Coventry City vs Man United Predictions, Odds, Picks | FA Cup Match Preview

Sunday, Apr. 21

10:30 a.m. ET

ESPN+

Coventry City Odds	+600
Man United Odds	-225
Draw	+375
Over / Under	2.5  -225/+170

Odds via bet365. Get up-to-the-minute Soccer odds here.

Coventry City and Manchester United meet at Wembley and are playing for a spot in the FA Cup final.

Coventry City are on a magical run after they knocked out Wolves in the quarterfinals with two goals in stoppage time. The path before Wolves was pretty favorable, but now they are in a spot to potentially play Manchester City for their first trophy since winning the League One title in 2020.

Manchester United somehow got a result against Bournemouth, despite being severely outplayed. The draw keeps United inside the top seven, but their season is really going to come down to the FA Cup to determine whether Erik Ten Hag keeps his job.

Coventry City had a really difficult start to the season and it’s easy to see why. They lost a lot of key players — Viktor Gyokeres went to Sporting, Gustavo Hamer went to Sheffield United and two of their usual three centerbacks went back to their parent clubs after their loans ended. Additionally, their main two strikers — Ellis Simms and Haji Wright — were also on a poor finishing run in front of net.

That has changed and they’ve started to finish some of their chances. Over their first 15 matches of the season, they only won three matches, but had a +0.38 xGD per 90 minutes. Over the second half of the season, they switched to a back four, and even though the underlying results have remained pretty much the same, the results — 18 wins in 27 matches — have been much better.

Coventry City can play a blend of a couple of different styles. When they attack, they have a lot of pace up front with Wright and Simms. Both have scored double-digit goals this season and Wright has put up a scoring rate of 0.60 xG per 90 minutes. That pace sets up perfectly for this match, which is going to be very back and forth.

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It's the same story week after week with Manchester United. They were incredibly lucky to get a draw in their match against Bournemouth and the problems that have existed tactically haven't been fixed.

Ten Hag has sacrificed control and a tactical identity for results, which Manchester United is getting, but it's a complete farce because Manchester United is forced to play in up-and-down transitional matches and doesn't have the pressing structure or the defense to do it effectively. Every match, United presses with all of their attackers, but the defenders don't come up and aid in the press because Ten Hag is worried about them getting beat over the top. That creates easy outlet balls for teams to then run at Manchester United's back line. That is why they are allowing 1.84 xG per 90 minutes in the Premier League this year.

To be fair to Manchester United, they have gone through a lot of injuries to their defense this season and are in a dire injury situation.

Manchester United has some fire power in attack and are relatively healthy across the board, but struggles at generating high quality chances, as they are 16th in the Premier League in big scoring chances.

Manchester United could lose to anybody right now given the way they are playing. When bigger clubs take on teams like Coventry City, they control possession, limit their chances on the counter and pin them into their own final third.

However, given the way Manchester United have been playing, they aren't going to be able to do any of that and will instead get into a back-and-forth transitional match against one of the fastest transition teams in the Championship. Coventry City has two capable strikers that will give Manchester United problems and with the injury situation the way it is, I don't see why Manchester United is this big of a favorite.

So, I am going to fade the Manchester United defense and take Coventry City to go over its team total.

Pick: Coventry City Team Total Over 1.5 (+220 via FanDuel)