Mark O'Haire's Premier League Notebook: Manchester derby to serve up a snoozy Sunday offering | OneFootball

English Premier League

The Etihad hosts the Manchester derby on Sunday

Manchester City meet Manchester United on Super Sunday and Mark O'Haire says the derby will fail to live up to pre-match hype and recommends bets opposing goals and cards.

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Going against the cards grain

The Manchester derby takes centre stage on Super Sunday, and like the Gallagher brothers of Oasis, these two clubs might share the same city - but they've spent decades pulling in very different directions. One clings to tradition, the other rewrites it at pace.

This isn't far off must-win territory for a Manchester City side that have already fallen six points off the pace in the Premier League title race following back-to-back defeats. For Manchester United, the Grimsby debacle still looms large despite the Red Devils picking up their first success of the season before the international break.

So, it's all set up to be a fascinating, full-blooded affair between two bitter rivals, desperate for points and to avoid further scrutiny, right? To an extent, yes.

But Manchester derbies don't always deliver on the chaos, and while the market's braced for a flurry of cards and contention, there is an opportunity to go against the grain and oppose both bookings and goals at The Etihad.

Taylor-made for unders

Only two of the last 10 EPL meetings between City and Utd have featured a five-card count or more, with 10 of the past 14 head-to-heads in league football seeing Under 4.5 Cards backers collect. The majority of these low-card counts have occurred at The Etihad with six of the previous seven showdowns seeing a maximum of three cautions.

The case strengthens when viewing the referee appointment: Anthony Taylor will have the whistle and in his four previous Manchester derbies, he's delivered card counts of 2-3-5-2. Look over his last 10 all-Big Six match-ups and six of those dates have seen Under 3.5 Cards bank, whilst five of those fixtures produced no more than two cautions.

Taylor has flashed fewer than six cards in 88% of his 34 league matches going back to the beginning of last season, avergaing 3.29 bookings per-game in that same sample. With Man City and Man Utd collectively receiving just eight cards in six combined EPL contests thus far, unders looks the value cards angle of attack.

Entertainment in short supply?

Manchester derbies don't often escalate into shootouts. Only three of the past 20 have featured five goals or more and it's difficult to see Sunday's showdown providing a plethora of goals. The fixture taking place immediately after the international break is also a hindrance rather than a help, with history favouring a tighter tussle.

The matchday that occurs immediately after the first international break of the season has seen a significant reduction in goal output - the last two such gameweeks to follow the first break of the campaign have averaged only 2.35 goals per-game, which is markedly down on the overall goal average of 3.10 across those two seasons.

Injuries have already begun to bite - Omar Marmoush misses out for Man City along with Rayan Cherki, whilst the Citizens harbour doubts over John Stones, Phil Foden, Mateo Kovacic and Josko Gvardiol. Meanwhile, Matheus Cunha could be an absentee for Man Utd with Mason Mount also in a race against time to be fit.

It all comes together for a perfect cocktail of unders and so it's well worth taking the Under 3.5 Goals and Under 4.5 Cards option at 2.12, as well as considering the lower line options, such as Under 2.5 Goals and Under 3.5 Cards at 3.46 as well as the Hollywood long shot - at 310/1.

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