Who Will Rise From The Middle Of The Table As We Hit Week 11?

This week in the EPL preview, we’re keeping it rolling and taking a look at the Manchester United-Bournemouth, Watford-Chelsea, and Crystal Palace-Leicester matches, and hope to give you some good advice on the best value plays in each.

Let's take a look at the top three matches.

Manchester United (+120) @ Bournemouth (+225), Draw (+260)
United come into this fixture, if not a hot team, at least a slightly warm one. They’ve won their last three fixtures in a row across all competitions, all on the road, and are finally starting to gain a little momentum. They defeated Chelsea in EFL Cup play on Thursday, and last week won their first league away match with a comfortable victory over Norwich, 3-1. They’re not setting the world on fire, but hey, it’s a start. They’ve beaten Bournemouth the last four times played, so that too puts things in their favor. On the other side, the “Cherries” limp into this fixture 0-2-3 in their last five matches across all competitions, including back-to-back goalless draws in their last two league matches. To make matters worse, they haven’t scored a goal since late September. United don’t light the scoreboard up either, but in their defense (literally), they only concede one goal on average per league game. This has the making of a low-scoring affair all over it. The value plays: ​Under 2.5 Total Goals (-103), Both teams to score No (+114), ​and ​Marcus Rashford anytime goalscorer (+180). ​Rashford is hot right now and is always a threat to put one in.

Chelsea (-152) @ Watford (+380), Draw (+335)
Chelsea head into Vicarage Road as one of the hottest teams in the Premier League, winners of their last seven of eight matches across all competitions. They’ve won four in a row in the league, averaging almost three goals a game. All five of their away league games this year have seen lots of scoring as the total goals average is 3.5 in all, and 4.5 total goals in Chelsea wins (4-0-1) across those five fixtures. They had a bit of a hiccup vs Manchester United in the EFL Cup on Thursday, but what better tonic for what ails you than a fixture vs. Watford? The “Hornets” are that in name only, as they have shown zero sting in this year’s EPL campaign. In their last five league matches they are 0-2-3, and here’s a look at their scoring line in those five matches, from most recent played: 0,0,1,0,0--it looks like some sort of binary code. They’re winless in 14 straight league games (0-6-8) and in five of those six losses they lost by over 1.5 goals. They are firmly planted in the relegation zone with a total of five points and are last in the league. Chelsea should win this going away, but where’s the value? We like ​Away team to win and both teams to score Yes (+210). ​The home crowd will be enough to see Watford through to one meaningless goal. Also, two game props catch the eye: ​Penalty kick awarded Yes (+220) and ​Away team to be awarded a penalty Yes (+400). ​Watford is currently 7th in the league in penalties conceded so it’s worth it to throw a dart at that play.

Leicester City (+115) @ Crystal Palace (+250), Draw (+245)
Leicester head into Selhurst Park on the heels of a 9-0 drubbing of Southampton in their last league match and a 3-1 victory over Burton in their EFL Cup meeting. That 9-nil victory over Southampton set all kinds of records, but most importantly it continued their overall nice start to the 2019 campaign, with a record of 6-2-2 and good enough for third place in the standings. Crystal Palace is in sixth position in the standings and coming off of a 2-2 draw with Arsenal. Palace has been the epitome of “okay”. Not good, not bad, but “okay”, as they’ve gone 2-1-2 over their last five matches. They’ve given up more goals (12) than they’ve scored this year (10), which is a weird anomaly for a team that’s as high as sixth in the table. What stands out the most about this fixture, however, is that Palace has absolutely dominated the “Foxes” in their last four head-to-head meetings, winning all four and by an aggregate of 13-1. Leicester is the better team on paper, but Palace’s recent form in the head-to-heads between the two is definitely something to consider. This game has ​Draw (+245) ​written all over it, which makes Draw and Both teams to score Yes (+350) ​a very nice value play. We also like ​Both teams to score Yes (-132) ​as a value play here.

Those are our three favorite matches of the EPL weekend. Enjoy watching the games, and if you follow the plays, good luck!

*Credit to the main photo of this article belongs to Frank Augstein/Associated Press