This has been a hard match to find any kind of value in. The match odds are low for a home win but not high enough to tempt me into even think about taking the risk on an unlikely draw or away win. At 1.29 with William Hill, Manchester United are ranked as massive favourites. You can get 5.5 for the draw or 13 for an away win with the same bookie but although those results could happen, I wouldn’t want to risk my money on it happening this weekend.
Manchester United are an improving side and are unbeaten in the league going back to Matchday 9 when they came up against a very impressive Chelsea side who are beating most teams this season. Paul Pogba is improving and starting to look like the player we saw at Juventus, similar sentiments can be expressed about Henrikh Mkitaryan who had looked a classy performer before he joined the club and is now starting to get into the swing of things at his new club. Zlatan is Zlatan and although it looks like he’ll break his run of winning titles at every club he plays for, he’s still a class act and his work up front has seen him score a few goals and also bring others into play as well.
Middlesbrough have been tough to beat but results on the road have been depressing for their traveling fans so far. They’ve managed just one win on the road and none in their last 6 away matches. They’ve struggled to score goals, notching just 7 goals away from (or 0.78 per match). Luckily, for them, they’ve been pretty tight at the back and their goals against record has been pretty good, both at home and away. They’ve conceded slightly more than a goal a game overall and have a similar ratio when playing on the road.
Middlesbrough away games have not been exciting. 66% of their matches have finished under 2.5 goals and they’ve only scored more than one goal on two occasions away from the Riverside (the draw against Leicester and the win against Sunderland).
This lack of exciting action and, more importantly, lack of goals at either end is what’s holding me back from the Asian Handicap markets. I don’t see a Manchester United side going out all guns blazing and scoring a lot of goals. I don’t see Middlesbrough opening up enough to allow that to happen.
What I can see is a narrow Manchester United victory so I’m going to Manchester United To Win To Nil bet. Reasonable odds on that as well with BetVictor offering 1.8 and others close to that. It’s not going to make you rich but it stands a good chance of winning and that’s what counts, right?
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