Manchester City and Manchester United meet in one of the biggest, if not the biggest, sports event this weekend. The Manchester Derby will once again fill the media headlines, be in the center of attention, and hopefully provide a memorable moment like many times in the past. The Citizens are favorites, currently unbeaten, and with Haaland on fire. Meanwhile, the Red Devils are on the rise, with Erik Ten Hag finding a formula for positive results, at least for the moment.
Preview
Manchester City (-300) plays very good football and is currently second in the EPL standings, one point behind Arsenal. The Citizens have five wins and two draws, with 23 goals scored (the most in the league) and six allowed (the least in the EPL).
Also, they have been pretty confident in the UEFA Champions League, trashing Sevilla on the road, 0-4, and beating Borussia Dortmund at home, 2-1, flipping the result in the final 15 minutes of the event. Overall, for the moment, they have five wins in the last six matchups, with one draw against Aston Villa on the road.
In all the contests this season apart from that one in Birmingham, Man City netted at least twice. The efficiency of their matches is high, with seven of the past nine finishing with three or more hits.
Manchester United (+650) opened the year in the worst possible way, suffering two hard slaps in the face, against Brighton at home, 1-2, and Brentford on the road, 4-0. After that, Ten Haag left Maguire on the bench, as well as Ronaldo, and things began going upward for the Red Devils.
They would win four in a row in the EPL, among other rivals, Liverpool and Arsenal, 2-1 and 3-1, respectively. Ten Hag brought Anthony from Ajax, and United’s attack is much more dangerous now.
Though, we need to say that their defense has looked much better without Maguire and that United managed to keep three clean sheets in the previous five competitions. Besides the wins in the EPL, they also played two events in the Europe League, winning (Sheriff on the road) and losing one, Real Sociedad (at home).
Latest News
Kalvin Phillips and Aymeric Laport have been out for this event due to their respective injuries.
Rashford and Anthony had some problems with minor injuries, yet they should be back, but keep an eye on their status. van de Beek and Martial are in a similar situation, with not-so-bright prospects to return to the field.
Head to Head Games
The first meeting between the two rivals was in 1881. Since then, we saw 187 clashes, with United winning 77, City 20 fewer, and 53 draws. City was more than dominant in the previous campaign, winning 0-2 on the road and then hammering the Red Devils at the Etihad, 4-1.
Prediction
The hosts are simply a better team than United, who is still in the process of reconstruction. It would be very surprising to see them stay unbeaten at Etihad, despite the positive results and solid performances in the past few weeks.
Pick: Manchester City Wins -300
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Nikola Velickovic is a sports journalist who loves to write and read on all sports. Nikola contributes both news updates and functions as a sports breaking news writer at WagerBop.
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Email: nikola@wagerbop.com
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