Manchester City Looks To Keep Pace With Liverpool

For the moment, Manchester City is in second place on the English Premier League table. Liverpool managed to win a frantic game at Newcastle United on Saturday though they saw Mohamed Salah stretchered off. Divock Origi came on to replace Salah and scored the winning goal at the 86 minute mark after Newcastle United evened the score 32 minutes earlier. For awhile, Newcastle United answered every time that Liverpool took the lead and after the Reds took a 2-1 lead into the dressing room at the half the hosts quickly responded after play resumed.

Now Manchester City has to do their part to set up a dramatic final weekend of Premier League action. Pep Guardiola’s team still controls their own destiny regardless of what Liverpool does. If City wins out, they’re Premier League champs. Liverpool has to win and hope that Manchester City drops a point either here or in their final EPL game against Brighton. Liverpool hosts Wolverhampton in their final game but first has to play the second leg of the Champions League semifinals against Barcelona who leads 3-0 on the aggregate. Manchester City is in the FA Cup Finals but they don’t face Watford until the 18th of May.

Clearly, Manchester City is significantly superior to Leicester. Leicester isn’t a bad side but they are 41 points behind the defending Premiership champions. Pep Guardiola didn’t pull a Joe Namath-esque guarantee but he did insist his team would be in the Premier League lead on the final day of the season. Manchester City has been downright monstrous at home this season. With the exception of a 3-2 upset by Crystal Palace in December they’ve been perfect and carry a 17-0-1 record at Etihad Stadium into this matchup. They’ve won 14 straight at home in all competitions since the shocking loss.

Leicester City isn’t a bad road team at 7-4-7 away from King Power Stadium. They were hoping for a Europa League spot with a 7th place finish but that would necessitate a win here and next weekend against Chelsea at home as they enter play six points back of Wolverhampton. They’ve also got to leapfrog Everton in the process. They have been playing well in the Premiership with a 5-1-1 record in their last 7 games and an unbeaten record in their last 3 away. Expect manager Brendan Rodgers to press the attack–he’s done this on several occasions against superior opponents in European Cup play. Given their circumstances they’re really in a ‘what do we have to lose?’ position and an aggressive counter attack has had some measure of success against City this year. Taking a look at the English Premier League betting odds and noting the high total on this game the bookmakers expect to see some attacking football.

With a lot of chalky prices on Manchester City and on the total we’ll focus on the ‘both teams to score’ prop both as a straight bet and parlay it with a win by the home team.

BET MANCHESTER CITY/LEICESTER BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE–YES -120
BET MANCHESTER CITY TO WIN/BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE +125