FA Cup Semifinal Preview: Best Odds on Chelsea vs City and Foxes vs Saints

Your blogger broke a cardinal rule of headline writing for tonight’s FA Cup preview, mixing official brand names with club nicknames in the fashion of an awkward prep school kid saying “New York beat the Cowboys.” Alas, it’s important to keep headlines short enough that punters scrolling through Google results can see all or most of them, prompting WagerBop to hurry to the finish line.

“Hurry to the finish” describes a lot of English football competition this cycle, even as the Carabao Cup postponed its championship match to a date much later in spring (April 25th) than usual. FA Cup matches came fast and furious as the tournament worked its way toward the Q-Finals, which is why it’s somewhat ironic that only now – as fixtures are spaced apart by several weeks as usual – that an injury scenario has come to the fore at club headquarters and at the betting board.

Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovačić will not play in Saturday’s FA Cup semifinal against Manchester City, thanks to a hamstring injury that has also hampered the Croatian’s ability to help Chelsea F.C. in the UEFA Champions League. Blues made it through the 2nd leg of a quarterfinal vs F.C. Porto with a 2-1 aggregate win and a berth in the semifinals, but Kovačić’s injury has somehow become the narrative of the week despite all of the good news. Chelsea is now making semifinal bids in 2 of Europe’s most prestigious competitions, while well within striking range of Leicester City and surprising West Ham in a potential top-4 Premier League finish.

Leicester and Chelsea could very well meet in the FA Cup final, but London and Las Vegas are not confident in anyone but Citizens to lift the trophy on May 15th. Manchester City is a (-125) futures bet to prevail in its next 2 Football Association Cup matches even though there’s only 1 “minnow” left in the mix, and City isn’t scheduled to play the heavy underdog (Southampton) and likely won’t be.

Saints are a (+900) FA Cup championship futures bet, as you might expect the odds to look on a 14th-place Premier League team against a trio of giants. But the other 2 football clubs’ lines are pretty fat, all things considered.

We’ll get to handicapping current FA Cup futures odds at bottom of scroll. For now, let’s look for the best odds and markets – and they’re varying just a bit from bookmaker to bookmaker – on this weekend’s pair of semifinal fixtures.

Chelsea vs Man City

Not to give the impression that all is glum for Blues. Chelsea back Reese James made headlines earlier this week with quotes that were intended as a public pep rally. “You can’t go into games with any fear. We have many strengths, we play to our strengths and I think that’s shown over recent weeks.” Only a small problem – James was talking about the Champions League semifinals, not the FA Cup semifinals.

Still, you would think Chelsea F.C.’s recent success in UEFA football would make bookmakers and gamblers just a little more confident in the underdog, regardless of the new injury setback. Blues had a very bad start to April, losing to Premier League newcomer West Brom 5-2 after Thiago Silva took a red card in the 1st half. The club’s next Premiership match couldn’t have been a more different story. Chelsea scored early and often against a legendarily defense-oriented club in Crystal Palace, with Christian Pulisic cementing his status as the best Yankee footballer in the sport with a pair of tallies in Pensioners’ 4-1 victory.

City’s exceptionally promising odds-to-win on Saturday can be traced to a match on January 3rd, in which Citizens posted a seemingly routine 3-1 win. It took Chelsea more than 90 minutes to score a meaningless consolation goal, and midfielder Kevin de Bruyne’s tally in the 34th minute made the rest of the fixture academic. Things have changed since then, though, as Chelsea went on to conquer Atletico Madrid and Liverpool while drawing with Man United in a 6-match span beginning in late February. City lost to Leeds United in a dreadful result on April 10th, and the inestimable Sergio Aguero is likely to be unavailable for the upcoming match at Wembley Stadium due to injury problems of his own.

Bovada is still offering the best underdog-win payoff of the FA Cup’s first 2021 semifinal kickoff at (+380). No fault for anyone who bets small units on Blues at just shy of 4-to-1 odds, but the best market is probably regulation-draw at (+255).

