DC United vs Montreal Impact: Preview and Prediction

By

 Aron Wright

DC United vs Montreal Impact:
MLS Regular Season,
Date: Sunday, 31-July-2016,
Kick-off: 23:30 UK,
Venue: Kennedy Memorial Stadium (Washington)

DC United look for their first win in five matches when they welcome Montreal Impact to the Robert F. Kennedy stadium on Sunday.

United were handed a 4-1 thrashing at Toronto last weekend as former Juventus striker steal the show earning a hat-trick of goals. DC United haven’t won in any of their last four league games, with 2 draws and 2 losses. All of those four games were played away from home and they will be hoping to overturn the poor run of results in front of their home fans.

DC United are currently 8th in the Eastern Conference and their poor position in the standings demand nothing but a win from this fixture to keep the play-off hopes alive.

Even at home, DC United had struggled to string results and are the worst home side in the MLS this season. Also they failed to win back-to-back games at home this season with the overall record in 2016 reading 4 wins, 1 draw and 4 defeats from 9 games.

Montreal Impact are fourth in the Eastern Conference standing with 29 points from 20 games, with a four point gap from the top of the table. Both New York City and the Red Bulls who are first and second respectively played 2 games more than Montreal. So if the Le Bleu-Blanc-Noir can use their matches well they will definitely finish inside the top two, but there is still a long way to go.

Montreal are coming on the back of a 5-1 home win against Philadelphia Union. They lost 3-1 to New York City FC in the previous week, which remains to be their only defeat from their last 8 matches. The problem with Montreal is their inability to win matches as they registered 8 draws in their last 13 matches. They haven’t won in the last 5 away games, with 4 of them being draws.

DC United: Team News

United’s head-coach Ben Olson as a number of injury concerns ahead of the home fixture against Montreal Impact. Chris Korb, Andrew Dykstra, Chris Rolfe and Bill Hamid are major doubts.

DC United: Expected Starting Eleven (4-4-2)

Hamid – Kemp, Opare, Robinson, Franklin – Neagle, Sarvas, DeLeon, Nyarko – Acosta, Saborio.

Montreal Impact: Team News

Laurent Ciman joins Andres Romero and Marco Donadel on the sideline with an injury. While Didier Drogba will miss the match due to his involvement with MLS All-Stars for the friendly against Arsenal. Dominic Oduro iss the likely replacement for the former Ivorian international.

Montreal Impact: Expected Starting Eleven (4-3-3)

Bush – Tissot, Cabrera, Lefevre, Oyongo – Bernier, Donadel, Bekker – Piatti, Oduro, Venegas.

DC United vs Montreal Impact: Head-to-Head Stats

• This is the first meeting between these two sides in 2016 MLS season, but they met in a friendly on February this year which resulted in a 4-1 away win for Montreal.
• DC United have not lost a league match at home against Montreal, a record which stay at 3 wins and 2 draws in 6 games.
• DC United finished the three game series against Montreal Impact in the 2015 MLS season with 2 wins and a loss.
• The overall head-to-head in 11 league games between these sides read 5 wins for Dallas as against 3 wins for Montreal, while 3 matches end in draws.

DC United vs Montreal Impact: Prediction

It is interesting to note that United managed to score only in alternate games while playing at home this season. They won 2-0 against New England in their last home game and if you go by the series this might end in a win for Montreal. But DC United are yet to loss a match at home against Montreal, so you can back them to avoid a defeat here. This could be also consolidated by the fact that Montreal tend to draw most of their away games.

This match could witness a lower number of goals, we recommend to go with under 2.5 goals.

DC United vs Montreal Impact: Tips

1. Double Chance – DC United/Draw.
2. Under 2.5 goals.