WILL DYER (@w2Dyer) delivered fabulous profit during Euro 2016. Here he previews Manchester City's second leg clash against Steaua Bucharest at the Etihad.
Manchester City v Steaua Bucharest | Wednesday 19:45 | BT Sport 2
Manchester City romped home 5-0 in the first leg in Romania. I hadn’t foreseen such a comfortable victory for the Sky Blues but Steaua were played off the park an,d in all honesty, they were lucky to keep it to five goals with Sergio Aguero missing two early penalties.
It’s no surprise then that people are even talking about the possibility of double figures in the second leg with City back at the Etihad and coming into the game off the back of a 4-1 win at Stoke at the Britannia last Saturday.
City looked good against Stoke but it was not as comfortable as the scoreline suggests. Nolito scored twice late on to make it 4-1 after Stoke had pulled one back and were on the front foot.
Raheem Sterling once again looked a different player to the one we saw last season. His driving runs created lots of problems just as they did in Bucharest last Tuesday.
Steaua had a couple of chances in the first leg and some decent ones fell to Nicolae Stanciu, a player that I highlighted whom could be a danger. The likelihood of them scoring at Etihad looks further reduced now though after failing to bag at home.
Dinamo Bucharest fans played a wonderfully extravagant prank on Steaua by posing as tifo providers and spelling out the words “Doar Dinamo Bucuresti”. Which roughly translated as ‘Only Dinamo Bucharest’.
Supporters of the capital club also vented their frustration on social media after the game, taking shots at Man City’s wealth and club stature. Pretty embarrassing. In all in all it was a game to forget for Steaua who had started the season well.
Steaua are available at 18/1 to win this, that’s a bigger price than Sunderland were on the opening weekend. However, getting with the visitors is pretty hard to quantify so I’m looking towards the ‘Win To Nil’ and handicap markets.
City still look far from impenetrable at the back but Pablo Zabaleta has returned to the side (which I like) and they would have kept a clean sheet at the Britannia if it wasn’t for a dubious holding call from Mike Dean by Raheem Sterling on Ryan Shawcross.
Bucharest only managed three shots on goal at home so you’d expect that to be even less on their travels and with Manchester City dominating the ball under Guardiola I’m pretty confident the ‘Win To Nil’ will cop at 77/100 with Marathonbet.
Nolito has scored three goals in his last two games for Man City and with being on the pitch for only 116 minutes in those matches that gives him a goal-per-minute ratio of 1:38 – very impressive and he looks like he’ll easily build on the 12 goals he scored last season for Celta Vigo. He's 5/4 to score anytime with Skybet.
City could run away with this. Pep is expected to make a few changes but with such stellar substitutes, that will be keen to impress, that might not even be a bad thing.
Just in case the hosts run out clear winners again I’ll back them to win by more than four goals at 15/2 with Ladbrokes.
Best Bets
Manchester City v Steaua Bucharest – Manchester City to ‘Win To Nil’ (77/100 Marathonbet)
Manchester City v Steaua Bucharest – Nolito to score anytime (5/4 Skybet)
Manchester City v Steaua Bucharest – Manchester City –4 handicap (15/2 Ladbrokes)
