Manchester City vs. Crystal Palace Betting Tips: Side with Zaha to hit the target at the Etihad

After being held to a 3-3 draw by Newcastle last weekend, Manchester City now face Crystal Palace at the Etihad on Saturday afternoon, with the game kicking off at 3pm. Our Premier league punting aficionado @AnthonyEadson provides us with two data-driven tips he’s keen on. 

Crystal Palace have only been beaten on one of their last four visits to Manchester City in the top-flight (W2 D1 L1), and arrive here after already taking a point from City’s title rivals this term, in Liverpool. After a defeat in the opening game of the campaign, Palace followed up their point at Anfield with a convincing 3-1 win over Aston Villa on home turf and find themselves ninth in the table at this early stage. 

Manchester City have been out in Spain this week and played a rather questionable friendly with Barcelona on Wednesday that finished in a 3-3 draw. As if a friendly wedged in between league games wasn’t bad enough, Pep Guardiola then saw both Kalvin Phillips and Luke Mbete pick up injuries. 

With Liverpool winless in the league and City looking fairly assured on seven points, the reigning Champions have already been cut into as short as 1/3 with several bookmakers to retain their title this season. Aymeric Laporte will not feature against the Eagles after undergoing knee surgery and Jack Grealish and Nathan Ake are both a doubt and will be assessed before kick-off.

Patrick Viera will be without four players for his trip up north with James Tomkins, James McArthur, Nathan Ferguson and Jack Butland all sidelined through injury. 

Both of my plays from East Manchester on Saturday focus on one player in Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha. The first selection I’m touting is for the 29-year-old to have Over 0.5 shots on target in the match at 11/8 with bet365. So far this season Zaha has recorded six shots on target across his three matches, with only two players in Anthony Gordon (7) and Aleksandar Mitrovic (8) having more.

Having a look back into Zaha’s data and in his last 16 Premier League appearances, he has registered at least one shot on target in 14 of those - impressive consistency. Palace have proved a really difficult opponent for City over the last few years and again, I fancy the visitors to make a real game of it here. 

Zaha is also a player who seems to step up when playing against the bigger sides. In his last 10 Premier League starts against ‘big-six’ clubs he has scored five goals! 11/8 may not seem the most eye-catching price but with this selection odds-on at BetVictor, Betfair, Sky, and Paddy Power and William Hill, I think we could be looking at a nice bit of value.

I’m also recommending a small stakes play here on Wilfried Zaha to have Over 1.5 shots on target in the match. This selection has landed in six of Zaha’s last 11 Premier League matches and even though he faces the toughest opponents in the league, I still think 9/1 is too big a price. Sky Bet have ‘Boosted’ this same bet from 3/1 to a measly 4/1 which again just reiterates that we are getting a bit of value here from bet365.