Premier League Round 13: Money-Line Odds, Spreads, and Best Sunday Pick

Wolverhampton F.C. vs Brighton & Hove Albion (Saturday, 11/5)

The adored, ailing Wanderers brand can boast of brave (+240) odds to upset Brighton & Hove Albion at Molineux Stadium, 3 points that Wolverhampton could badly use in striving to get out of the table’s relegation-zone.

Upon closer inspection, the odds on this Saturday’s kickoff show that Wanderers are still a well-respected brand in London, in spite of recent woes. Wolves earned a crucial “survival” point on the road against Bees in Round 12, but at the same juncture, the veteran English Premier League striker Diego Costa was painfully red-carded in added time of the Brentford-Wolverhampton match, leaving the sagging Wanderers’ attack short of yet another key weapon. Seagulls (+115) could prove to be a popular weekend wager at generously cheap prices, as Brighton is currently coming off a landmark win over Blues, standing at 8th in the Premier League, and having scored 3x as many times as Wolves this cycle.

WagerBop’s Pick: Brighton (+115)

Manchester City vs Fulham F.C. (Saturday, 11/5)

EPL odds-makers expect a body-slam from Sky Blues at City of Manchester Stadium this Saturday.

The Khan family can feel proud of its success in English Premier League adventures, for Cottagers have gone from a newly-promoted minnow to a vaunted underdog on EPL grounds in 11 weeks. Fulham has managed an impressive 2-2-0 record in 4 recent Premier League fixtures, and Cottagers’ 22 goals-scored puts the team in the company of UEFA representatives, together with 7th place among domestic opponents on the 20-team standings table. Cottagers may be drawing shorter odds to finish top-half than to relegate back to a lower-tier league in 2022-23. That is thanks to the solid reputation earned from going tit-for-tat with Reds and other likely 2022 contenders. But it has not been impressive enough to allot Fulham reasonable odds to win this weekend, with FanDuel’s main-market Premier League odds offering Cottagers as a massive (+1900) underdog to Citizens.

Sky Blues’ long-term betting action went up again over Halloween, drawing the team’s championship market to slender (-550) futures odds, meaning the odds are so thin, users must place 5 gambling units on Man City just to hope for a normal 1-to-1 payoff next spring. At the simultaneous juncture, Gunners are soaring off a lovely 5-0 triumph over upstart Tricky Trees, and still lead the English Premier League table by 2 points.

There are some signs from the sportsbook that odds-makers expect a quickly-paced fixture, and even a Cottagers goal or 2 appears to be expected given the bout’s wild markets for total-goals picks. Citizens are a plus-odds pick to cover (-2) against visiting Fulham on Saturday, but wagers on Over (3.5) goals are going at a pricey (-140).

Man City will not hold back from building on a 1-goal lead with judicious forward numbers, as Cottagers are too treacherous to parry with and expect to win 1-0 or 2-1.

WagerBop’s Pick: Man City ATS (-2) (+115)

Nottingham Forest vs Brentford F.C. (Saturday, 11/5)

There is giving credit where credit is due, and then there’s overreacting to a Reds loss in a season that has been chock-full of Liverpool disappointments. To wit, Bees are technically a money-line favorite to defeat host Nottingham Forest at (+160) betting odds to win this weekend, but Forest’s line-to-win is extremely comparable at (+175). Once again, speculators appear to be suffering a “hangover” of their own from a weird outcome.

Tricky Trees’ heroics in the 2021-22 Football Association Cup, and in last season’s English Championship playoff, showed that the team is more than capable of “stealing from the rich” in one-off bouts against quality sides. Yet, Reds’ fresh embarrassment against Forest must be taken in the context of how poorly Liverpool has performed at numerous turns in the young season, at least on domestic soil. Reds went on to lose to Peacocks to fall to 9th place and .500. Tricky Trees were crushed 5-0 in Round 12 by Gunners. Saturday’s odds reflect the previous round’s outcomes but seem to have dismissed the most recent final scores as a factor. Soon enough October will feel far, far away on the ledger.

Brentford has a winning record at City Ground and won 3-1 at Forest in a restricted-crowd match back in 2020. Will a noisy pitch give Nottingham enough of a boost to make a cellar team the real favorite? Possibly, but the roaring (and singing) may not be quite as desperately-loud as the din from weeks ago, as Tricky Trees have played its way out of a costly early-season slump. Now that the smoke is clearing, we are not sure top-half teams should not be favored habitually at City Ground.

WagerBop’s Pick: Brentford (+160)

Chelsea F.C. vs Arsenal F.C. (Sunday, 11/6)

WagerBop is embarrassed to have described Graham Potter’s early returns as Blues’ manager as “promising.” While the past few rounds of Premier League fixtures among the league’s highest tier can be called many things, “promising for Graham Potter” is not one of them. This weekend’s opposing Gunners come off a lovely 5-0 triumph over upstart Tricky Trees and still leads the English Premier League table by 2 points. Blues come off a humiliating 1-4 loss and have not taken 3 points since mid-October vs Villa.

No worries, the money-line markets on Sunday’s kickoff are still pretty well matched. Pensioners and Gunner each carry at (+165) price to triumph. Surely, the fanatical setting of Stamford Bridge has something to do with that. But the crowd noise did not help Blues defeat Red Devils when the clubs drew 1-1 in the last bout on Chelsea grounds.

Bookmakers are waiting for Gunners to fall off the summit, and Blues are known for playing above the team’s current form on special days and in critical situations. Remember that Chelsea was a betting underdog each and every time Blues faced City late in the 2020-21 cycle, and yet Christian Pulisic’s club became a bad bugaboo for the favorites. Goal-total odds of (-116) on Over (2.5) tallies show that bookmakers still do not completely trust Gunners’ back line, which has been brilliant in 2022 after years of slovenly efforts.

It is not time for Pensioners and Spurs to play top-level spoilers until spring. Think of the Marcus Aerelius principle, “ask of a thing, what of it.” Gunners and Blues may be destined to finish much closer together than they are now, but the fixture in question occurs in November, not among the climactic rounds of a spring elimination-bracket.

WagerBop’s Pick: Arsenal (+165)