Man City v Brighton: Back Haaland at 7/2 to end blank run | OneFootball

Man City v Brighton

City must keep Arsenal within sight

After briefly topping the table on a couple of occasions due to the order of matches, Manchester City may now take a while to reel in Arsenal - if they manage it at all.

Back-to-back draws at Sunderland and at home to Chelsea, combined with wins for the Gunners over Aston Villa and Bournemouth, have left Pep Guardiola's men six points adrift of the leaders.

The title betting on the Betfair Exchange shows Arsenal at just 1.36 and Man City trading at 4.4. There's an awful long way to go but City will be ruing their concession of a last-gasp equaliser at home to Chelsea on Sunday after they had chances to go 2-0 up and put the game out of reach.

That was just the second time City had dropped points at home this season - the first was back in August - and they can't afford another slip here.

Seagulls hoping to make a move

Brighton ended a deflating run of LDLDLD with a routine 2-0 home win over Burnley at the weekend.

Context is important though. The three losses came against Aston Villa, Liverpool and Arsenal - the other three members of the top four alongside City - although perhaps that tells us that they're struggling against the better teams.

Brighton's failure to climb above mid-table - they ended last weekend in 10th - is due to some poor away form. They've managed just two wins out of 10 and only nine points of their current haul of 28 have come on the road.

It was important to get back to winning ways against Burnley but an away trip to Manchester City is just about the hardest follow-up there is.

City can outscore visitors

Brighton teams of recent years have tweaked the noses of the top sides although, against City, the upsets have all come at home.

Despite beating them 2-1 on the south coast back in August, they've never managed to win away at City and have lost 12 of the 15 head-to-heads in Manchester.

For this one, Manchester City are 4/11, with Brighton 13/2 and The Draw 4/1.

City didn't just end the game against Chelsea with a sense of regret, they also finished the 1-1 draw with problems in defence after both Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol were taken off injured. The latter has a tibial fracture and will have surgery later this week.

Brighton are averaging over a goal a game on the road and scored at Arsenal. They were extremely unlucky not to find the net at Liverpool as well.

But they do concede plenty on their travels, shipping 16 in 10 matches and that doesn't bode well against a City side which have plundered 26 goals at home.

Put those City defensive injuries and scoring trends together and backing Manchester City to win whilst conceding is certainly worth a go.

Haaland ready to end 'drought'

It's hardly a surprise to note that Erling Haaland has never gone four Premier League games without scoring.

So having fired blanks against Nottingham Forest, Sunderland and Chelsea, it makes far more sense to think he's 'due' rather than take the angle that he's out of form and should be overlooked in the goalscorer markets.

Before his mini drought, he'd scored braces against West Ham and Crystal Palace. And it's very easy to think that one becomes two if he does fire home on Wednesday night. A reminder that the Norwegian has an astonishing 38 goals in 31 games for club and country this season.

Haaland, who has netted in each of his last four games against Brighton, is 5/2 to Score 2 or more. He's done that 12 times already this season and Brighton look accommodating opponents for the City striker to pull off the double act again.

That can be boosted to 7/2 by adding in City to be leading at half-time.

They've been ahead at the break in each of their last five home Premier League games while Brighton have gone into the interval trailing in each of their last three top-flight matches.