Football Betting
Premier League – Wolverhampton Wanderers v Manchester City Preview
A near-second string Manchester City XI scored five times at Molineux in a Carling Cup tie earlier in the season and there’s no reason why the first team won’t emulate or surpass that tally when Roberto Mancini’s squad return to the Midlands to take on Championship-bound Wolves in the Premier League this weekend.
Wanderers’ plight at the bottom is now just about hopeless. They were already in dire straits when Mick McCarthy was shown the door but replacement Terry Connor has seen his team manage only two points out of a possible 27 under his tenure. They managed to end a five-game losing run with a draw at Sunderland last week, their first clean sheet in 31 games, but could well be relegated if failing to beat City and results elsewhere go against them. That looks distinctly possible as Bolton, Blackburn and QPR all have winnable home games and Wolves have already conceded 24 times since Connor took charge, only managing to find the net six times at the other end. They’ve suffered a record eight successive defeats at Molineux and, despite Manchester City’s occasional lapses on the road, it would be a shock of the greatest proportion should the home side manage to delay the inevitable for another week by grabbing a win at 9/1.
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Ever since their manager wrote off their league title chances, City have been virtually unstoppable and put six past Norwich at Carrow Road last week to add to the four they scored against West Brom four days earlier. Not everyone agrees with the re-instatement of Carlos Tevez but the controversial Argentinian has undoubtedly given City’s flagging fortunes new incentive. He’s scored four times in the last two games and will terrorise Wolves’ porous defence if starting at Molineux.
City are showing the opposition no mercy at present and, as they will be next season, look in an entirely different league to Wolves, who have all but given up any hope of salvation. They must be worth a second look at 2/1 to overcome a two-goal deficit on the handicap and can also be backed at 9/2 to turn around a three-goal deficit in one of our alternative handicaps. Tevez is 5/2 to start the rot with the game’s first goal and is 4/9 to find the net at any time.
