Champions League predictions: Young Boys vs. Manchester City odds, pick
We’ve seen this movie before with Manchester City.
It seems to be a habit for Pep Guardiola’s Sky Blues to put take a rather laissez-faire approach to the first third of the soccer season before really clicking into gear when the fixtures start to pile up around the holiday season.
We saw this in 2022-23 when City fell behind Arsenal in the Premier League (the Gunners were actually the betting favorites to win the title at one point), before hitting their stride after New Year’s Day.
Manchester City vs. Young Boys prediction
(3 p.m. ET. Paramount+)
City was so dominant down the stretch, and they won the treble in one of the most impressive campaigns ever by an English team, so we almost just assume they just ran riot all season long.
But that is just recency bias.
That’s why it is not that alarming that the Cityzens find themselves in a bit of a slide right now.
The Sky Blues did get back on track with a 2-1 win over Brighton this past weekend, but that was far from a great performance as the expected goals ended up even with both teams producing 0.8 xG at the Etihad on Saturday.
That pedestrian offensive output is not an outlier, either. In fact, you could argue it’s been the main theme in Manchester City’s season so far.
Can the Cityzens get right against an overmatched Young Boys team in the Champions League on Wednesday?
Manchester City rarely finds itself in a true must-win spot, but Saturday against Brighton was pretty darn close.
City had lost three of four matches across all competitions before the international break and had scored just once in the three defeats in that span.
The statistical data was not encouraging, either, as the Cityzens created just 1.4 xG in their losses to Wolves and Arsenal and they didn’t do much to dispel the concerns about their attack in a gutsy win over Brighton.
Despite the malaise, Wednesday’s match against Young Boys is a terrific opportunity for City to figure things out.
While the Sky Blues have struggled to create offense of late, they have plastered most of the weaker sides they’ve played this season aside from Wolverhampton.
City put up 3.5 xG on Sheffield United, 3.6 on West Ham United, 4.1 against Red Star Belgrade and 2.2 against both RB Leipzig and Fulham.
If the Cityzens aren’t afraid of your counterattack, they will punish you.
This is more about the situation and is admittedly a pencil-and-paper handicap rather than a numbers-based play, but it’s hard to see City not jumping on this opportunity to build some confidence in their attack.
The bet: Man City -2.5 (+140, BetMGM)
