Premier League Odds and Predictions: Chelsea’s Sharp Action vs City on Matchday 13

My touts on the Premiership tend to be posted pretty late in the week, and I’ll cop to a bit of personal responsibility for tardy publish times. (The constant crush of American football deadlines this time of year doesn’t help a whole lot.) However, it’s also handy – and makes articles more interesting – to wait until Thursday or Friday to see what the totality of London and Las Vegas line-movement on the EPL looks like.

After all, there’s probably more in-season gambling pressure on the English Premier League than any other team-sports genre. Billions of people – not millions of people – watch the 20 clubs of the Premier League, and there’s plenty of loyal gamblers in that group. It leads to some wildly (and sometimes unexpectedly) shifting odds at the sportsbook.

The number “13” and “good luck” don’t go together often, but in this case a mid-November weekend free of EPL matches has left WagerBop in a spot to potentially have our moneyline-movement and eat the O/U too. There’s already been nearly 10 days of gambling on the league’s 13^th round of fixtures, which begins with a stand-alone Hammers vs Lilywhites pairing on Saturday morning in the USA.

What began as excitement over the timing of matches turned into disappointment of a sort when perusing the latest prices and totals. There just hasn’t been much movement, despite what’s surely a rush of action on events that the betting public has had many days to contemplate. Brighton vs Leicester markets are literally unchanged since opening. Liverpool’s ML to defeat Crystal Palace has shifted a paltry 18 cents on the dollar (or .18 of a pound) since last Monday.

Aston Villa opened at (+110) to prevail over visiting Magpies in Monday’s lone match. What is Villa’s line after 200+ hours of cross-continental wagering? You guessed it…it’s (+110).

There are exceptions of course. Nobody likes the Draw market for West Ham vs Tottenham, punters appear to expect Everton to triumph over Norwich City despite Toffees having had a nightmare start to the season, and as alluded-to in our headline, Chelsea’s moneyline is quite popular as Blues square-off with a Manchester City squad that just isn’t as cracking in 2019-20 as it was the entirety of last season.

Is this weekend’s schedule a rare case of bookmakers getting almost everything right on 1^st try? Or are gamblers too timid to take advantage of mispriced odds?

Let’s take a closer look and try to keep WagerBop’s recent Beautiful Game success going with a round of accurate picks.

West Ham vs Tottenham

Saturday’s “Ham Derby” is expected to be a free-for-all. Draw opened at 2.6-to-1 and has soared to a (+315) price while Bovada Sportsbook’s (-120) on an Over (3) market indicates that handicappers would be surprised to see a low-scoring contest.

That’s sort of interesting, considering that Spurs have drawn 3 of the club’s last 4 domestic league matches including a somewhat-staid 1-1 result with Sheffield United on 11/9 in which the teams combined for only 9 on-target shots and took 4 corner kicks each.

The current line-movement wouldn’t be logical, except for a “tiny” little detail.

José Mourinho – arguably the most-controversial European football manager of the decade – is returning to the Premier League to coach Tottenham. Mourinho is in final negotiations with the club and is expected to take the helm prior to the kickoff this weekend.

(UPDATE: Mourinho-to-Tottenham is now official.)

Hammers are actually a (-115) favorite after opening at 1.05-to-1, indicating that fans have no idea (neither do I, frankly) whether the hotly-debated skipper can make any positive difference in Tottenham’s overall form and tactics with only 3 training days leading to the match at London Stadium. Lilywhites must also prepare for a Champions League fixture in 7 days’ time. But footballers are known to play hard in “audition” for a new manager and Mauricio Pochettino’s recent struggle to motivate the lineup means that the move could amount to addition-by-subtraction in the short term.

Mourinho immediately boosted Chelsea and Manchester United upon debuting in each of his 3 combined stints with the English clubs, though there was ample preparation time in each case. This will be an on-the-fly transition for an unsteady team missing its top goalkeeper, the injured Hugo Lloris.

The saving grace for Spurs may be the poor form of West Ham, a club which hasn’t won a fixture since September and which posted embarrassing clean-sheet losses to Oxford and Burnley in its last 8 outings. In a November 2^nd match at London Stadium, Hammers fell behind Magpies 0-3 and gave up 9 on-target shots.

Pick: Tottenham

Arsenal vs Southampton

Saints on-the-moneyline is another popular wager right now, with Southampton shrinking from a 6-to-1 gamble to 4.75-to-1 to win Saturday’s match in a rather pronounced line-movement during a cycle that’s not exactly full of them.

I’m not feeling that market at all, not because of anything special Arsenal is doing – Unai Emery is on the hot seat himself and may ironically be replaced by Pochettino – but because there’s nothing about Southampton’s form at present to indicate that the club can knock-off a marquee top-level club on the road. In fact, Saints may be playing in the English Championship as of this time next year.

Pick: Arsenal ATS (-1)

Everton FC vs Norwich City

Canaries may wind up in a coal mine (or in Championship) following the 2019-20 campaign. But I’ve gotten into big-time trouble trusting Toffees this year and I’m not about to follow public opinion into a market (-250) that it’s hard to make money with anyway.

Pick: Over (3)

Bournemouth vs Wolverhampton

Wolves has a nice unbeaten streak going in Premier League play. Raúl Jiménez and Wanderers managed to upset Man City 2-0 while visiting in October, and a string of victories and draws in all competitions since then has been broken only by a 1-goal loss to Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup. The club took its revenge on Villains with a rousing 2-1 triumph at Molineux Stadium on November 10^th.

Bournemouth has shown subtle signs of reversion-to-form after a nice early run into the top half of the domestic table. Cherries won its most-recent match at Dean Court in a corker, though, as the underdogs defeated Manchester United 1-0 in a physical and contentious battle that featured 7 yellow cards.

Pick: Draw (+230) or Under (2.5)

Brighton vs Leicester City

Why isn’t Leicester’s (+105) line-to-win shrinking given that Foxes have beaten almost every opponent placed in front of the club for months?

Perhaps an injury to midfielder Matty James has punters on edge. Seagulls are saddled with hurtful injuries too, though…and Saturday’s visiting star keeper Kasper Schmeichel hasn’t allowed a tally since Chris Wood’s goal in the 1^st half of a match vs Burnley on October 19^th.

Combine a brick-wall box with the counterattacks of Vardy and (+105) seems like a steal of a price indeed.

Pick: Leicester City

Crystal Palace vs Liverpool

It’s almost obligatory to post a long preview of any match-up involving Mohamed Salah and Liverpool, a near-prohibitive favorite to win the English Premier League and flourish in spring competitions in 2019-20.

It’s not as if recapping the team’s fixtures isn’t exciting business. As pointed-out by syndicated announcers on Fox Sports’ EPL Match of the Week broadcast on Matchday 12, Manchester City wasn’t playing bad football in the least when facing the front-runners at Anfield on the Sunday before last. Liverpool was simply exceptional, raining-down on Sky Blues with fabulous crosses and nuclear-powered attacks that left keeper Claudio Bravo and Man City stunned and trailing by 3 goals in the 51^st minute.

There’s nothing remarkable about playing an old-fashioned 4-3-3 against Pep’s 4-2-3-1 formation…unless Liverpool’s lineup is executing it.

(UPDATE: The blogger apologizes for the typo “4-4-3” – despite how the 1st half may have looked Liverpool was not granted use of an extra midfielder.)

But set all that aside for a moment. Bovada Sportsbook has seen its way clear to offer a (-1) (-145) goal-spread market on Reds (as opposed to the (-1.25) Asian Handicap coming from many other bookmakers) and that’s all we need to know, considering that Saturday’s host Crystal Palace hasn’t won a domestic league event in 4 tries and has only beaten Norwich City at Selhurst Park since August.

Liverpool’s attackers may be too winded from international play to help an Over pick prevail, so we’ll stick with the plain-vanilla prediction here.

