Bets for Premier League - Round 6

Another round of making some picks on the Premier League. As always, I don’t make any claim to be good at this (I have never done this at this scale), I don’t recommend following my picks, and this is not a tip service but want to test my ability to try read and analyze the matches.

These are my picks for this weekend:

Newcastle Utd - Newcastle Utd vs Manchester City

Brighton - Chelsea vs Brighton

Liverpool (-1.5) - Wolves vs Liverpool

Tottenham - Manchester Utd vs Tottenham

If I can go 2/4 on these I think I will be pretty happy on these picks. Full explanations for my thoughts below:

Newcastle vs Manchester City

This is a bet that pops up as a positive expected value play picking just Newcastle to win. It isn’t big I have this at 20% and the odds at my sports book show it at 19%.

The big driver of this is without a doubt that Rodri is looking like he will be out for a long period, and we haven’t seen what Manchester City can do for an extended period without him. That ignores that they have played already without him to start the season.

My pause on this is that I don’t know if I trust Newcastle United much. They have played a soft schedule and have not looked all that great. This even ignores that they spent a good amount of time down a man against Southampton.

Overall, their numbers over the last 19 matches played don’t inspire a lot of faith about this team. This is no longer the very strong defensive team that finished the 2022-23 season pushing Arsenal for the title of second-best team in the League.

I am still going to take the shot with Newcastle here but I am not going to like it.

Pick: 1 Unit on Newcastle at 5.0

Chelsea vs Brighton

This is another pick that is showing as a plus expected value play towards Brighton. My model puts this at 23% and the betting odds are pricing it at 22%.

I like this pick, but it is not without some worry. Brighton have been the beneficiary of red card luck in their favor and that is boosting their numbers early on. Even adjusting for that and including last year’s numbers they are not that far off of Chelsea’s rating.

I still really don’t know what to make of Chelsea. They played well against Manchester City, blew out Wolves (who I think are bad) but looked too open at times, and outplayed Crystal Palace (but had an unfortunate draw). The last two matches have been less inspiring, they won big against West Ham but I don’t think were that impressive, and won against Bournemouth in a match that I think they were pretty fortunate.

This is probably why they are in the 4th to 6th range, a team with talent but one that will have inconsistent performances.

Pick: 1 Unit on Brighton at 4.4

Wolves vs Liverpool

This isn’t a plus expected value pick but this is one that I think the betting market hasn’t fully adjusted to the same view as me on how good Wolves are this season. This is a team that isn’t playing well and hasn’t been playing well for a while.

I do also really like Liverpool, they have had a soft schedule but have mostly taken care of business, while showing some interesting adaptations to life under Slott and I think they will have plenty to get past this Wolves team in this match.

Looking at my model and I see the best odds to overall predicted taking the spread bet (first time this season, wish me luck). I have Liverpool beating Wolves by 2 goals as 51% chance outcome and that matches well with the overall odds at Liverpool -1.5 and is better than the straight MoneyLine pick.

Pick: 1 Unit on Liverpool (-1.5) at 1.95

Manchester Utd vs Tottenham

My last bet of the weekend is one of my favorite bets so far this season and that is betting against Manchester United.

So far this season, the betting odds have priced Manchester United as much better team than I think they are. I think the team has improved from last season but it is still quite a ways off from how they are treated, they started out being priced like the 5th best team in the League and that is down to 6th best. That is closer to the 9th my model puts them at but still represents some potential value to go against them.

This is a pretty solid plus expected value pick, with Tottenham looking like an interesting mess of a team. In a way they share lots of similarities to Chelsea where they have some matches that have looked good, others where the performance is okay but they are too open and others that have looked not great.

I think this is a good matchup for them. Manchester United still have frailty to teams that can string together a couple of passes and exploit the areas for cutbacks into the middle. That is something that Spurs do well and it could present them plenty of opportunities to create scoring chances.

Pick: 1 Unit on Spurs at 2.75

Bets this season:

Tracking all the bets I have made this season, overall I am +7.055 units on the season with a couple of hot weeks on the picks.