English Premier
2011-10-29 - Manchester City vs Wolves
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
Football : English Premier League
Saturday 29 October 2011 - Kickoff 3pm
Manchester City
Manchester City fans were in dreamland last Sunday and it looked like they may have been about to be brought back down to Earth as they fell 1-0 behind to Wolves in the Carling Cup... Just half an hour later, City had scored 3 goals and were cruising into the Quarter Finals of that competition and have been chalked up as 200-1 shots to win everything this season.
City have taken the Premier League by storm this season, destroying everybody in their path with their only blot in the League being a 2-2 draw at Fulham when they blew a 2 goal lead. They are 4-0-0 at the Etihad Stadium, scoring 13 goals and conceding 1, making them the 2nd top scorers at home in the League so far.
The team have won 5 games in a row in all competitions since the Carlos Tevez affair in the loss at Bayern Munich. In those 5 games, City have scored 21 goals and they have only conceded 5 goals although I am sure Roberto Mancini will hope the can get more than the 1 clean sheet they have achieved. City have conceded just 4 goals in their last 15 home games in all competitions.
Roberto Mancini made a huge number of changes for the game at Wolves and I expect him to restore the majority of his players from last Sunday. The biggest questions for the Italian may be whether he starts Gael Clichy or Alexandr Korolev at left back, while Adam Johnson, Edin Dzeko and Samir Nasri will be hoping their midweek performances may offer them a chance to break into the starting line up.
Wolves
The tension between Mick McCarthy and the supporters at Wolves is reaching boiling point as the manager labelled the fans who booed his team last Saturday as 'mindless idiots'. McCarthy has done a wonderful job at Molineaux in his 5 years at the club, but they will be under intense pressure to get a win in the coming weeks, most notably against Wigan at home in a weeks time.
Wolves fought back from 0-2 down at home last weekend against Swansea to earn a point and that helped them move up to 16th in the Premier League, although they are only 3 points better off than Wigan and Blackburn at the bottom of the table. They have a 1-1-2 away record, scoring 3 goals and conceding 5.
The draw earned last week also meant Wolves stopped a run of 5 consecutive defeats in the Premier League, although they did extend their run of conceding at least 2 goals per game to 6 games. The team have only won 1 of their last 9 games in all competitions, losing 6 of those, including to Manchester City on Wednesday in the Carling Cup.
Kevin Foley and Steven Fletcher have both been ruled out this week and there should be a few changes made to the Wolves team that were beaten during the week. Wayne Hennessey, Roger Johnson and Matt Jarvis should all be restored to the starting line up.
Head to Head
Manchester City have won 3 of their last 4 home games against Wolves in League meetings, including a 4-3 win here last season.
2 of the 3 wins have come with a clean sheet.
Prediction
This looks a complete and utter mismatch on paper as City are brushing teams aside at the moment in the League and are scoring 4 goals a game in their current 5 game winning run, while Wolves have conceded at least 2 goals a game in 6 straight Premier League games.
City should be able to win this game, but there is the concern they take players off later in the game when up by a couple of goals as they look ahead to the Villarreal game in the Champions League on Wednesday, a game they cannot afford to lose if they want to reach the last 16 of that competition.
Therefore, the Asian Handicap looks a little high to me at 2 goals for the home side, so instead I will take City to win this game to nil at a higher price than the AH.
City have not conceded many goals at home since February and have only conceded 1 League goal at home this season. I think Wolves will be set out to make life hard for City and I think Mick McCarthy will look for his team to avoid an embarrassing scoreline so they may not be on the front foot much at all in this game.
With the home record City possess, the win to nil looks reasonably priced.
The Statistics :
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The Pick :
Manchester City 2-0 Wolves
