Premier League Betting Odds, Picks, Preview, Projections: Our Best Bets From Matches Featuring Spurs & Arsenal (Feb. 23-24)

The Premier League title race, top-four battle and relegation fight heated up this past weekend after some exciting results.

Liverpool now only trails Manchester City by six points with a game in hand, all thanks to Tottenham's last-gasp winner this past Saturday at Etihad Stadium.

We have four midweek make-up matches, with quite a bit at stake since Tottenham, Liverpool and Arsenal are in action. The biggest match by far, though, is a top-eight clash at Emirates Stadium between the Gunners and Wolves, who faced off against each other two weeks ago.

If you'd like to read more about how I determine my projections, you can check it all out here. You can use these projections to identify betting value on current lines, plus follow me in The Action Network App to see any bets I make during the week.

Premier League Projections

Best Bets

Burnley vs. Spurs

Tottenham has been trending as an over team when it comes to game totals during the past month. The club's last five matches are averaging 3.5 expected goals and 4.6 actual goals. Manager Antonio Conte has unlocked the offense, with Harry Kane and Son Heung-min playing at maybe their highest level in the past few years.

Under Conte, Tottenham is averaging 2.11 xG per match in the league, which is the third-best mark in that time span behind only City and Liverpool.

The Tottenham defense is only allowing 1.17 xG per match under Conte, but the last five matches have been concerning, especially defending crosses.

Manchester City completed five crosses into the box and basically their first goal and penalty came on a cross. In the match against Southampton, the final two goals came off balls played into the penalty area.

Why is that important? Well, Burnley is second in the EPL in crosses completed into the penalty area, averaging 2.5 crosses per 90 minutes. 

Defensively, Burnley has been poor against the top seven teams in the Premier League, allowing 1.75 xG per match. The Clarets also are last in the league in shots allowed per 90 minutes and box entries per 90 minutes, per fbref.com.

That said, Tottenham should be able to find the back of the net multiple times. 

I have 2.87 goal projected for this match, so I love the value on the total clearing 2.5 goals at +110 odds.

Pick: Total Over 2.5 Goals (+110)

Arsenal vs. Wolves

What was interesting about when these two faced off a few weeks ago is an Arsenal player picked up a red card in the 60th minute, but still ended up winning the xG battle by a 1.64-0.74 margin.

As for Wolves, their matches versus teams ahead of them in the table tend to be a little more high scoring than against the bottom half of the standings.

In eight games against the top seven, Wolverhampton is averaging 2.71 xG per outing. Against teams below them, the games only yield 2.11 xG per contest. 

The Arsenal offense has been greatly improving over the last two months, but they’re especially prolific when they don't have to play Manchester City, Liverpool or Chelsea. If you take out the four meetings with those teams, the Gunners are averaging 1.74 xG per match against the rest of the league.

Also, Arsenal is much better at home than it has been on the road, averaging 1.68 xG per match at the Emirates, versus only 1.33 xG per game on the road.

The biggest thing in this match is Wolves is providing almost no resistance, ranking dead last in PPDA, while Arsenal has been one of the best playing through pressure over the past two months, ranking third in Offensive PPDA, per understat.com. 

I have 2.46 goals projected for this match, so I like the price on the total going over 2.5 goals at +120 odds and will make it my top pick.

Pick: Total Over 2.5 Goals (+120)

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