Man City vs RB Leipzig Odds
| Man City Odds | -300 |
| RB Leipzig Odds | +750 |
| Draw | +450 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -200 / +150 |
Manchester City can wrap up first place in Group G when they host RB Leipzig for the sixth time in three years.
Surprisingly, Manchester City are in a bit of a bad run of form at the moment. Pep Guardiola's side has drawn their past two matches in the Premier League, against Chelsea and Liverpool. As a result, Manchester City have conceded the top spot in the table to Arsenal.
RB Leipzig are also in a bad run of form and coming off a 2-1 loss at Wolfsburg this weekend. Marco Rose's side is fifth in the Bundesliga table, a worrying sign for a team that has had so much transition in the summer. They are locked into second place in this group, but if they can pull off an upset, they'll give themselves a shot to take first place in this group away from City on the final day.
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Man City
Guardiola is struggling for game control. Manchester City completely lost it in a 4-4 thriller with Chelsea and also allowed Liverpool to get a late equalizer.
There are a couple reasons for that. First, it’s their build structure. Guardiola is the pioneer of inverting fullbacks into the middle of the pitch in build up, but for a long time now he’s been inverting a centerback into the middle of the pitch. This allows him to overload the center of the pitch in build up and get to a 3-2-5 shape, which is widely popular in the modern game. It also allows City to stop counter attacks at a much better level than they were before he started doing this.
John Stones played this role flawlessly, but has been injured for most of this season. Akanji has been tasked with inverting in build up and he just hasn’t been as consistent as Stones, so City haven’t been as good building out of the back. However, since City are defending with essentially four centerbacks, they’ve been much better stopping transition attacks because they have the second-best final-third-to-box-entry-conversion rate allowed in the Premier League.
The second aspect, which really isn’t a problem, is Jeremy Doku. He’s an incredible dribbler and attacks the box via ball carries better than anyone in the Premier League. However, playing him is a sign that Guardiola is going to play aggressive.
Jack Grealish is a different type of winger and a much better ball possessor than Doku/ That'll give Manchester City more game control and given how RB Leipzig can punish opponents in transition, I think Jack Grealish will play Grealish over Doku, giving Manchester City more game control.
RB Leipzig
RB Leipzig is going through a period of regression. Before the loss to Wolfsburg over the weekend, they had scored 28 goals off of 18 expected in the Bundesliga, a crazy overperformance and a finishing rate that's unsustainable.
However, here's the problem for Rose. RB Leipzig typically plays out of a 4-4-2, which turns into a 4-2-2-2 in build up to try to play the ball as quickly as they can through the center of the pitch. When they press and win the ball off their opponents, they want to attack the center of the pitch because that is where the goals are. So, a 4-2-2-2 provides the best opportunity to do that.
They caught City once in transition when Openda scored right out of half, but outside of that once chance, they did nothing. The other problem is they were consistently succumbing to Manchester City’s pressure. They tried numerous times to play out of the back, but kept turning it over, so eventually they had to send the ball long. They aren’t a team that can just send the ball long up to the striker because their strikers aren't able to consistently hold up the ball and win aerial duals. Openda and Sesko are much more run-in-behind, ball-carrying strikers. Thus, the conundrum Rose is in.
If you take away the final Doku goal from the last meeting when the match was completely stretched, Leipzig did hold City to 1.7 expected goals and forced them into a lot of low-quality chances. Their defensive numbers in the Bundesliga have been pretty good, allowing only 1.02 npxG per 90 minutes, which is fourth in Germany.
Man City vs RB Leipzig
Prediction
This match really doesn't mean much. Manchester City is going to finish first in this group and RB Leipzig is going to finish second.
I don't see a path for RB Leipzig to create consistent chances in this match. They caught City once in the previous meeting and capitalized, but if they didn't finish off that one chance, they wouldn't have scored. Additionally, they've been overperforming offensively in the Bundesliga and are due for regression, which is a bad combination against Manchester City's defense.
I have to think Guardiola is going to try to control the match from the start. The last thing City wants is to get into an up-and-down track meet with Leipzig. So, I think we'll see City slowly progressing the ball out of the back and trying to control both possession and tempo.
I only have 2.3 goals projected for this match, so I like the value on Under 3.5 goals at -145 (Caesars).
