EPL Odds: Watford Meet Wounded Man City
Manchester City (-350) vs Watford (+1200), Draw (+550)
Watford (6-3-6, 21 points) will travel to the Etihad this Wednesday, December 14, to face Manchester City (9-3-3, 30 points), who are reeling from a string of bad losses.
Manchester City are currently licking their wounds after a terrible 4-2 loss to Leicester City, the former league champions who currently reside in fourteenth. Jamie Vardy took advantage of a quick Leicester City counter-attack and put the Foxes up a goal in the third minute. Then, two minutes later, Andy King made it 2-0. In the 20th minute, Vardy scored his second and, by the 78th, he had his hat trick.
City scrambled to close the four-goal deficit with two goals late in the game but time ran out.
The loss put them seven points below leaders Chelsea, who beat the Citizens 3-1 the week prior. They currently sit in fourth place, one point below Liverpool and four below Arsenal. It’s not a gap that rules them out of contention, but it’s definitely a large deficit to make up, especially given how Chelsea is playing at the moment.
While Chelsea outplayed City by maintaining possession and smothering them with their high press, Leicester picked City apart by playing a closed game and capitalizing on defensive gaps with counter attacks. They showed that Manchester City is able to be beaten by a team that, at least on paper, is far inferior to the star-studded City squad.
Watford will definitely have taken note. The Hornets are coming off an unexpected 3-2 win last Saturday against Everton. Their star transfer, striker Stefano Okaka from Anderlecht, played just his second game of the year last Saturday since returning from injury. But he looked sprightly and in form, scoring two of Watford’s three goals. He’ll be match-ready for Wednesday’s game and will be looking to exploit City’s glaring weaknesses on defense.
To make things even worse for City, they will be without their own star striker, Sergio Aguero, after he received a four-game ban for lashing out during their loss against Chelsea.
The bookmakers heavily favor the Citizens, but they will be playing just a few days after a devastating loss with an under-manned starting lineup. Let’s not rule Watford out just yet.
Pick: Draw (+550)
Photo credit: “West Ham United Vs Manchester City” by Joshjdss, 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.
