FOOTBALL JOURNALIST Adam Goodwin (@agjournalism) has scanned the Champions League contest between Young Boys and Manchester United on Wednesday night in search of value.
Young Boys v Manchester United | Wednesday 19th August 2018, 20:00 | BT Sport
After disappointing defeats to Brighton and Tottenham, Manchester United travel to Switzerland off the back of back-to-back victories. They beat Burnley and Watford away from home which is no mean feat and Jose Mourinho will be hoping to carry this form into their Champions League campaign.
United have only won three of their last 10 away games in the Champions League and the last three of those games have only had a combined two goals.
Mourinho will be desperate to get off to a good start here, especially when they have to face Juventus and Valencia in the coming weeks, so expect United to try and nick a tight game.
Marcus Rashford has been confirmed as a starter for this one and after his serving one game of his suspension against Watford at the weekend, he’ll be raring to go for this one.
The youngster has scored seven goals in Europe since his emergence onto the first team scene – including a goal in the Europa League on his debut for the club.
Young Boys
This will be Young Boys first ever Champions League group stage game after they won the Swiss Super League earlier this year. They have featured in Champions League qualifiers in the past and have always tended to get a decent result at home in those games, including wins over Tottenham, Dynamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk in the past.
They’ve only qualified once from a Europa League group in 2013/14 and you’d give them very little hope of making an impact in Group H.
Young Boys are six games into their season and have won every game so far, scoring an average of just over three goals a game. They have four different players on four goals this season so clearly have a lot of threats from different positions. United will be aware of this threat so won’t take anything for granted on Wednesday night.
Another thing that could stifle Jose Mourinho’s men is Young Boys’ artificial pitch and it could take some getting used to for the Red Devils here.
The betting angle
Although Young Boys have started their domestic season in terrific fashion, I think they’ll be slightly out of their depth here.
Manchester United won five of their six Champions League group stage matches last season and, with this being one of the easiest games for them in Group H, they’ll see it as a must win.
I’d oppose goals purely because you’d never fancy a Mourinho side to play with attacking swagger. Also factoring in the lack of goals United tend to score and concede away from home in Europe and the artificial pitch, you’d say that this won’t be as entertaining as the game we saw at Anfield on Tuesday night.
United to win and Under 3.5 Goals is available at 31/20 with Boylesports and I think that’s a great price.
I also like the look of Marcus Rashford to score, for the reasons I made earlier, and I’d also be tempted to back him to score the first goal at 6/1 with 888.
Best Bets
Young Boys v Manchester United – Manchester United to win and Under 3.5 Goals (31/20 Boylesports)
Young Boys v Manchester United – Marcus Rashford to score first (6/1 888)
