Man City vs Crvena Zvezda tips: Expect a five-star performance on Champions homecoming
Manchester City have had a dream start to the season, winning the Super Cup and easily beating Burnley, Newcastle, Sheffield United, Fulham, and West Ham to collect 15 points.
Saturday’s win at West Ham was their most dominant performance so far. Despite trailing against the run of play, City produced 29 shots, eight big chances and an xG value of 3.63.
Erling Haaland made the biggest contribution to that number and could have claimed a first-half hat-trick had it not been for some desperate defending in the Hammers box.
The visitors from Belgrade will embrace this challenge, but there is evidence to suggest that they are unlikely to pull off an upset.
Despite making a reasonable start to the season which sees them sitting pretty in third place on 15 points, they’ve been beaten in two of their three away tips.
They’ve often failed to make it past the Champions League qualifiers in recent seasons, but they did find themselves up against the big boys as recently as the 2019/20 season.
They were beaten 5-0 and 4-0 by Tottenham, 6-0 and 3-0 by Bayern Munich, and 1-0 by Olympiakos as they shipped 20 goals and finished last in their group.
They did record a historic win over Liverpool the previous season but were beaten 4-0 at Anfield just weeks before.
The last time Manchester City played a team from outside the top 10 European leagues was in 2020 when they defeated Olympiacos 3-0 and 1-0 in the group stage.
The Cityzens rounded off their last European campaign by thrashing some pretty esteemed company, such as Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, so it’s hard to make a case for the visitors here.
Predicted score
Manchester City 4-0 Crvena Zvezda
Suggested bets
Manchester City -3 Asian handicap
Erling Haaland to score 2+ goals
Over 1.5 goals in first half
