TOM LOVE (@TomLove_18) picks out his favourite betting angle as Arsenal entertain Chelsea in Saturday evening's capital derby from The Emirates.
Arsenal v Chelsea | Saturday 19th January 2019, 17:30 | BT Sport
Arsenal can close the gap to fourth-placed Chelsea to three points should they run out victorious here. It’s a big game for the Gunners and they’ll fancy themselves at their Emirates base.
Unai Emery’s men have lost on just the one occasion in North London this season and that was against Manchester City in their first game under the Spaniard. Arsenal have W8-D2-L0 of their following 10 home fixtures, beating Spurs and holding Liverpool in that sequence.
With that record you’d expect them to be favourites in this one but that’s not the case – Arsenal are going off at 21/10, whereas Chelsea are best price 7/5. Blues backers will point you to the fact that they’ve won seven of their 10 road trips but they’ve only played Spurs from the Big Six away, and they were torn apart in that match.
I’d presume this has been priced up on the performance data and Chelsea are third on the main metrics but aren’t in any kind of serious form. Many of their wins have come by a single goal too, including their last four. Maurizio Sarri’s men just aren’t blowing teams away.
Performances haven’t been brilliant for Chelsea and they made hard work of beating Newcastle last week. However, Sarri will be optimistic of his side getting on the scoresheet as Arsenal have kept just three clean sheets this season. The potential of Eden Hazard running at this out-of-sorts defence is a frightening thought.
Not many others are contributing bar the Belgian though. He’s been involved in half of Chelsea’s goals this season (goals and assists) which goes to show how pivotal he is to this side.
It will be interesting to see if Emery puts one of his central midfielders on Jorginho to stop Chelsea controlling the game. It’s worked a treat for most sides ever since Spurs tried it earlier in the season, Aaron Ramsey could come in and do that role as Mesut Ozil probably lacks the discipline to do so.
The betting angles
With the price that Arsenal are at, we can get the draw onside along with the hosts. As mentioned, the Gunners have lost just one at The Emirates, against Manchester City.
Using Bet365’s BetBuilder we can get a 10/11 shot by combining Arsenal in the Double Chance and Over 1 goal. Only two Arsenal games have gone Under 1.5 Goal with their games averaging 3.50 goals per-game. Chelsea games are averaging 2.60 goals per-game which mirrors that of their games Expected Goals.
I’m also happy to have a poke on the 69/10 (Marathon) on Draw/Arsenal in the Half-Time/Full-Time market – 79% of Arsenal’s goals at home have come in the second-half so fatigue is rarely a problem, they have the energy when some teams don’t and use that to their advantage.
This bet has landed in nine of Arsenal’s 12 wins this season, a quite remarkable trend. With the magnitude of this game it wouldn’t surprise me to see it all-square at the break, and with Arsenal’s penchant for bagging in the second-half this bet looks overpriced. I’d expect it to be around 11/2 so nearly 7/1 looks a nice alternative angle.
Best Bets
Arsenal v Chelsea – Arsenal double chance and over 1 goal (Bet365 BetBuilder)
Arsenal v Chelsea – Draw/Arsenal Half-Time/Full-Time (69/10 Marathon)
