we have a couple of make up matches with big results pending for the title
GLTA

Man City looks to take one step close to the Premier League title when they travel to North London to take on Tottenham.

Tottenham got a much needed late win over Burnley on Saturday to keep their hopes for the top four alive. What Spurs need to do is win their final two matches and have Aston Villa draw or lose at Crystal Palace to secure a top four finish. Tottenham drew Manchester City 3-3 at the Etihad earlier this season and historically have given Pep Guardiola a lot of trouble over the years.

Manchester City romped Fulham 4-0 on Saturday to move within two wins of the Premier League title. With Arsenal beating Manchester United it means that no matter what, the Premier League title will come down to the final day, which always creates a lot of drama. Manchester City have now won seven straight matches in the Premier League, but they have over-performed during this run, so there may be some negative regression hitting them on Tuesday.

Tottenham have been pretty thoroughly dominated in both meetings with Manchester City this season, but it’s really only because of two areas, high turnovers and set pieces.

Spurs are a team that is going to build out of the back, regardless of who the opponent is. In the first meeting at the Etihad, they were severely hampered by injuries and had to start a center back pairing of Emerson Royal and Ben Davies, which led to numerous easy chances from City off their 11 forced high turnovers. But, when Tottenham had their most success was breaking quickly in transition or making one touch passes to runners in behind Manchester City’s back line once they beat the first line of pressure. Two of their three goals in the first meeting came off of these two scenarios in this first meeting.

One guy who didn’t play in either match was James Maddison, who has been crucially important to Tottenham’s build up given his ability to drop deep and drag defenders with him. You’ll see him a lot of times out wide when opponents try to play man to man, which creates space centrally for all of Tottenham’s other attackers. But he is their main man in terms of getting the ball going forward. He has 205 progressive passes this season in only 21.8 90s. Next closest on the team in Pedro Porro with 180 and he’s played 10 more matches.

Manchester City had one of their best performances out of possession against Fulham on Sunday, holding them to just one shot for the entirety of the match. Things will be a little different against Tottenham and even though they've had success high pressing in both meetings, for the season, City are not an elite pressing team.

Manchester City are ninth in both PPDA and final third to box entry conversion rate allowed, as well as 11th in build up completion percentage allowed. Their lack of elite pressing has come back to bite them in a lot matches, as well as their defending in transition. The reason they have conceded a lot of chances in transition is because Pep Guardiola has identified that they need to push Rodri and Gvardiol high up the pitch to help overload the last line of defense and has accepted that there will often times be 3 v 3 situations in transition.

Even though City have been running up the score against lesser competition, they still have not beaten a big six club in the Premier League outside of Manchester United. Additionally, Manchester City’s performances against the top sides away from the Etihad haven’t been great all season long. In their last two against Chelsea and Real Madrid they failed to create over one expected goal, and they were thoroughly outplayed by Liverpool at Anfield, giving up 2.7 expected goals. They’ve lost and failed to create over one expected goal against Aston Villa and Arsenal away from home.

There is the overarching thing in the air where if Tottenham were to get a result, it would give the title to their North London rivals, which is a very difficult thing to bet into, but with their chances for top four still mathematically alive, I think we’ll get some good effort here from Tottenham because the chance to play in the Champions League will override any hatred for their rival, no matter what the fans say.

There is a ton of "must win" baked into this line. When these two met in the FA Cup in December, Manchester City closed as a -120 favorite at Tottenham. Now, given the situation, they are more than double that price, which I don't believe is warranted, especially with Tottenham having James Maddison available.

If you are a believer in bogey teams, which are teams that certain teams struggled with for no particular reason, Tottenham are that to Manchester City. Since 2020, Manchester City are 4-1-5 against Tottenham.

I had a plan to ride City out on the ML for the remainder of the season a few weeks ago. This one has me 2nd guessing.

What's the best site to see bet percentages on soccer plays? They are hard to find unless you have an offshore book which I do not.

Chelsea will try to continue their late-season surge up the table when they visit a Brighton and Hove Albion squad that has been mired in an extended attacking slump.

With Tottenham’s loss to Manchester City on Tuesday, Chelsea began Wednesday with a slim chance of catching Spurs for sixth in the league table.

Brighton have an even slimmer chance of finishing as high as eighth with wins in their last two, but they could virtually assure themselves of 10th or better with a home win.

Chelsea earned a 3-2 win in the sides’ previous meeting at Stamford Bridge back in early December.

A Brighton side that has drawn praise in recent seasons for its attacking endeavor has been mired in a prolonged attacking funk, scoring only six times in their last 11 league meetings.

Injuries have been a contributing factor. Leading scorer Joao Pedro missed five of those games and came off the bench for a sixth, though he should be available after missing a 1-1 draw at Newcastle United on the weekend with an ankle issue.

Solly March has been unavailable most of the season, and Karou Mitoma and Evan Ferguson are also out for Wednesday with continuing ailments.

Considering all that, the Seagulls’ haul of 10 points over those 11 matches is fairly impressive, having come on only six total goals scored against 18 conceded.

