Hey guys! New to the site. Haven't regularly punted in quite a while, but the taste for a little weekend flutter has returned again. Felt I needed to sign up to a forum, as if I'm not articulating & putting my thoughts into black and white, I can be a little lazy/loose - and if I'm a little lazy/loose, then the bookies are sure to win - and we don't want that to happen, do we? ?
So my first post is hardly much of a "tip", but I think Manchester United are nailed on to brush aside Norwich on tomorrow afternoon, and seeing them quoted around 4/5 looks generous to me.
Ole's side have seen their best performances this season come when playing possession based teams; when the emphasis isn't so much on trying to unlock a stubborn deep-block, but just having a compact settled-shape off the ball & pressing aggressively. They beat Leicester & Chelsea this season with less of the ball, and put in, what I thought, was a very good performance vs. Liverpool last weekend with around 35% possession.
Norwich execute a patient, position-play focused possession game with strong emphasis on building from the back (it's naive, if you ask me, but anyway). Only the "big 6", Leicester & Graham Potter's Brighton pass the ball more on average than Norwich, and only 6 sides (City, Chelsea, Leicester, Spurs, Liverpool & Brighton) average more passes-per-min-of-possession; so they're zipping it around at a brisk tempo - the only issue is, they predominantly do it in risky, almost Louis van Gaal-esque deep areas:
And to add to that, they're playing against a side who before the Liverpool game, only allowed opponents on average to construct ~8 passes before forcing a possession turnover. United have a lot of effective/capable pressing players in D.James, Rashford, Lingard, Pereira, Fred, McTominay, Wan-Bissaka (his pressing intensity really impressed me vs. Andy Robertson), etc., most of whom, are expected to start, and will be licking their lips at conceding territorial possession and waiting to pounce on an error; specific pressing trigger(s), a lazy pass, etc.
I just think it's a match made in heaven for United. With the recent mood lift courtesy of the solid Liverpool performance, followed by their first away win in a long time on Thursday, on top of the plus of the returning Martial, who may lack the pressing intensity of most of the aforementioned, but brings much missed quality in and around the box; and against a side who are foot of the table, low on confidence, and despite their "philosophy" playing right into United's hands stylistically, they're likely to be too stubborn to change - so I'm more than happy to have a substantial single on some of that just-shy-of-evens price floating about.
Good luck if you play or add to your accas.
Hope I can contribute positively in the future. Used to contribute to a forum called Racecaller a few years back.
