Man City v Arsenal Tips: De Bruyne to shoot down Gunners

Finally the wait is over, have a break from Rosetta Stone, leave the banana bread to the masterbakers and sit down and enjoy the return of Premier League football. Manchester City v Arsenal is the second of two matches on Wednesday and can be viewed on Sky Sports Premier League at 20:15pm. The last time these two sides met was at the Emirates back in December where The Cityzens cantered to a 3-0 victory with a first-half brace from Kevin De Bruyne.

Having a look into the match odds, Betfair have priced City as 3/10 favourites, an implied probability of 77% to win the match. 

A win for the Gunners is top priced at 8/1 with PaddyPower which gives them an implied probability of a measly 11%, whilst the draw is priced at 9/2.

It’s been a funny old season for Pep Guardiola and Manchester City with things not going to plan on and off the pitch. They sit 15 points behind leaders Liverpool in the league and with a potential two year hiatus from the Champions League, stormy waters ahead may need to be navigated with a potential knock on impact for years to come. 

In fact, the bookmakers have City priced at 50/1 to pull off the unthinkable and claim another Premier League title this year. That’s an implied percentage probability of just 2% with some bookmakers having already paid out on Jurgen Klopp’s men to win their first ever Premier League title.

But with these nine remaining fixtures, both Manchester City and Arsenal have a period where  managers can experiment and start to look ahead towards next season. Younger players such as Phil Foden could well be seen a lot more as older heads such as David Silva approach the latter stages of their career. 

Manchester City have a great record against Arsenal over recent times and this even money shot we have picked out has landed on all six of the last meetings between the two. Pep’s side have won all of those, never scoring more than three goals in the process with an aggregate score of 17-2, and the logical play for this fixture looks to be Manchester City to win and under 4.5 goals in the match. 

We were relatively surprised to see the generous offering of 5/6 from Betfair on this but the good folk over at head office have boosted this to even money, a price we just cannot ignore. Yes Arsenal have been much improved since Mikel Arteta took over on 20 December, having lost just twice in all competitions, but with the firepower available at Pep’s disposal, we can only see this resulting in a City victory.

The key angle here is intensity, and the lack of it in the new world of post-corona football. Both in the Bundesliga and now La Liga we have seen a lack of intensity at times in the fixtures so far. With no crowd in the stadium and and a distinct lack of atmosphere, we feel this adds support to our prediction of under 4.5 goals in the match. With even money on offer - implying a 50% percentage probability compared to the 3/10 on offer for just a plain City win - the outcome with under 4.5 goals in the game looks to be an absolute steal.

Let’s talk about Kevin, he’s been an absolute delight to watch over the past few seasons and when fully fit could surely be the most talented midfielder in the Premier League. Manchester City have scored more goals from outside the area than any other team this season and 25% have been from De Bruyne. 

Besides his potentially record assist-breaking tally this season, which currently sits at 16, De Bruyne has scored eight times, with three of those coming from outside the area. Having a look at his data we can see he is averaging 2.9 shots on goal per game, with only Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero having more than the Belgian. 

Of those 2.9 shots on goal, 1.7 of those are coming from outside the area - a whopping 58%. In the anytime goalscorer market KDB is around the 7/4 mark with bet365, which is a little too short for our liking. Therefore we’ve opted for De Bruyne to rattle one in from outside the area, priced at 7/1 with Betfair, as we have seen him do many times before. 

KDB has proved time and time again that he is a big game player with the ability to change a game with a stunning strike from long range, and with all elements considered 7/1 looks a fair price.

Our longshot for the match revolves around three players, with the first being infamous Granit Xhaka who is no stranger to a yellow card, picking up 32 cautions in his 121 Premier League outings. We know that Man City tend to have the majority of possession and with Xhaka being somewhat of a loose cannon at times for the Gunners, he looks primed to go into the book on Wednesday evening. 

Anthony Taylor will be officiating the game and only one referee this season has dished out more cards than him; yes, you guessed it, Mike Dean. 

Another player we are hoping picks up a card is Man City’s 23-year-old defensive-midfielder Rodrigo. After arriving from Atletico Madrid in the summer, he’s had a solid season but it’s his foul count that makes him appeal in this market. Rodri on average has committed more fouls than any other City player this season with 1.3 every 90 minutes. Adding weight to this, the Spaniard has also been booked more times than any of his teammates with, and with a top price of 10/3 available from Betfair for him to be booked, he appears the value selection and can be added straight into our Same Game Multi for the evening.

The third of our trio involved in this 50/1-punt is Kevin De Bruyne who we mentioned earlier. This time we are fancying him to land two or more shots on target during the game. Often on free-kicks and with audacious tendencies to strike one from 30 yards we know he has the ability to unleash bombardment on the opposition goal. 

Averaging 2.9 shots per game and already having been backed in from 3/1 into 21/10 with Betfair to have two or more shots on target, we want him onboard to set sail with what hopefully can be a stupendous restart to the season. You can check out our football tips through to the conclusion of the Premier League season at BettingOdds.com.

Enjoy the game on Sky Sports and please remember to gamble responsibly, all the best.