Chelsea vs. Manchester United prediction: Back the underdog in Premier League matchup

Manchester United need just a single point from its final two Premier League matches to punch their ticket to the 2023-24 Champions League.

After some inconsistent seasons under a slew of different managers, a trip back to Europe’s biggest competition would be a big step for the Red Devils in their quest to reclaim their spot atop the footballing world.

Manchester United will get its first opportunity to clinch Champions League soccer against imploding Chelsea on Thursday night. The Red Devils are a -165 favorite to win the match at the time of writing.

Odds courtesy of FanDuel, current at time of writing and subject to change.

The most important question for handicappers in this match is whether or not the market is overreacting to the situation.

Manchester United will want to leave nothing to chance on the final matchday of the season, so the market will treat this as a desperate spot for the Red Devils, while Chelsea has absolutely nothing to play for in this contest. Bookmakers know that casual money will always come in on the team with more at stake, which means they bake a “must-win” tax into the price.

But overlook Chelsea at your own risk.

This team has been a right mess all season — Chelsea is on its third manager of the season and he’s going to be replaced in the summer by Mauricio Pochettino — but this roster is still chock-full of talent. On paper, the Blues should be able to beat any team in Europe on any given day.

Despite the talent in its ranks, it’s still unlikely that Chelsea gets much betting support on Thursday. Not only are the Blues going up against a better team that has everything to play for, but they’ve also lost eight of 10 matches since Frank Lampard took over as caretaker manager and they’ve scored just seven goals — three of which came in the same game — in that span.

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But there are some silver linings here if you look hard enough. Chelsea is coming off a tough 1-0 loss to Man City last weekend (and yes, City were in a hangover spot after Arsenal’s loss to Nottingham Forest clinched the title for the Cityzens), but it was still encouraging to see the Blues and Cityzens post the same expected goals total at the end of the 90 minutes (1.2).

In fact, it was the fifth time in Chelsea’s last six matches in which they essentially split the xG with their opponents. And while that may seem like a low hurdle for a club of Chelsea’s stature and payroll to leap, it does mark an improvement over what we saw from the Blues during the early parts of April.

Maybe Chelsea are truly “on the beach” and just looking forward to the offseason, but players will always get up for a trip to Old Trafford with a chance to spoil a party for Manchester United. Bettors can show patience and wait for the United money to pour in and then pounce on Chelsea.

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