Hull City v Man United Betting Tips: Hosts to offer little resistance at KCOM

Jan 25 2017
Jan 25 2017
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This EFL League Cup semi-final is certainly the least open of the two matches as Manchester United currently hold a 2-0 aggregate lead over opponents Hull City going into the second leg at The KCOM.

Although they still find themselves 19th in the Premier League, there is no doubt that things have improved on Humberside since the arrival of new manager Marco Silva. The Portuguese has led his new team to two victories in his first four matches in all competitions with the two defeats coming in incredibly difficult matches against Manchester United and Chelsea. Whilst they are 2-0 down in this tie, Silva will know that an early goal could lead to an upset on Wednesday night.

Defence has been the problem for the Tigers all season with their record of 47 goals conceded in just 22 league games the second worst in the Premier League. However, despite conceding five since Silva’s arrival, it seems the new boss has made them a bit harder to beat at the back which will give them confidence going into the rest of the campaign.

Unfortunately, these defensive problems have not been balanced out by a goal-scoring threat and Hull are among the league’s lowest scorers having found the back of the net just 20 times. They have signed Everton flop Oumar Niasse on loan but it will be interesting to see if the former Lokomotiv Moscow striker has the ability to lead this struggling team to survival – my guess is probably not.

New manager Silva has a 100% home record in his first two matches in charge at the KCOM, however, this semi-final against United could change that. Having said that, home League Cup fixtures have been rather kind to Hull in recent years with six wins (including penalty shoot-outs) out of six since August 2011.

Manchester United have not won in either of their last two matches since claiming that 2-0 aggregate lead in the League Cup semi-final first leg – drawing both of their games 1-1 – which leaves them stranded down in sixth and four points off Champions League qualification for next season. However, legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson has recently said that new manager Jose Mourinho has been “unlucky”.

A few months ago it seemed that the Red Devils had their attacking mojo back after last year’s rather boring football and to be fair it seems that the attacking play is still there, despite the lack of goals. It has certainly been chance conversion that has been a problem for United and they have the third worst conversion rate in the league at 12.6% – only Wednesday’s opponents Hull City and Southampton are lower in that particular table.

Mourinho’s side still look fairly solid, as, despite the fact they have not kept a clean sheet in either of their last two, their overall goals against record of 21 in the league is better than three of the five teams above them in the table. It’s fairly easy to draw the conclusion that a lacklustre Hull City attack will find it difficult to break this solid back-line down.

Prior to their draw away at Stoke City last weekend, United had won their last four games on the road in all competitions, scoring eight and conceding just once.

Whilst an early goal for Hull could create some optimism, I still cannot see anything other than a United win here. Mourinho picked a strong side for the first leg and I doubt he will take any risks by weakening it for the second leg so we can expect a decent XI fielded by the former Chelsea manager. Whether United score first or not, with Hull chasing a deficit, they should get a lot of time and space on the counter. With this in mind, at least a couple of United goals are expected. At odds of 27/20, ‘Manchester United to Win -1 Handicap’ looks a good selection here.

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