EPL Betting – City Roll into Matchup with Chelsea

Manchester City (+166) at Chelsea (+168), Draw (+210)

Manchester City are coming off their biggest result of the season, beating PSG (1-0 home) to advance to the semis of the Champions League. The Citizens, who sit fourth in the Premier League, aren’t going to be taking the EPL title this season, but they can ensure they’ll be back in the UCL with a top-four finish in league play. This Saturday, Chelsea will be waiting to spoil the party at Stamford Bridge in London (12:30 PM Eastern).

City (57 points) are holding down the last UCL spot in the EPL, but with six games left on the schedule, their four-point lead over Manchester United (53 points) isn’t safe. They were able to rebound from their recent loss to United with back-to-back wins over Bou Bournemouth (4-0) and West Brom (2-1), but the team hasn’t won three in a row since September. That up-and-down form is what’s led to the 15 point gap between City and league-leading Leicester.

Chelsea have been even more unpredictable than City, especially at Stamford Bridge. The Blues have drawn six of the last seven games at home, only beating the struggling Newcastle. They’ve moved into the top-ten in the table (44 points), but are nearly 30 points off the pace set by the Foxes. They have no real shot of reaching the top-four, either, sitting 13 in arrears of City. If they can make up nine points on United down the stretch and finish fifth, they would earn a spot in the Europa League. But they’d also have to bypass four other teams.

In sum, this is a lost year for the Blues.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t be motivated to trump the other high-priced EPL squad and finish the season strong. A win tomorrow would extend Chelsea’s home unbeaten streak against Man City to six (3-2-0).

These two talented rosters have been drowning in the waters of the mediocrity most of the season, but have showed better form of late and should end up giving us a fun game to watch. With Chelsea being a draw machine at home, stay in the middle with this one.

Pick: Draw (+210)

(Photo Credit: John Urquhart (Flickr) CC BY 2.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.)