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Leeds Favored to Be Top EPL Newcomer; Chelsea Odds-On for Top London Club & More

Paul Attfield

by Paul Attfield in Soccer News

Updated Sep 7, 2020 · 2:53 PM PDT

Leeds United
Leeds United finishing top of the Championship last season, and will play in the English Premier League for the first time since the 2003-04 season. Photo by Boxingfan1995 (Wiki Commons).
  • Leeds United a strong -200 favorite to finish highest amongst three newly promoted clubs
  • Chelsea, Leicester City and Manchester City also favored to finish top in their respective regions
  • Read on for full odds and analysis of these prop bets, along with picks for each

Just weeks after Liverpool ended their 30-year wait for a 19th league championship, the new English Premier League season kicks off on Saturday, Sept. 12, with a whole host of questions waiting to be answered.

Back in the Premier League for the first time since 2004, can Leeds United bring some of the glory days back to Elland Road? With Chelsea and Arsenal having significantly strengthened their squads in the offseason, combined with Jose Mourinho growing into his role at Tottenham Hotspur, who will be the top club in London? And with Manchester City and a reinvigorated Manchester United both happy to take the fight to Liverpool, who will be the top club in England’s Northwest region?

We’ve got the answers, and bests bets, for all these questions and more.

EPL Top Newcomer Odds

Team Odds
Leeds United -200
Fulham +333
West Bromwich Albion +450

Odds taken Sept. 7

Leeds Make Their Move

The Lillywhites left little doubt that they are back in the top flight to stay with their recent $34-million signing of Spanish international Rodrigo.

While manager Marcelo Bielsa skilfully directed their route out of the Championship in his second season in charge, with intricate tactical systems and consummate buy-in from his players, one area where they could be let down is in the finishing of Patrick Bamford. The striker missed an awful lot of his chances in the the second-tier Championship, and those chances will come far less frequently in the top flight.

Rodrigo will hopefully help address that profligacy and score the goals Leeds will need to steer clear of a relegation battle in favor of mid-table security.

No strangers to the Premier League in recent years, both Fulham and West Bromwich Albion spent exactly one and two seasons in the Championship, respectively, before coming back up, so both should be wiser for the experience. Fulham will depend on Serbian forward Aleksandar Mitrovic, who scored 11 goals when they were relegated in 2019, while West Brom are still on the hunt for another striker to help with their first season back. Charlie Austin and Hal Robson-Kanu both scored 10 each to lead the promotion charge.

Pick: Leeds United (-200)

Top Northwest Club Odds

Team Odds
Manchester City -138
Liverpool +150
Manchester United +800
Everton +8000
Burnley +35000

City Look To Reclaim Crown

After having their bid for an EPL three-peat seemingly ended by Christmas last year, Manchester City saw all hopes of salvaging their 2019-20 campaign ended when first Arsenal knocked them out of the FA Cup, followed by Lyon ousting them from Champions League within a few weeks of one another.

Given that money is almost no object at the Etihad Stadium, manager Pep Guardiola and Co. will looking to reclaim the EPL title from Liverpool’s grasp. Lionel Messi may have eluded the Citizens, for now, but they were not about to stand pat with glaring holes in their team from last season.

Nathan Ake has arrived from Bournemouth to help shore up a porous back line, while Ferran Torres comes in from Valencia to add another dimension to an attack that lost David Silva to Real Sociedad.

Whether that will be enough to dethrone Liverpool, or fend of the attack of the advancing Manchester United, who signed Donny van de Beek from Ajax and continue to flirt with Jadon Sancho of Borussia Dortmund, remains to be seen.

But Liverpool, who finished 18 points clear of second-place City, are not about to give up their crown without a fight. They have brought in Kostas Tsimikas as left-back cover and continue to chase Bayern Munich’s Thiago Alcantara, but it looks like their squad will be pretty much the same.

Pick: Liverpool (+150)

Top Midlands Club Odds

Team Odds
Leicester City -110
Wolverhampton Wanderers -110
Aston Villa +5000
West Bromwich Albion +6600

Foxes, Wolves In Territorial Battle

There was little separating Leicester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the 2019-20 season – just three points – and the same should hold true starting this coming weekend.

The loss of left-back Ben Chilwell to Chelsea in a big-money move will sting, but it shouldn’t affect Leicester too much on the field. The Foxes have a ready-made replacement in academy graduate Luke Thomas, and the team doubled down by signing Atalanta standout Timothy Castagne.

As ever, Brendan Rodgers’s team will rely on the goals from Jamie Vardy, who won the EPL Golden Boot award for the first time with 23 goals.

Wolves, whose ownership makes them the richest in the region – and fourth richest in the EPL – were not afraid to splash the cash after last season’s breakout seventh-place finish. The team has added Brazilian left-back Marcal from Lyon along with striker Fabio Silva from Porto – for whom it paid a club-record $47-million. Silva has been described as a generational talent, and his signing is as much a statement of intent from the club as whatever skills he brings to the pitch.

Pick: Wolves (-110)

Top London Club Odds

Team Odds
Chelsea -188
Arsenal +350
Tottenham Hotspur +350
West Ham United +5000
Crystal Palace +6600
Fulham +10000

Three-way Battle For London

Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal all enter the coming season with hopes that they can finish the campaign as the capital’s top club.

The Blues finished fourth, but have spent big entering manager Frank Lampard’s second season in charge of the West London club, forking out over $260 million. That has netted Chelsea the likes of forward Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech and Kai Havertz, as well as Chilwell and Brazilian captain Thiago Silva on a free from PSG.

Tottenham will have had another month or two to adapt to the new regime of Jose Mourinho, who has probably worked out which of Spurs’ players are “too nice” – a charge he levelled at some players during the new Amazon reality series following the team – and how far he can go with this current squad. Spurs didn’t go for glamor in this offseason, but in adding Pierre Emile Hojbjerg and Matt Doherty, have made some useful additions to a squad that spent much of last year nursing a hangover from the 2019 Champions League final defeat.

Meanwhile, Arsenal are looking resurgent under new manager Mikel Arteta, who took over in December after the firing of Unai Emery and has led the Gunners to a pair of trophies in his first eight months in charge. Arsenal’s off-season comes in somewhere between Chelsea and Spurs on the glamor meter, with the additions of Brazilian center back Gabriel Magalhaes from Lille and his countryman Willian on a free from Chelsea moving the needle nicely. The expected new deal for captain and main striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would wrap up a tidy offseason for a club that finished in its lowest EPL position since 1995.

Pick: Spurs (+350)

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