English Premier
2011-12-10 - Manchester United vs Wolves
A Sports Betting Pick by Lamps
Football : England : Premiership
Saturday 10th December - Kickoff 3:00pm
Manchester United
It's been a bad week for Manchester United as they crashed out of the Champions League following their 2-1 defeat in Basel. To make things worse key defender Vidic appears to have seriously damaged his knee and is likely to be out for a while. Still, life goes on and United has a great chance to return to winning ways this weekend as they host an out of form Wolves side at Old Trafford.
Before the midweek collapse, United have been on a great run since their heavy loss to City back in mid October. Since losing 6-1, United has won 4 out of 5 games with all 4 being wins to nil, the only dropped points came at Anfield in very tight 1-1 draw.
Old Trafford is normally a fortress for the Red Devils as last year they dropped just 2 points all season but this year they haven't had things all their own way. 5 wins from 7 is still very impressive but dropping points to City and Newcastle came as a shock and whilst Ferguson won't be happy with these dropped points I can't see Wolves taking anything from this one at the weekend.
The positives are the United has smashed some top sides at home already this season, sides with all due respect are much better than Wolves. In particular Tottenham (3-0), Arsenal (8-2) and Chelsea (3-1). The only negative is that these came at the start of the season when United were playing with much more fluency and the real problem of late has been the poor midfield display.
Recent 1-0 wins over Everton, Sunderland, Swansea and Aston Villa have hardly impressed with the Villa game being really hard to watch. However, this side has some grit and has bounced back well from that City drubbing. Ferguson is winning games and whether it's by 1 or 10 you still get 3 points and I can see another scrappy win on Saturday.
Team news forManchester United is that Berbatov, Cleverley, Fabio da Silva, Rafael da Silva, Hernández, Anderson, Owen and most importantly Vidic miss out. Vidic has been a colossal factor in the clean sheets department and without him United look vulnerable.
Ferdinand is having a tough season whilst no United fans seem to have faith in Evans. With Smalling at full back and Jones in midfield Evans will start and whilst this week he may be ok against a toothless Wolves in the next few weeks United may struggle without their big Serb in the back four.
Up top Rooney will start with Wellbeck alongside him as Hernandez needs a few weeks to recover from his injury. Young and Nani will start out wide and will feel they need to step it up after a few lackluster displays of late.
Wolves
McCarthy's Wolves side currently occupy 16th place with 14 points and have a 4 point cushion from the drop zone. If they take anything from Old Trafford it's a bonus but realistically it's a damage limitation game for them and they certainly will have bigger fish to fry elsewhere in the season.
Earlier in the season Wolves really went through a tough spell, winless in 8 games losing 6 from 27th August up until 29th October. However, since then they have played 4 games and won 2 of those equaling the amount of wins they achieved in their first 10 games.
A massive problem for Wolves has been their dreadful away form, currently the 18th ranked side away from home they really put pressure on themselves at home to get points. The problem has been they have struggled there to and all of a sudden games at Old Trafford carry added weight to get a point.
In 7 away games, McCarthy's side has a win and a draw but not much else. They beat Blackburn (1-2) on opening day but have since only draw at Villa (0-0) a few weeks later in August. So since 27th August, Wolves have played 5 away games losing all 5 at an aggregate of 12-3 which is an average loss of around 2-0 as they score a goal around every 2 games.
Scoring goals has always been a problem for Wolves and with just 15 goals this season they rank in 16th place in the scoring table. However, looking at away scoring they only have 5 goals from their 7 games and that puts huge pressure on their defence to keep them in games. Unfortunately for Wolves, they have kept just 1 away clean sheet which came back in that August game against Villa. Even though United aren't scoring lots of goals at the moment, 1 may be enough to beat this very low scoring side.
Wolves team news is that Craddock, Foley and Kightly miss out for this one but the side is settled and is glad to have Fletcher back. The striker has missed lots of games this season but still has 5 goals which is good enough to be the clubs top goalscorer. He will be partnered with Doyle who is having a poor season with just 2 goals to his name.
The back 4 has no star players and must work incredibly hard to keep out Rooney, Young and Nani for 90 minutes and I just don't see it happening.
The Betting Verdict
As expected United have won the last 3 here at Old Trafford 2-1, 3-0 and 1-0. Winning 2 of the 3 to nil also is no surprise and whilst I think both the United win and United to win to nil could hit I won't be betting on these short priced bets currently priced 1.25 and 1.90.
I say the 1.90 for United to win to nil is short purely because their midfield just isn't protecting the back four enough and most importantly Vidic is out of this game. For me he is the reason they have been dominating teams and keeping the clean sheets, without him I think United will give up a few chances and if they fall to Fletcher I can't see him missing.
Instead the best bet for me is on Wolves with a massive handicap. Wolves +2 on the Asian market looks a solid punt given only a United 3 goal victory see's us lose money.
United haven't won by 3 goals since September some 10 games ago whilst Wolves have only lost once by 3 goals away from home (to Chelsea). The Blues got an early goal that day and Wolves crumbled going 3-0 down before half time only to produce a much better display in the second half but lost 3-0 on the day.
Wolves managed to score at Man City and have scored in 5 of their last 6 overall and 1 goal will surely mean this handicap covers. Without Vidic and not scoring more than 1 in their last 7 games has convinced to trust McCarthy's men this week.
Good Luck.
The Statistics :
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The Pick :
Man United 2-1 Wolves
Gooner’s Statistical Value Bet
Take Wolves +2 AH at 1.78 at Ladbrokes