Pick: Liverpool ATS (-1)

Watford FC vs Burnley FC

Each of these clubs is coming off a much-needed victory – including the maiden win of the season for Hornets. Watford defender Christian Kabasele took a 2^nd-half red card on Matchday 12 and will have to sit-out Saturday’s visit from Burnley – but that’s not a crushing blow to the unit when there’s often 5-across-the-back.

Clarets, meanwhile, has been the far-superior outfit of the pair in autumn and offers the far-more profitable price of (+235).

Pick: Burnley or Under (2.5)

Manchester City vs Chelsea FC

Once again there is cause to bypass the usual tactics-and-injuries review of a match involving elite squads.

Yes, yes – up-and-coming Yankee star Christian Pulisic has suffered a hip injury and may not be able to contribute to Chelsea Football Club’s bid for a statement-road victory on Saturday. Man City is not used to losing and may experience positive “reversion to form” vs Blues, a big reason why the hosts opened at 1-to-3 betting odds.

You know what? Talk to Maradona’s hand of God about it…because this blogger isn’t listening. It’s only hindsight that’s 20-20 – foresight is often myopic.

Pro handicappers cannot bring themselves to believe City will keep slipping this season, but the wagering public knows a good deal when it sees one, and the Chelsea market is a terrific gamble at a still-shrinking (+400). It’s Frank Lampard’s club that just keeps winning and winning in late 2019. The defending champs must demonstrate superiority before I’ll take it for granted.

Pick: Chelsea

Sheffield United vs Manchester United (Sunday)

Manchester United is often on a roller-coaster ride, but this is ridiculous. After slumps, injuries (including a wound to Paul Pogba that at least got tabloid writers to stop transferring the Frenchman to 50 other clubs for a day or 3), and finally 2 victories in the 3 most-recent Premiership fixtures, Red Devils are poised at a breathless…4-4-4.

In other words the squad has gone up, down, sideways, and back again only to stand at exactly level-par. The good news is that Liverpool, Chelsea, and Leicester are playing such dominant football that a 4-4-4 record is good-enough for 7^th place on the table, leaving MUFC firmly in the running for a 2020-21 UEFA Champions League bid if nothing else.

My overarching “season handicap” of United in 2019-20 is that manager Ole is a 2^nd-tier tactician who temporarily benefited from the huge sigh-of-relief and positive press following Mourinho’s contentious departure, much as Bruce Arena benefited when taking-over the USMNT late in the current decade before the team plummeted under his watch. (That’s not a direct comparison by any means, since Solskjær could out-coach Arena 8 days a week.)

That doesn’t mean it’s wrong to admire Red Devils’ improving form through a batch of recent matches, however, with Carabao Cup and Europa League triumphs and a 3-1 counter-attacking exhibition vs Brighton on Matchday 12.

As for Sunday’s pairing vs Blades at Bramall Lane, I was prepared to tout MUFC (-1) against the spread as the high-% pick. United is a shaky moneyline bet, but with payoff odds close to even, not a bad wager ATS in most circumstances – we know when Red Devils are feeling it, they’ll be quality for most of 90+ minutes. However the spread has changed to a redundant half-goal at almost all sportsbooks.

I’m going with the Over instead thanks to line-movement that has produced a (2.25) Asian Handicap on the O/U and a (+125) payoff on Over (2.5) goals at Bovada.

Pick: Over

Aston Villa vs Newcastle United (Monday)

We’ll watch this fixture for further line-movement (or any significant line-movement at all) and add to the blog if changing numbers produce additional worthy bets.

For now, it’s hard to see why Newcastle’s (+265) odds-to-win aren’t shrinking, considering that Magpies are on a hot streak while Villains flounder…and when Newcastle United hasn’t lost to Aston Villa at any venue in forever.

Gamblers at old-fashioned U.K. exchanges should “lay” Villa this time…and we newfangled Yankee speculators could do worse than plunking down a unit on 2 of 3 markets.

Pick: Newcastle (+265) or Draw (+255)