DANNY Mercer (@OneDannyMercer) has dipped his toe back into the cards markets for Saturday night’s Premier League showdown at the Etihad.
Manchester City v Newcastle United | Saturday 17.30 | Sky Sports 1
Manchester City and Newcastle meet for the third time this season and I’m fully expecting the cards to flow when they lock horns at Saturday evening. The two previous showdowns between the sides have produced 11 cards this term while last season’s three head-to-head clashes featured 17!
Chris Foy is the man in the middle for this fixture and he’s averaging three cards per-live-game. That’s the same figure as last season for Foy but I just get the feeling he’ll be a little card happy this weekend.
When taking charge of Man City matches, the man in the middle has produced 13 cards in his last five games but 10 of those bookings have been given to Citizens players. And the referee has dished out 20 cards in his last six outings involving Newcastle with 13 of those bookings going the way of the Magpies.
Now I watched the Capital One Cup meetings between these two and is was evident that City’s Eliaquim Mangala, really struggled. The Frenchman played a part Roland Aarons opener for Newcastle before collecting a yellow card later in the game.
Mangala is clumsy and certainly doesn’t look like he’s adapting to the English game yet. There’s obviously potential there but I’m happy to target him on Saturday evening with BetVictor offering 13/5 on the home centre-back finding his way into Foy’s book.
The defender has been shown three yellow cards and one red in his last nine Premier League games; he’s proving a bit of a liability for Manuel Pellegrini in the disciplinary stakes and last season he chalked up 13 cards for Porto in just 33 matches in all competitions.
Newcastle knew Mangala was the weak link last time, so they’ll probably look to target him again on Saturday evening. The visitors played three up front last time the teams met and if they do so again, I expect Ayoze Pérez, Yoan Gouffran and Papiss Cissé to cause the Frenchman plenty more problems. That should hopefully lead to plenty of fouls and a winning 13/5 shot.
Best Bets
Manchester City v Newcastle United – Eliaquim Mangala to be shown a card (13/5 BetVictor)
Newcastle 33/1 To Beat Man City (888 Sport)
Hey, stranger things have happened! Remember at the end of last year Newcastle knocked City out the Capital One Cup?
888 Sport are offering new customers a weekend-making 33/1 on the Magpies beating them again.
