Manchester City v Watford Betting Tips

Matches involving either of these sides tend to involve goals so we should be in for a cracker on Wednesday.

Manchester City have been on a poor run in the Premier League in the last couple of weeks with two consecutive losses whilst they could only manage a draw against Celtic in a Champions League match sandwiched between those defeats.

This of course means that Pep Guardiola’s side have slipped down to fourth place in the league and are currently a huge seven points off top spot. If they want to rekindle their title ambitions, they need to fix things very quickly.

Defence is certainly the main problem for The Citizens with 19 goals conceded in 15 games and a defensive unit/ goalkeeper which constantly look vulnerable and susceptible to a mistake. City have not kept a Premier League clean sheet since late October.

On the other hand, firepower is undoubtedly Manchester City’s main strength and they have a plethora of incredible attacking talent. However, the fact that talisman Sergio Aguero is currently suspended means that their main goal supply is out of the team. When you essentially rely on your side outscoring the other team, as Guardiola does, having your best striker missing is a big loss.

You would usually expect a team gunning for the title to have a good home record but it is the opposite for Manchester City. Although they have only lost once at the Etihad this season, they have not won in the Premier League on home turf since thrashing AFC Bournemouth 4-0 back in mid-September. Additionally, that match was their only home clean sheet in the league this campaign.

Watford are in a rather lofty seventh place at the moment after a good start to the campaign. However, when you look at their recent record it shows three losses in the last five matches, although they did manage to get back on track over the weekend with a 3-2 victory over out-of-form Everton.

Goals are not a problem for The Hornets this season as they have scored in all but three of their 16 matches (all competitions), however, their style of play leaves them very open and they do tend to concede a lot of goals. Their record of 26 against in their 15 league matches is the worst in the top ten and the sixth worst in the league overall. If they could sort that back-line out then we’d be talking about an impressive side.

Going away to Manchester City is a daunting task for any side, but for Watford it is even more so as they have lost three of their last five matches on the road, conceding 11 goals – coming in at a ridiculously high average of 2.2 per game.

Although they have been out of sorts at home recently, I expect Manchester City to come out on top here as their firepower should punish Watford’s leaky defence. Most teams who have got a result at the Etihad have been a cohesive defensive unit but I do not think Watford have that in them – as we saw in their 6-1 thrashing by Liverpool at Anfield a few weeks back.

However, the same can be said of Manchester City and, with their dangerous front-line, I think The Hornets have a good chance of grabbing an away goal. Odds of 17/10 on ‘Manchester City to Win & Both Teams to Score’ is definitely a bet to be on.

As mentioned at the start, matches involving both of these sides involve a lot of goals, so, with this in mind, I have ‘Over 3.5 Goals’, at 23/20, is a solid secondary bet here. This stake would have netted you a return in both City’s and Watford’s last two games.

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