Burnley v Man City: Citizens to come under threat from Clarets

BURNLEY host Manchester City on Tuesday from Turf Moor. We asked Tom Love (@TomLove_18) to source the best bets from the Premier League encounter.

Burnley v Manchester City | Tuesday 3rd December 2019, 20:15 | Amazon Prime

Manchester City dropped another two points at St James' Park last weekend which continues the Citizens' poor run of form. It’s just one win in five now for City and that will frustrate the perfectionist that is Pep Guardiola.

City are slipping further away from Liverpool and it looks like the title could be beyond them now. I’d be far from inclined to back them at artificially short prices in the league, I believe their full focus is on European glory this year. It’s a tricky trip to Burnley for them under the lights and the 2/9 quotes on an away win just can’t be justified in my eyes.

It’s at the back where this team is struggling, the absence of Aymeric Laporte continues to hinder them and it’s now no clean sheet in seven. Having said that, they always offer an attacking threat, that’s been backed up in the underlying numbers.

With that in mind, there has to be some value in the 19/20 (bet365) offering on Both Teams To Score. Burnley are more than capable of causing this patched up City defence some problems. The physical threat of Chris Wood combined with the non-stop harrying of Ashley Barnes will frighten this soft backline.

Despite losing 2-0 at home to Crystal Palace on Saturday, the Clarets were extremely unlucky to come away with nothing. Sean Dyche saw his side win the Expected Goals xG battle 2.26-0.92 and on another day they’d win that game. Burnley also rank as the seventh best team on xG ratio this season, racking up a healthy average xG for of 1.60 per game; they’re playing to their strengths and rightly so.

We could be looking at a centre-half partnership of John Stones and Fernandinho for the away side here and we know how susceptible City can be in the air and from set-pieces. With that in mind, I have to have a small go on the 16/1 (SkyBet) boost on Chris Wood to score a header.

The big Kiwi is joint top scorer for the Lancashire club and half of his goals have been with his head. With the likes of Matt Lowton and Dwight McNeil whipping the balls into the box, the New Zealand international has the height advantage over the City centre halves and will always be a major threat.