Montreal Imps v Chicago Fire

With the European domestic seasons now drawing to a close, it’s time to start refocusing on something else ready for the long summer break, and we are looking to the MLS where we’ve dabbled a little in he past and have begun to build up some decent data sets.

We’ve spoken in previous columns at length about just how important home advantage is in MLS – an off the scale 54.5% of home wins over the past season and a half at last check, which compares to just 44-46% in Europe’s top divisions.

Tonight Montreal Imps fit the bill perfectly for a team in fine form, with home advantage, against a side with a few personnel missing.

Imps have opened the season with a terrifying eight away matches from their first nine fixtures, yet they already have 14pts on the board from those nine fixtures. They are in phenomenal form when you consider that they only collected 11 points on the road all last season (they have already matched that total and we aren’t out of August yet). At their own place they were a different prospect, winning 11 of their 17 at home. They will need to cope without Ignacio Piatto in this one which is a significant absence, but they otherwise have a settled team and will likely field Orji Okwonkwo up top.

Chicago were a perfect case of road-trip woes last season, winning just twice all season. This year they have just one point from three road games.

They were also heavily reliant on Nemanja Nikolic and David Accam last season – the pair provided 38 of their 59 goals last time, and Accam has left over the summer break. They are in the process of settling in plenty of new signings, and the early signs are they haven’t clicked. They also head into this one with head-coach Veljko Paunovic suspended after being sent to the dugout last week.

We’re back the Imps to come out ahead in this one.

1pt Montreal Impact to beat Chicago Fire at 17/20 (UniBet)

#Football