There is just the one English Premier League match taking place on Thursday and it features two of the League’s giants in Chelsea and Manchester City. We take a look at the game from a betting angle.
A reminder that you can click here for the latest Outright Betting on the English Premier League where Manchester City are trading as odds on favourites. There are also plenty of other markets that are updated after each match day.
CHELSEA
Chelsea are currently 10th on the table and were in poor form before the World Cup break going 5 games without a victory and losing 3 matches in succession. They came out the day after Boxing Day to beat Bournemouth 2-0 and were then held to a disappointing 1-1 draw away at Nottingham in their last start.
Overall at home this season Chelsea have won 4 and drawn 2 of their 7 games and digging into their goal stats at Stamford Bridge, 4 of the 7 matches would have delivered you a profit had you backed over 2.5 goals. However, the last 3 Chelsea home games have all finished with two goals or less in them.
MANCHESTER CITY
Manchester City go into this game second on the table 8 points behind leaders, Arsenal, but with a game in hand. Their first action after the World Cup break was a 3-1 victory over Leeds and they were then held to a 1-1 draw with Everton, a result that could be backed at 15/2 before kick-off.
City have won 4, drawn 2 and lost 1 of their 7 away matches this season and they have won 3 of their last 4 away games. As far as goals go, Manchester City away matches have not been particularly high scoring, averaging just 2.7 goals each with only 3 of the 7 matches reaching the 3 goal mark. Both teams have found the net in the last 4 Manchester City league games.
HEAD-TO-HEAD
Manchester City did the double over Chelsea last season winning both fixtures 1-0.
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BETTING – Click here to bet
Chelsea 9/2
Draw 3/1
Manchester City 13/20
Suggested Bet: Under 2.5 goals at 1/1
Manchester City are certainly not at their fluent best and on the road this season they have battled to put teams away. I expect Chelsea would be happy to take a point out of this game and suspect this could be quite a cagey affair. Chelsea’s last 3 games would have seen this bet collect and it would also have arrived in the last two head-to-heads between the sides.
Looking at other betting options available to punters the 0-1 and 1-1 score line are currently trading as 6/1 favourites for those who believe they can predict the correct score and it should be no surprise that Erling Haaland is trading as the 5/2 favourite to open the scoring in the game and he is also priced at 8/11 to find the net at any time, that price looks fairly reasonable when you consider that he is has already scored 21 times this season
Click here for betting on all of the weekend’s English Premier League matches
Note: All prices correct at the time of writing but are subject to change