Premier League: Arsenal vs. Man City prediction for Wednesday’s match

Wednesday’s Premier League match between first-place Arsenal and second-place Manchester City is easily the biggest game of the year.

As it stands now, the Gunners lead the Cityzens by five points in the table, but City has two games in hand on Arsenal and is in flawless form at the moment. The momentum is with Man City, but a game this big can change everything and it does feel like the winner (if there is one) of Wednesday’s match at the Etihad will be the favorite to win the league.

City is a -180 home favorite on Wednesday afternoon and is -450 to lift the trophy at season’s end.

It doesn’t take much digging into the the numbers to get to the conclusion that City is, once again, the best team in the world. The Cityzens pace the Premier League in goal difference, goals scored, expected goals for, big scoring chances created and allowed and expected goal difference.

And beyond the numbers, there is the form. The Cityzens have won six Premier League matches on the spin, defeated Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarterfinals last week and advanced to the FA Cup Final over the weekend. City look like a runaway train.

Arsenal, meanwhile, have picked a tough time to lose the plot. Not only have the Gunners drawn three matches in a row, but they blew two-goal leads in two of those contests and in the other they needed a multi-goal comeback to earn a point against last-place Southampton. While those results are surprising, the numbers have shown that this was coming for quite some time.

From the opening whistle of the season until the World Cup, Arsenal were the best defensive team in the Premier League. Since then, they’ve posted numbers of a solid team that uses a strong attack to bail out its defense.

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Before the World Cup, Arsenal allowed 0.6 goals, 0.7 expected goals and 7.9 shots per contest. Since returning from the break, those numbers have bumped to 1.1, 9.5 and 1.1, respectively. Those are not terrible numbers at all, but they’re not what you’d expect from a team that is challenging for a title.

Everything in the lead-up to this match is pointing to a Manchester City victory, but in betting everything comes down to price and from a purely market perspective, there is no value on betting City at this moment in time. Sure, the Cityzens are the likelier winner on Wednesday, but this the high-water mark for the two-time defending champions this season. The lookahead lines for this match had City priced around -150/-155 not too long ago, so you’d be buying high if you got in now.

As for the Gunners, this is about as low as the market has been on Arsenal since the fall. You could absolutely make an argument that getting a team of Arsenal’s quality is worth a play at +475 no matter their form

The hype around City right now is warranted, but it’s also driving the market way too high. There’s no choice but to take the value on the unfancied Gunners on Wednesday.

The Bet: Arsenal +475

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