Guardiola Finally Got His Guy

The back-to-back champions of the Premier League travel to London to play against West Ham on August 7th at 11:30 am. Manchester City has won the league four times in the last five years. As of now, Manchester is blue and it may stay that way for some time. West Ham finished last season in seventh place making them Europa Conference League qualifiers. This series last year went in City’s favor with them winning one game and drawing the other. As the home team, West Ham will need all the support they can get from fans as they try to hold their own against a stacked Manchester City squad who have their eyes set on a continental treble. Caesars Casino & Sportsbook has the match result odds at -270 Manchester City, +410 draw, and +700 West Ham. Additionally, the over/under goals for the game is set at 2.5 with the under being +150 and the over being -185. New users will receive a Risk-Free Bet of up to $1500 on their first wager.

West Ham had a strong offseason with their new acquisitions. They brought in Gianluca Scamacca a centre-forward from Sassuolo, Nayef Aguerd a centre-back from Rennais, and Maxwel Cornet a left winger from Burnely. They also got goalkeeper Alphonse Areola from PSG, who will be faced with a difficult first challenge in Manchester City. Amidst these new arrivals, they should be happy to have kept Declan Rice after a summer filled with rumors and offers for the future defensive midfield star. This season they have a strong squad and will compete for a top-four finish in hopes of qualifying for the Champions League, which will likely be a reason for Rice to stay at the club. Of the seven games they played in the preseason, they only won two of them. This shouldn’t be something to be concerned about as preseason is mainly used for teams to get money and their players back into physical shape. With this game being played at home and the efforts of Rice and others, West Ham will look to walk away with points and put the rest of the league on notice.

If there was an adjective to describe Manchester City, ridiculous would pretty much be the closest thing. What I mean is, as a club, they have it ALL. Their squad’s market value is worth 1.1 billion. They also have one of the best managers in the world in Pep Guardiola. Since arriving in 2016, City has not finished outside the top three. For some reason, this team has not been able to have a striker that fits their scheme and playstyle well. But after this offseason, it appears that the issue is finally resolved as they signed Erling Haaland on a transfer from Dortmund. He is only 22 and he just finished last season with 30 goal contributions in only 24 appearances. So they already had a great squad and now they added a future top-five player in the sport. They did lose four great players in Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Fernandinho but their departures will pretty much be negligible. They also got Kalvin Phillips to replace the defensive midfield role that Fernandinho held for them. Phillips in his own regard is a massive signing and it is crazy to think that he wasn’t the most exciting one. This team has no holes and at every single position is a world-class player. They will most likely win the league again and will look to dismantle every team they play against. This first game against West Ham will be very entertaining and it should not take long for Haaland to make an impact.

It is the optimist in me that wants to believe that West Ham has a chance but I know City is going to feast. City’s defense will hold strong while Guardiola will create an amazing game plan for the game’s best midfielder in Kevin De Bruyne to get the ball to Haaland in goal-scoring opportunities. This game will produce a plethora of goal-scoring opportunities, the majority created by City but West Ham will have their chances.

For our expert Manchester City vs. West Ham prediction take the over on the 2.5 goals scored in the match.