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Champions Manchester City host Chelsea at Etihad on Saturday teatime. The game takes place at 5:30pm.
Man City
Man City are cooking on gas. The Citizens are moving through the gears and although they had to be patient last weekend, they eventually found a way past Everton’s stubborn rearguard. The return of Erling Haaland is a sizeable boost to City’s frontline and his clinical finishing and his ability to not score ‘trendy goals’ according to Sean Dyche made all the difference.
Match has ended
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City were in Champions League action in midweek, however, they have been handed a fairly winnable draw and they were fairly efficient against FC Copenhagen as they eased to victory. City did concede to the Danish outfit, yet they had 26 goal attempted to four and chalked up an xG of 3.53 across the 90 minutes. With 12 shots on target, City showed plenty of hunger and they are likely to create plenty of chances on Saturday evening.
Although they’ve tended to do the majority of the goalscoring, City’s home games have been fairly high-scoring containing an average of 3.55 goals per game. They’ve netted an average of 2.64 goals per game and are likely to find Chelsea’s defence fairly accommodating.
City are yet to be defeated here this season, although they have dropped points on three occasions. Nevertheless, they have bounced back with three consecutive victories, albeit two of which came against bottom three sides. They’ve conceded in three of their four home fixtures against fellow top-half dwellers (Chelsea are tenth at the time of writing).
Chelsea
Chelsea picked up a victory on Monday night which helped to relieve the pressure on under-fire Mauricio Pochettino. The Blues started quickly before completely dropping off and struggling to get a foothold until after the break. Despite having a number of misfiring ineffective strikers, Pochettino can usually rely on his midfielders with Connor Gallagher, Cole Palmer and Enzo Fernandes all catching the eye and helping to wrestle the game back in the West Londoners’ favour.
Earlier in the campaign, it was Chelsea’s away form which was better than the home equivalent, yet they haven’t been too bad at Stamford Bridgr recently. Prior to the 4-2 collapse against Wolves, they had won their previous four matches in front of their own fans and had managed to keep a couple of (rare) clean sheets during that run too. Unfortunately, this game is on the road and they have lost five of their last seven outside of West London. The Blues don’t do many draws either with only one of their away trips ending all-square so far this campaign.
Games involving the Blues have been suitably chaotic this season with a total of 15 goals across their last three PL outings. Only one of their last seven outings has finished with fewer than three goals and despite the 1-0 scoreline, the two teams still combined for 22 shots.
Their meetings with top four opposition have also been highly entertaining. These two sides shared the points at Stamford Bridge in a 4-4 draw and they have also drawn 2-2 with Arsenal. Both away trips to top sides have ended 4-1 either way (Liverpool and Spurs). This is likely to follow suit.
Head to Head
As we’ve already mentioned, these two sides played out one of the games of the season when they traded blows in a 4-4 draw at Stamford Bridge. Cole Palmer’s 95th minute equaliser against his former club was enough to secure a point on that occasion.
That encounter did buck the recent trend of this game being a fairly cagey and low-scoring contest. City have won four of the last five meetings across all competitions and had managed to keep a clean sheet in each of those games.
You have to go back to May 2021 for the last time that Chelsea recorded a victory at this venue (2-1) with Marcus Alonso netting a winner on 90+2 to secure all three points.
Key Betting Stats
- Man City have a shot conversion rate of 24% at the Etihad
- City have conceded just two first half goals at home so far this season
- The hosts have had more corners than the visitors in each of City’s last eight home matches.
- Chelsea have conceded an average of 1.83 goals per game on the road.
- There have been 14 goals across Chelsea’s last three away games.
- Five of Cole Palmer’s six assists have been registered away from home.
Match Prediction
City should win this and they should rack up a few goals along the way. We can’t rule out Chelsea getting involved and whilst this is unlikely to be yet another eight goal thriller, it should still be highly entertaining.
Winning Combo
Over 3.5 Goals
6/5 with Betfair
Best Bookmaker
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