loss and amassing 40 points in the process. During this time, they have also scored the most number of goals so far; 36, and currently on par with Victory.
To make matters even more difficult for the hosts, the Sydney boys have had the most miserly defence in league this season, conceding only seven goals.
“So at this stage they are favourites, of course they are,” Valeri is quoted as saying in The Herald Sun.
“They’re on top of us, they’re undefeated and they’ve proved week in week out that they can score and they can defend well.
“They’ve said it themselves that they want to go undefeated this season and the way that they’re performing, they’ve proved on the pitch that they might be able to do that.
“So you’d have to say there would be expectation on them on Thursday.”
However, despite touting the travellers as the favourites to emerge triumphant, the 32-year-old midfielder believes that his side can topple the visitors and halt their record unbeaten run.
“…they’ve performed very consistently all season so we cannot take anything away from them, ” he added. “But I do believe we can beat them. ”
Victory will lock horns with Sydney in a six-pointer on Thursday at the Docklands Stadium, and a win would see them five points behind the visitors.
