CARABAO CUP WEDNESDAY: The Striker previews Wednesday’s matches between ARSENAL v BRIGHTON and MANCHESTER CITY v CHELSEA both with a recommended BETDAQ bet.
ARSENAL V BRIGHTON
7.45pm The Carabao Cup Third Round continues on BETDAQ Betting Exchange with some cracking fixtures on Wednesday! All eyes will no doubt be on Manchester City v Chelsea later on, but we start the evening with Premier League table toppers Arsenal against Brighton. We’d have to expect some changes to both XI’s here given the view clubs take on this competition, but this should be a high quality game between two sides who like to play attacking football. Arsenal recorded another huge win at the weekend away to Chelsea, grinding out a fully deserved 1-0 win away from home. That’s another test passed in their title bid, and if they can beat Wolves at the weekend they will go into the World Cup sitting top of the table. Not many English football fans would have called that at the start of the season! To be fully honest, even breaking back into the Top Four has been an incredible achievement for Arsenal given they have gone so long without Champions League football, and now they are “proper” title challengers. The only thing you would say is they do have a difficult fixture list, but they are winning games and as we saw with Manchester United at the weekend – you don’t always win the game everyone expects you to.
Brighton are also having an excellent season. After another entertaining win the weekend they sit in sixth place in the Premier League table and they have played some top class football this season. Given they are likely to challenge for the European spots this season, I would expect some changes here. At the moment though they have Chelsea and Liverpool behind them in the league, and they would surely have an excellent chance of a decent Cup run if they could beat Arsenal here. It’s hard to be very confident given we do expect changes – it would be foolish to think others – so I’m going to keep stakes small. The Arsenal lay is tempting at 1.75 because I do feel Brighton will make the game closer than those odds suggest, however both sides have been scoring goals and creating chances for fun this season. Over 2.5 goals looks the best value play here at 1.89.
The Striker Says:
Two points win Over 2.5 goals at 1.89 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/ArsBri
MANCHESTER CITY v CHELSEA
8pm Now for the highlight of the Third Round as Manchester City host Chelsea! Once again we can expect a lot of changes to the main starting XI’s from both sides, so while it won’t be quite the high profile clash we would see in the Premier League it’s still a very interesting game. On balance after the weekend, you’d have to say that Graham Potter hasn’t really got off to a flying start with Chelsea. He’s had some good results in the Champions League, mainly the two wins against AC Milan, but they have continued to be quite average in the Premier League. It was always going to be a very difficult job to replace Thomas Tuchel, and the reality is once you get to this level you have to ask has the change in manager made a big impact? I would suggest the xG figures have been the same with the two managers so the squad hasn’t changed, and from that point of view I would rather Tuchel still in charge. Manchester City come into this game as the 1.5 favourites and rightly so – they have such a strong squad that their second XI would probably get a European spot in they were in the Premier League, and all Chelsea’s poor performances recently have come away from home too. They had to grind their way past Crystal Palace and Aston Villa – they conceded an xG of 2.65 to Villa while winning 1-0 in a very lucky result and then they were outplayed by Brentford and hammered 4-1 by Brighton away from home too.
After an average performance away to Leicester, City recorded a “smooth” 2-1 win over Fulham at the weekend. It was only one goal in the difference, but they bossed the game and recorded a nice xG figure. It will be interesting to see what kind of tactics we get for this game – I would expect changes which could make both sides start a little slow. Chelsea haven’t been creating many chances at all away from home lately, and City will see a lot of the ball here. With the changes for City and expecting a slow start, Under 2.5 goals is a very tempting bet at 2.44. I couldn’t put anyone off that from a trading point of view – I wouldn’t be surprised to see 0-0 at half-time followed by City grinding out a 1-0 or 2-0 win. I do like the Under 2.5 goals option, but on balance Chelsea have been so poor away from home recently I’m happy to take the 1.5 on City here. Much like our Arsenal bet at the weekend, it’s just a good time to meet Chelsea at the moment and City are in good form too.
The Striker Says:
Two points win Manchester City to beat Chelsea at 1.5 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/MciChe
