EPL Odds: Bournemouth Face Title Favorites Chelsea
Chelsea (-250) vs. Bournemouth (+950), Draw (+425)
Tenth-place Bournemouth (6-3-8, 21 points) will travel to Stamford Bridge on Monday, December 26th to take on league leaders Chelsea (4-1-2, 43 points) in the 18th round of the English Premier League.
The team leading the Premier League by Christmas usually goes on to win the league. And Chelsea is not just leading the league, but running away with it. As it stands, The Blues are six points ahead of second-place Liverpool. That gives Chelsea, who has won it’s last 11 consecutive games, at least a two game buffer against every other team in the league.
To add to that, the cashed-up Chelsea side is set to become even richer. Chelsea reserve Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Júnior is being sold to a Chinese club for a ridiculous £52 million (or £60m, depending on which sources you trust). Chelsea will have that cash at it’s disposal come the January transfer window, and will plan to use it to further improve the squad.
Rumor has it Manager Antonio Conte has been eyeing Monaco midfielders Tiemoue Bakayoko and Djibril Sidibe, and plans to use Oscar’s transfer fee to snap up the duo.
But that’s just speculation. Against Bournemouth, Chelsea will be fielding a team that hasn’t dropped a single point since September. The Blues face an inconsistent Bournemouth squad, who is not well-equipped to take on the title favorites.
Bournemouth recently defeated Liverpool in a shocking 4-3 victory, coming back from a 3-1 deficit to win the game in the final minute. They also came back the next week and lost 3-2 to Burnley, who is currently in 16th place. Their inconsistency means you never know which Bournemouth will show up.
Their hope lies in two British players: Junior Stanislas and Callum Wilson. Together, they make up the Bournemouth attack, which relies heavily on long through balls and set pieces. But Chelsea is adept at defending against the challenges Bournemouth poses, and offers up a much greater threat.
Against weaker teams like Bournemouth, Chelsea is able to control the game in its opponent’s half and smother any attacking chances they get. Bournemouth is doing well this season given what they have to work with, but might be out of its depth against Chelsea.
Pick: Chelsea (-250)
Photo credit: “Willian” by Aleksandr Osipov CC BY-SA 2.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0], via Flickr.
Don Aguero is a man of many talents, writing about nearly anything you can put odds to. Don has been writing for SportsBettingDime since 2015, covering sports, entertainment and politics. You name it, he's covered it! He is also a steadfast West Ham fan, and has learned to embrace that suffering.
