Manchester City v Middlesbrough Betting Tips

Two sides with vastly different aims go head-to-head at the Etihad on Saturday as Manchester City looking for success in both England and Europe take on Middlesbrough who are simply looking to avoid relegation.

We have suddenly seen an improvement from Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the last week or so. In the weeks beforehand they had not won in six attempts in all competitions, but they put that abysmal run to bed by thrashing West Bromwich Albion 4-0 at the weekend to keep themselves top of the Premier League. However, it was the result that followed that which was more impressive.

Despite being the underdogs against Guardiola’s former club Barcelona, Manchester City produced a master class on home turf to win 3-1 against the former European champions thanks to goals from Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne.

The two most impressive things from that victory against Barca were that they did not panic after going 1-0 down quite early on and, perhaps even more encouraging for Guardiola, was that his defence – much maligned this season – managed to hold out against arguably the greatest forward in world football in Messi, Suarez and Neymar.

Manchester City have now finally had that big European win under the floodlights at home which so many big clubs have had over the years. Both fans and players now know the feeling and will want to make sure it happens on a more regular basis and Wednesday’s win could prove a catalyst for any success that will doubtless come in the next few years.

That 3-1 win against the Spanish giants will of course give City great confidence going into this match against Middlesbrough on Saturday. Although the away side are likely to sit in and defend, I expect City to come out on top eventually.

As mentioned above, Middlesbrough will look to sit in and soak up pressure against City – and who can blame them? However, Boro have not been too bad themselves recently and, after going without a win since the second day of the season, picked up another three points against Bournemouth at the weekend. This victory of course followed on from a very impressive draw against Arsenal.

Those who think this will be a thrashing by Manchester City might be wrong – Middlesbrough are actually pretty good at the back.

Unfortunately for Aitor Karanka’s side it has been going forward that has been the problem. Before their 2-0 victory against Bournemouth at the weekend, Boro had not scored more than one goal in any match since their victory against Sunderland. This has largely been down to the poor form of former Manchester City striker Alvaro Negredo who looks very low on confidence at the moment – perhaps a trip back to his old stomping ground is the sort of get-up he needs to start firing again.

Luckily for Middlesbrough, they have played quite well in the last few weeks and have shown that they are not wholly reliant on Negredo for an attacking threat. Summer signing Adama Traore looks very good whilst fellow attacking midfielders Gaston Ramirez and Stewart Downing got themselves on the score-sheet at the weekend.

Whilst they may not pose too much of a threat to City this weekend, they should have enough about them to survive come the end of the season.

Obviously the bookmakers are going with Manchester City in almost every department but, luckily for punters, there is some value to be had on the markets.

Firstly I have gone with a ‘Manchester City Win to Nil’ at 10/11. Although not the biggest price, I am still surprised the odds are as good as that. I cannot see Middlesbrough doing anything special this weekend and expect City to keep a clean sheet in a victory.

Instead I have actually gone for something quite different with ‘Manchester City to Score Over 1.5 Goals in the Second Half’.

I imagine Middlesbrough will actually do quite well in the first half as they have a good defensive shape, however, come the second half I think we will see them tire which City will exploit. Guardiola’s team scoring two goals in the second half with their strike force is not exactly unlikely.

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