Manchester United v Manchester City Betting Tips

So another Manchester derby is upon us. Nowadays unfortunately this match is seemingly all about two foreign managers rather than the pride at stake for thousands of local Mancunians.

If you are sick to death of hearing about either Mourinho or Guardiola (I know I am), I would advise you to ignore all media outlets (apart from Bookmaker Ratings of course!) for the next three days, otherwise you may drown due to the stream of discussion that will no doubt take place.

With it being a local derby you would expect both managers to pick strong sides. However, there seems to be a fashion that, no matter how important the match, you pick a weakened team in the League Cup. Who knows which way they will go.

United were not only beaten during their 4-0 loss against Chelsea at the weekend but were humiliated; former defender Gary Neville described some United players as ’embarrassing’. Mourinho of course tried to deflect the flack in his post-match interview saying he thought the scoreline was unjust. Luckily football fans are not stupid enough to swallow this – we all saw what happened.

Some Red Devils fans are already starting to get a bit on Mourinho’s back (fickle) and, having lost the Manchester derby earlier in the season, they may start getting even more irate if he loses to their noisy neighbours once again on Wednesday night.

Mourinho has gone for a rather defensive line-up in his last two league matches against top-level opposition and he has come away with one point out of a possible six. Despite this low points return, I would expect the former Real Madrid boss to set up in similar style against Manchester City.

Manchester City faultered again at the weekend as they drew at home to Southampton. This reinforced my view that manager Pep Guardiola is not the second coming of Jesus – as many seem to think he is. That is now five matches without a win in all competitions and no clean sheet for over a month.

Whilst there is no doubt that the Citizens look wonderful going forward, defensively they are a shambles and you can pretty much guarantee there will be an error by one of the members of their back-line in every match.

However, perhaps this is the perfect game for City to put things right. They have already won a game at Old Trafford this season and that will no doubt give them a confidence boost as they return to a stadium where they have already enjoyed plenty of success in recent times.

Given the fact that we do not know whether just one manager or both will pick a weakened XI at this moment in time, this match is incredibly hard to predict, especially in terms of calling a winner.

No matter which players take the field, we know this will be a close game. Unlike the previous derby match back in September, where we saw three goals in the first 45 minutes, both of these teams will be very nervous given their recent records. I imagine we will see a lot of probing in the first half rather than anything very expansive like last time. With this in mind, the draw at Half Time, at a surprisingly good 23/20, looks a good bet.

If Manchester City play either a full strength team or a weakened team, you can pretty much guarantee that young Nigerian striker Kelechi Iheanacho will be in the squad. The fact he played 80 minutes in the previous League Cup match against Swansea City is a good sign.

The 20-year-old ended his barren spell of three games without a goal by finding the back of the net during City’s 1-1 draw with Southampton on Saturday and he will more than likely play a significant role on Wednesday night.

Iheanacho scored against United in September’s league derby and, as he’s shown many times already, is not fazed by the big occasion. At odds of 12/5, the young striker will surely find himself the recipient of a number of chances and is certainly worth being on ahead of this match at Old Trafford.

See more EFL Cup tips here.