Premier League Talking Points & Punting Pointers: Man City, Phil Foden and Wilfried Zaha all feature
We have the main takeaways and betting pointers from the latest Premier League action, with focus on Phil Foden, Man City and Wilfried Zaha.
Goal-shy City struggling
It wasn't a good afternoon for Manchester City as they could only draw 1-1 at West Ham, leaving them down in mid-table and with only eight points from their opening five Premier League fixtures. Michail Antonio's overhead kick may have stolen the headlines but the stuttering start that Pep Guardiola's side have made cannot be overlooked.
There was mass panic last season when Man City were beaten at Norwich in their fifth game but their points tally was still two better than it is currently - their three previous campaigns under Guardiola saw between 15 and 13 points collected by this stage.
Teams simply aren't frightened anymore, confident to take City on how ever they see fit. Leicester sat in and countered before going for the jugular, newly-promoted Leeds went toe-for-toe and the Hammers parked the bus in a fashion Guardiola's men used to relish crashing through.
Lots has been said and written about the defensive problems at Etihad Stadium, and as a consequence City's struggles in front of goal have been overlooked. A team that racked up more than 300 goals over the past three Premier League seasons has netted only eight times in their opening five games, scoring just once in three successive matches; unheard of for a Guardiola team.
It's no coincidence that Gabriel Jesus and Sergio Aguero have been missing. The latter returned for an hour of the 1-0 win over Arsenal last week with little impact, and only lasted until the break at West Ham.
City are no longer odds-on to win the title but that was a fool's bet, and prices touching 6/4 are no more tempting now. It's a long season of course, with plenty of time to get players fit and firing again, but there are problems which run deeper than defence, and already they are under pressure.
What their current lack of potency provides is a huge opportunity in the under goals betting, with City constantly expected to thrash opponents never mind just beat them.
Their next league fixture is at Sheffield United, who despite their struggle for points have one of the best defensive records in the top flight this season. Five of the Blades' opening seven matches in all competitions had under 2.5 goals, and yet across the board it's 2/1 to happen.
Under 3.5 is only a shade shorter than evens in some places - that's happened in every Blades' fixture - a similar price to that on offer for backing City to score a maximum of twice.
Without Jesus and Aguero, Man City look in real trouble.
Fantastic Phil Foden
There was one major positive for Manchester City fans after their disappointing result in east London though: Phil Foden.
Most recently the 20-year-old has made headlines for all the wrong reasons, so it was great to see the midfielder deliver a reminder of just why so many have raved about him for so long.
Despite playing only 45 minutes, and City's failure to win a game they were 1/3 to take three points from, Foden was rightly named man of the match. So significant was this performance that his often bit-part role under Pep Guardiola suddenly felt well out of date.
It went far beyond his crisply struck 51st-minute equaliser, too: he was the beating heart of Man City's team. Even when Kevin De Bruyne came on after an hour it was Foden who looked most likely to drag his team to victory.
His immediate effect on the players around him, even before his goal, altered the pattern of the game.
Operating in a more advanced role than his midfield colleagues, somewhere between the traditional number 8 and number 10 positions but with a left-sided bias, Foden gave City a cut and thrust they were sorely lacking. For all the billions the club has spent over the years trying to build an all-conquering team, an academy graduate from Stockport offers them a unique threat.
The rest of City's midfielders play with the game in front, creators and dictators, but that's not the way Foden sees it. For all of his superb technical ability, he drives into the box and looks to inject pace into the play. His desire to score is more in keeping with Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard, but he still has some of the guile and vision from the school of David Silva and De Bruyne.
Foden has started just one game in central midfield for Manchester City this season, but that simply cannot last. Guardiola has tended to shunt him out wide, where although Foden's impact in terms of shots and chances can still be significant, the effect he has in creating space for his team-mates is diminished.
The more direct, for want of a better word 'British' approach he has to the game drags defenders with him, away from the fixed positions that can so often frustrate City in a contest like their one with West Ham. No Man City player has had more shots in the box per 90 minutes than Foden this season, a perfect illustration of the threat he possesses as a truly attacking midfielder.
Only in the 5-2 humbling by Leicester has Foden failed to register at least two shots - something worth bearing in mind when looking at the shots market for City games, starting with their trip to Marseille, regardless of where Guardiola uses him.
But the second half at London Stadium must have been wakeup call for Pep.
Wonderful Wilf Zaha
Crystal Palace's latest win led to a shortening in the odds on Fulham boss Scott Parker becoming the first Premier League manager to be sacked this season, which you can read in more detail here.
The Cottagers' chief tormentor was Wilfried Zaha.
He assisted the opener and fired in the second to take his Premier League goal tally to five in six games this term - already more than he managed in the whole of last season, and halfway to matching his best ever return.
In our first Talking Points on opening day, Zaha was given plenty of focus because of his change in position for Palace's win over Southampton; Roy Hodgson has stuck with it and been richly rewarded.
No longer restricted to giving right-backs a torrid time as the archetypal tricky winger, the Eagles' talisman is now the central focal point of Hodgson's team as an out-and-out number 10. The direct result has been an increased involvement and increased level of responsibility, the latter emphasised by the fact the Ivorian has now been given penalty duties too.
There aren't many offering prices on Palace's next fixture at Wolves - those that are have him hovering around the 4/1 mark as an anytime goalscorer which feels generous - but the real place to back Zaha when the market opens is on shots. His 2.5 per game average is a huge jump from last term's 1.6, and the highest number he's ever had.
More long term, what is quite astonishing is his position as a rank outsider in the Premier League leading scorer market - plenty have him at odds of greater than 100/1. Backing him each-way would still give you a sizeable 25/1 for him to finish in the division's top four scorers.
That is an astronomical price based on the Zaha we are seeing in 2020/21.
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