English Premier League odds, best bets: Why Chelsea can get back into top 4 and Wolves have to worry about relegation
It didn’t take too long to get back into the swing of things in the Premier League. Just when you blink it returns on Friday with Burnley hosting Manchester City. We’re more or less in the same place as recent years: Man City is the favorite and everyone else is chasing Pep Guardiola’s team.
Off of their treble-winning season and losing key stars like Riyad Mahrez and İlkay Gündoğan, Manchester City maintains its seat as the league favorites. This comes as no surprise when a team has dominated and won five of the last six titles. It’s their right to start as favorites.
However, we are always keen to try and find out if someone can displace the current champions. The biggest clubs had a rough go of it last season with Chelsea having one of its worst campaigns in a couple decades. Chelsea finished 12th, its lowest finish since 1993-94.
Premier League champion odds
Manchester United might have had a good season in the Premier League, but once again question marks remain. Does Antony play up to his price tag? Does Rasmus Højlund live up to his expectations? Højlund has a back injury so he is already set to miss time. United might have made some strides last season and adding André Onana from Inter Milan is a plus, but I won’t even consider them at a +1000 (10-to-1) number to win the league.
Liverpool (+800, 8-to-1) is a squad that I am high on going into the season, but the midfield raises a lot of questions. Losing leaders like Fabinho and Jordan Henderson will hurt in certain ways, but the overall quality of the squad is still strong. They are certainly a force to be reckoned with and I think we saw a glimpse of what they did towards the end of last season where they went unbeaten in 11 straight Premier League matches whilst winning seven of those.
Arsenal did a terrific job of reinforcing its squad, but yet again will be without Gabriel Jesus for an extended period. His replacements proved to be ineffective over time and now with Champions League football, the burden and pressure only grows. This isn’t to say that the 11 in place aren’t capable of winning the title, but the overall fixture list for English Football will prove to be too difficult to overcome. I understand rotations happened last year with Europa League, but the Champions League is football’s greatest annual competition and they will be putting in their energy to do well. That will ultimately be a negative for the Gunners in the long run unless they somehow manage to finish fourth in the group stage and have an early exit from European competition altogether.
While the odds for Premier League champion don’t entice me, there are other futures that do.
Top 4
Chelsea +138. Thanks to last season’s struggles, Chelsea will have a lighter schedule with no European competition. The Blues should also have more stability with Mauricio Pochettino.
Christopher Nkunku’s knee injury is a massive loss. He now has had multiple injury issues over the past 12 months. If Chelsea cannot offload Romelu Lukaku to another side then they will have to worry. However, they can still salvage that loss by having a full summer with a proven Premier League manager.
This side, considering the talent and money used, can expect to at least reach the top four given the schedule they will be working with. It is without a doubt one of the bigger advantages out of any top four contenders given the talent on paper.
The real issue with betting on them is that, they proved to everyone time and time again last season that it was a trainwreck. Without the drama, they might be able to surprise quite a few people, and investing at a number of +138 is not too shabby considering the lack of faith I have in quite a few other squads near the top.
The same reasons can also be loosely applied to Chelsea winning the title at +1200 (12-to-1-). It’s not something I would bet on personally, but if you are all in on Chelsea turning it around and pulling off something miraculous then it is par for the course with this club.
Top scorer
Erling Haaland -175 (4-to-7). Haaland immediately showed his dominance last season while scoring 36 goals. Maybe a repeat of that will be tough to replicate considering he was in terrific shape all season long but, the potential transfer of Harry Kane to Bayern and the other options not nearly being close to prolific as the Norwegian, a -175 number isn’t that bad considering the player he is. If you want a tap-in of a bet, here is your choice.
Relegation
Wolves +225 (9-to-4). We have seen clubs salvaged midseason from becoming relegation sides, most notably Nottingham Forest just last season. However, the direction this club has taken so late into the window is startling. Sacking Julen Lopetegui was necessary after all of the friction. Selling off Rúben Neves is also a massive blow to the overall quality of this side. With the league starting tomorrow, I do not see many reasons as to why Wolves should be sitting at this number and that is what makes it all the more enticing.
