All Smiles.. Will the Heart beat on their debut?

Tonight we begin with the curtain-raiser to the Australian A-League season with new Victorian side Melbourne Heart debuting against the Central Coast Mariners.

If you’re interested on some info on the two teams tonight read on, but if you’re only interested in the match scroll right down for the LIVE! coverage!

Melbourne Heart

The Heart, whilst competing in their first A-League season, are coached by John van’t Schip and feature many seasoned veterans from other A-League clubs. Some of this talent includes former Sydney FC trio Simon Colosimo, Clint Bolton and John Aloisi, Socceroo Michael Beauchamp and young Dutchman Rutger Worm.

Central Coast Mariners

Meanwhile, the Mariners are coming of an inconsistent season in 2009/10 where they failed to qualify for finals. This led to Lawrie McKinna stepping down and being replaced with former Australian National coach Graham Arnold. However, they haven’t done any outstanding transfers and whilst Jess Vanstrattan comes in for Danny Vukovic there were not many other big moves.

TAB Sportsbet

Heart             $1.70
Draw             $3.40
Mariners        $3.70

The Heart’s roster obviously has bookies convinced with the Melbourne side massive favourites to win their debut game.

Prediction

Heart 2 – 1 Mariners

Melbourne Heart have us convinced as well. The acquisition of guys like Simon Colosimo and Michael Beauchamp in defence, Jossip Skoko in midfield and John Aloisi up front all points to a win. However, it’s the big occasion and we’ve seen other Melbourne sides fail at this stage before.

LIVE! English Premier League Coverage!

Manchester City will be looking to keep the pace with Tottenham, Liverpool and Aston Villa in the race for fourth, while Portsmouth desperately need the three points to give the entire club a boost and new hope of survival.

Arsenal meanwhile will be looking to leapfrog Manchester United when to two rivals meet. The weight of these three points are massive for both clubs with Chelsea beating Burnley yesterday.

Coverage will be displayed in the box below, with the Arsenal/United game following the City/Portsmouth match, so you don’t have to switch to any other page.

Hopefully you’ll be able to join us, here are the respective times of coverage for each game:

Manchester City vs Portsmouth – LIVE! from 12.15am AEDT

Arsenal vs Manchester United – LIVE! from 2.40am AEDT

As always you can email your match thoughts throughout, before or after either of these matches to gordon@injurytime.net. We’ll try to post up as many of your comments.

We look forward to having you here on Injury Time for our second installment of LIVE! matches.

Welcome to our inaugural LIVE Text Commentary of the English Premier League. Commentary will begin at 11:30pm (AEDT) with kick off at 11:45pm. You also have the chance to share your thoughts on the match, simply send your comments to gordon@injurytime.net and we’ll try to get as many of your comments up as possible. We’d love to get your perspective.

We’re kicking of this new feature with a crucial game for the Reds. The Merseysiders sit 5 points behind Manchester City for that final Champions League spot. It’s sure to be a cracking game, as Stoke are almost a different side at home. In fact, they have picked up 11 from a possible 18 points in there last six home games, losing only once. Meanwhile, Liverpool’s away form lately has been terrible. They’ve picked up 7 from a possible 18, winning only twice in their last six.

So join us tonight for the launch of this new feature, and remember to Play Every Minute!