Manchester Untied v Manchester City thoughts.
I have decided to pass on the big game, the Manchester Dertby.
After mining a lot of data for this game I have come to the conclusion that the best play for this game is NO PLAY. Here's why.
As you all know, both teams are with new managers to start the season. Both teams in my view haven't looked entirely comfortable yet in league play and although this is a hotly contested derby and on paper there appears to be enough goal scorers to get this game to 3 goals, there are considerations that anyone handicapping this game should consider. I thought I would share these with you all even though I have no play on the game.
As you all know, this is the first derby for both of these managers but if one manager holds the advantage entering this game it is United skipper David Moyes. Moyes, during his time with Everton, didn't really do too well against the big clubs HOWEVER HE DID HAVE SUCCESS AGAINST MANCHESTER CITY.
Since 2007/08, Moyes’ Everton squads won 9 of 12 league meetings with Manchester City, losing only TWO times. A record of 9W-2L-1D so the managerial edge here has to go to Moyes and his United bunch.
Now, over the past two seasons, Manchester City have won 3 of the 4 league meetings between these two teams. However, they have not had much success in the home fixtures where their record is 1W-1D-3L over the past 5 seasons. They failed to score 3 times in those 5 games.
United on the whole have lost just 2 of their last 20 road games, and have in the last 3 seasons have a 3-3-3 record when playing on the road against teams that finished in the top four of the table..
As for the total … back to Moyes managerial record against Manchester City, I don't necessarily expect an open game. Looking at Moyes' history with Everton, Since 2004/05, all 18 Everton/Man City matches had fewer than four goals, with 13 staying under 2.5., The under went 15-3. This particular fixture (The United Derby played at Manchester City) has had fewer than two goals in four of the past five seasons.
In the last 3 seasons, Mancheser City have seen under 2.5 goals in six of their nine home games against top-four finishers and neither team as I’ve already mentioned, has looked particularly good in attack domestically under their new managers.
Another major concern for Manchester City is the status of David Silva. I looked into how important he is to the team and since joining Man City, the team has won 71% of matches with Silva in the lineup compared to just half of the games he’s missed. It looks like he’ll be out of the lineup.
Silva’s likely absence again leads to an expectation of fewer goals with almost 60% of the games he’s missed since 2011/12 (56% to be exact) going under 2.5 and 36% of those games staying UNDER 1.5 goals.
With all that said, I still ran my spreadsheets and they came back with an average handicap of 2.65. Not giving me enough value to play the over but not enough to play an extremely rare under for me. HOWEVER, there is a lean on Manchester United. My spreadsheets came back 1-1, 1-1, 2-1 City and 2-1 United. ...
If I had to make a play, based on the way Moyes has dominated City as a tactition with Everton (and he has a much better crop of players to manage against them) the edge would have to go to United but I will likely pass on this game. I jsut hope this information might help some of my fellow bettors.
Off to bed. I will look at the Spurs game in the morning.