Luton Town vs Man City Odds
| Luton Town Odds | +900 |
| Man City Odds | -400 |
| Draw | +550 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -211o /+160u |
Manchester City will continue its quest for the FA Cup when it travels to take on Luton Town.
Luton Town has hit a bad run of form, losing three straight matches and now sitting four points from safety. They went ahead against Liverpool last Wednesday and actually were holding a halftime lead before the wheels came off. They held a halftime lead against Manchester City in the previous meeting, so maybe, just maybe, they will pull of an upset.
Manchester City is cruising right now, winning nine of its last 10 matches in all competitions. They were able to get by Bournemouth on the road this weekend, but it was another less than-inspiring-performance. With the fixture pileup, it will be interesting to see what lineup and tactical approach Pep Guardiola goes with, but regardless, they should cruise past Luton Town.
Let's dive into our Luton Town vs. Man City prediction and pick.
Luton Town
Luton Town has gone with a really aggressive approach out of possession its last five matches, and it's produced some pretty crazy results.
Their last five matches have seen 24 goals, with Luton scoring 11 of them. Rob Edwards has basically decided their best method of approach is to press their opponents high and turn it into a back-and-forth match because they are not good enough sitting in a passive low block.
My guess is they will go with that same approach here against Man City given the problems that Bournemouth caused with its high press. It's natural to think that Luton should just sit deep and look to counter, but it’s hard to argue that Edwards' recent approach is the wrong one given the results he’s gotten with the least talented squad in the Premier League. Luton Town is one of the worst teams in the Premier League at defending the middle of the pitch, so it's no surprise that since the beginning of November, it is allowing 2.29 xG per 90 minutes and has conceded 22 big scoring chances in 15 matches.
With that said, they do potentially have a path to score in this match. We've seen Man City be vulnerable out of possession in two areas this season: in transition and on set pieces. Those are basically the only two ways that Luton Town creates chances and it did score first against Man City in the previous meeting.
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Man City
Man City has taken a little dip in terms of its underlying numbers from the past year when it won the treble, and there are a couple of things contributing to that. First, they are worse out of possession than they were last year. Their PPDA is up, their high turnovers forced per match is down and their opponent build-up completion percentage allowed is also up, which has translated to them allowing a higher number of expected goals.
There is the other aspect of what is going on in their midfield. Against Bournemouth, Guardiola decided to play a 4-1-4-1 and start Matheus Nunes and Mateo Kovačić because he wanted to dominate the middle of the pitch while also preventing Bournemouth from hitting them on the counter. It worked, as they held Bournemouth to under one expected goal, but as a result, chance creation was a struggle against Bournemouth's hybrid press. They kept dropping a lot of guys deep in build-up to isolate long balls to Erling Haaland, but Manchester City struggled winning those duals.
Luton Town has been playing super aggressively lately with its high press, so it'll be interesting to see what type of lineup Guardiola goes with. If he decides to play a more aggressive lineup with Jérémy Doku, Phil Foden, Julián Álvarez, etc., then Luton Town is in big trouble. I know Guardiola values control over everything, but Man City's best approach here is to do what Liverpool did and get in a back-and-forth match with Luton.
Luton Town vs Man City
Prediction
Luton pulled off an upset in the last round of the FA Cup, upsetting Everton at Goodison Park, and has scored in every match it has played against Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City. But this is going to be a really tall task, especially if they decide to play super aggressive.
I have no doubts that Guardiola is going to take a lot of what Liverpool did to Luton and play right into what they want — a back-and-forth transitional type of match — which means there is going to be plenty of goals.
I have 4.01 goals projected for this match, so I like the value on Over 3.5 goals at +130.
Pick: Over 3.5 goals (+130 via FanDuel)