Pick: Draw 

Leicester City vs Southampton

Southampton is also an interesting underdog market, standing at a fat (+310) odds to win Sunday’s FA Cup match with Leicester City. Known for aggressive defending but not for scoring a ton of goals against elite opponents, Saints have dominated on both ends of the pitch throughout the 2021 tournament, posting 4 clean sheets in a row despite facing worthy EPL sides in the 4th Round and 5th Round. Southampton’s quarterfinal win over Bournemouth showed Saints in especially good form, unheralded winger Nathan Redmond scoring twice in the 3-0 triumph.

But one can’t blame a focus on the FA Cup for Southampton’s 0-3 loss to West Brom on Monday, in which an early penalty doomed Saints to playing catch-up against a determined host. It’s not as if Southampton is in position to coast through the remainder of the Premier League season while concentrating on having success in a separate competition, given the club is technically still in danger of relegation at just 10 points clear of Fulham and (after Monday’s debacle) 12 points clear of Baggies.

Leicester has had an even harder row to hoe in the FA Cup bracket against Brentford, Brighton, and Man United, but dusted off MUFC 3-1 in the Q-Finals. Recent league losses to Man City and West Ham might be holding Leicester’s line to beat Southampton at 1-to-1 odds, but the Foxes-Citizens match last week was a stubborn, physical affair in which City’s sheer quality carried the day in the 2nd half – quality that Southampton can’t hold a candle to – and West Ham furthered its phenomenal campaign by scoring 3 goals on 4 on-target shots and weathering 9 corners.

Southampton’s counters won’t be as effective against a team that’s legendary for its patience and counterattacks. When the teams met in Premier League play on 1/16, Leicester City let Saints possess the ball for over half the match without surrendering as many as 10 shot attempts, and posted a 2-0 clean sheet.

Bovada’s odds on Foxes-to-win without penalties are (-115) and FanDuel Sportsbook is only offering 1-to-1.25 on Leicester. BetOnline offers the best market at (-110).

Pick: Leicester City

FA Cup Futures: Which Underdog is the Best Investment?

Finally, let’s take another look at FA Cup futures odds with only 4 teams left on the betting board.

Southampton is a taboo wager at (+900). Yes, a lot of “Cinderella” bids have taken place in the finals of the FA Cup, but managerial focus and lineups for the tournament’s final rounds are sharper than they might have been 10 or 20 years ago, and Saints’ recent form isn’t up to the task of besting a combination of Foxes, Blues, and Citizens in consecutive elimination matches.

Man City is also a solid pick at any kind of “plus” payoff odds – but good luck finding those when so many sportsbooks are putting so many chips on Pep Guardiola’s soccer team to keep lifting domestic trophies. Manchester City definitely has a better chance to win FA Cups than UEFA Champions League titles at this point. Despite the constant hype around City’s international prospects, the club’s UEFA results have been disappointing for many cycles running. Yet it’s hard to ignore a pair of extremely tough futures-underdogs at fatter than 3-to-1 odds.

Is Leicester the pick at (+300)? Just because Foxes are the best semifinal pick to win doesn’t make Leicester City the best dark-horse championship candidate. Man City already once took revenge for Leicester’s 5-2 win early in the 2020-21 season, and Chelsea also matches up well against Foxes, making it likely that the teams’ mid-May league meeting will not be a repeat of Leicester’s win in January.

Chelsea F.C. has the highest ceiling and the most momentum, and what’s more, Blues’ semifinal draw isn’t the futures-betting disadvantage that handicappers think it is with the storied club at (+375) or nearly 4-to-1 championship odds.

Yes, Chelsea’s semifinal is far tougher than Leicester’s, but imagine for a moment that Pulisic scores another winner and Chelsea goes into the final having beaten City. If that happens, the confidence voiced by James will no longer be a pep talk but a strong belief in all corners of the dressing room. Chances are slim that Blues could fall flat against a beatable opponent in the final match if coming off a massive upset win.

It’s not always about the draw – especially when betting lines on a top-4 Premier League contender winning exactly 2 more matches are drawn as long as 4/1.