And despite not scoring multiple goals in any of those 11 games, maybe they’re nearing a breakthrough after more promising performances in their last two matches.

The Seagulls combined to create 3.9 expected goals in their last two games, a 1-0 home win over Aston Villa and a 1-1 away draw at Newcastle United.

It was the most manager Roberto De Zerbi’s side had generated over two games since a 5-0 win over Sheffield United followed by a 1-1 draw against Everton in February.

There have been plenty of growing pains in Mauricio Pochettino’s first year in charge at Chelsea, but the Argentine appears to have succeeded in bringing measurable improvements.

The Blues have lost only once in their last 13 to climb from their position beneath the mid-table line. And perhaps most encouragingly, they’ve appeared to solve some of their previous defensive struggles recently, keeping clean sheets in three of their last six.

But the next step is taking that defense on their travels. The Blues have conceded two or more in five consecutive away league fixtures, and 12 overall. Technically you could say those recent efforts have been slightly unlucky, with opponents outscoring their xG predictions in all five of those games. Even so, a total of 11.7 expected goals allowed in those five games is no show of strength.

Haaland’s brace against Spurs probably ends any realistic shot for Chelsea’s Cole Palmer to win the PL Golden Boot. He enters the match on 21 goals, six back of Haaland with only one goal in his last four appearances.

For all of Chelsea’s improvement, they have still proven an inconsistent away side, winning only five times on their travels. That includes only one match against a team in the top half and only three times against teams outside of the bottom quarter of the table.

Meanwhile, although Brighton’s attacking struggles have tangible causes, they’ve also appeared to catch their breath in recent weeks after their UEFA Europa League round of 16 in March. They’ve only lost three times at home, with two of those coming to title contenders Arsenal and City.

Draw, Brighton No Bet

Newcastle and Manchester United battle it out at Old Trafford with Europa and Europa Conference League places at stake.

Manchester United were beaten 1-0 by Arsenal on Sunday, which now puts their hopes of playing European football next season on life support. The Red Devils need all three points from this match but are still dealing with a ton of injuries, so it's going to take a monumental effort to win just their second match since the beginning of April.

Newcastle were unlucky to draw Brighton over the weekend, which means they're now level on points with Chelsea for the Premier League's final Europa League spot. Newcastle has throughly beaten Manchester United twice this season, which will give them a ton of confidence to get all three points at Old Trafford.

What Arsenal did was control the match from out of possession, they knew that Manchester United was not good enough in their build-up play to break them down and the only way they’d get exposed was in transition — so Arsenal didn’t allow them to do that.

Without Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford, United were only able to create 0.64 expected goals (xG) on 14 shots, which is expected when you are playing the best defensive team in the world. This match kind of suits them to play in transition, but Newcastle does that better than just about any team in the Premier League.

It's the same old story defensively for Manchester United who are going to come out in their flawed tactical setup, trying to press with only their attackers, which will leave space in the middle of the pitch once the first line of pressure is beaten or easy outlet balls out wide. Erik ten Hag is caught between two different setups and doesn't seem to want to change any time soon, so the same Manchester United team that is allowing 2.32 xG per 90 minutes in 2024 and is conceding 17.2 shots per 90 minutes.

The other problem for Manchester United in this matchup is they're a very average team at defending set pieces, which is a massive problem against a Newcastle team that's third in xG per set piece and has also created the second most big scoring chances in the Premier League.

Newcastle has beaten Manchester United twice by using two different defensive structures. In the first meeting, Newcastle was dealing with a lot of injuries and employed a passive 4-5-1 mid-block and constantly turned Manchester United over at the midway line creating easy transition opportunities.

In the second meeting, Newcastle deployed their usual 4-3-3 high press and forced nine high turnovers and having 7.1 passes per defensive action. Their press suffocated United and allowed them to have a 68% field tilt on their way to creating 2.75 expected goals.

So the question is, what is going to change in the third meeting? Not much in my opinion.

Newcastle has been playing more aggressively out of possession over the second half of the season and the way Manchester United wants this match to be played is only going to suit Newcastle. The Magpies love to play very direct, will almost always send the ball long from goal kicks, and are outstanding at winning second balls and getting the ball in behind the last line of defense. If Manchester United are going to go with a center-back pairing of Casemiro and Johnny Evans again, I don't know how they'll stop Newcastle's front three.

Newcastle has created a boatload of chances recently against teams like Burnley and Sheffield United, but Manchester United's defense is just as bad as those two. Since January 30th, Newcastle is averaging 2.20 xG per 90 minutes, which is the third-best mark in the Premier League.

I really don't see a way for Manchester United to stop Newcastle's offense in this match. Manchester United can no longer control matches and they are not going to be able to build up with success against Newcastle's press. That means they are likely going to have to send the ball long and play in a back-and-forth transitional match with one of the best transition teams in the Premier League.

Newcastle are still dealing with some injuries across their back line, as it looks like they will have to go with a center-back pairing of Dan Burn and Emil Krafth, which is not great.

Newcastle Team Total Over 1.5