Premier League best bets: Man City vs. West Ham predictions, picks for Sun. 5/19

Man City vs. West Ham Odds

Sunday, May 19, 11 a.m. ET, NBC

Odds via bet365. Get up-to-the-minute Soccer odds here.

Man City

Even though they ended up with 2.4 expected goals and a 2-0 win over Tottenham on Tuesday, it really wasn't that great of a Manchester City performance. They only ended up taking seven shots in total for the match, one of which was a penalty and the first goal was a bit questionable as to whether it was offsides or not.

What was more concerning was the fact that they allowed Tottenham to break on them in transition a few times and create some decent chances, which is something that Manchester City have struggled with for a long time. Manchester City are still ninth in both PPDA and final third to box entry conversion rate allowed as well as 11th in build up completion percentage allowed. The reason they have conceded a lot of chances in transition is because Pep Guardiola has identified that they need to push Rodri and Gvardiol high up the pitch to help overload the last line of defense and has accepted that there will be times where they will be vulnerable.

I have no doubt that Manchester City will create chances in this match because West Ham have been the second-worst defensive team in 2024 behind only Luton Town, but there have been a few instances where they've struggled to break down low blocks like Nottingham Forest and Chelsea recently where they failed to create over one expected goal in either of those matches. So, it's not out of the realm of possibility that they get limited to a lot of low quality chances, which leaves them open to getting on the wrong side of variance.

Manchester City are well overdue to concede. They've allowed one goal in their last five matches off of 4.6 expected, so they could concede here.

West Ham

I am not going to sit here and tell you that West Ham’s defense is going to be able to stop Manchester City’s offense because they can’t but what I will say is that Manchester City were pretty poor offensively against Tottenham on Tuesday, failing to create over one non-penalty expected goal and only took four shots (including a penalty) in the second half.

We’ve seen this now time and time again where teams who are decent in transition can give Manchester City problems. West Ham have the ball carriers and pace in Paqueta, Bowen and Kudus to get a few chances on Manchester City’s back line because they are going to be in 2 v 2 or 3 v 3 situations against City’s back line.

West Ham have had issues in possession this season when they’ve tried to be something they are not, which is a team that builds out of the back. When they decide to concede almost all of the possession and stick to their defensive block, the results aren’t terrible. There have been 14 matches where West Ham have held under 35% possession. In those 14 matches they are 6-3-5 and have won the expected goals battle in seven of those matches.

Man City vs West Ham

Prediction

You have to think about the scenario that Manchester City are in right now as well. The goal difference no longer matters, so they just need to win. I have a really hard time believing that Pep Guardiola is not going to instruct his to sit on the lead once they get up two goals.

Manchester City have been in this scenario four times where it’s come down to the final day. They very famously needed two stoppage time goals to beat QPR in 2012, in 2014 they beat West Ham 2-0 on the final day to win the title over Liverpool, in 2019 they beat Brighton 4-1 on the final day to win the title over Liverpool again and then in 2022 needed to come back from 2-0 down against Aston Villa to win the title once again over Liverpool. So, my point is that it’s usually not very likely that they will run up the score in a must win match.

I have Manchester City’s spread projected at -2.21, so I like the value on West Ham +3 at -133.

Pick: West Ham +3 (-133 via bet365)