Soccer Picks & Predictions · Wednesday, December 6
For the remainder of the 2023-24 club soccer season, Action Network's soccer betting experts bring you odds, picks and predictions for a variety of games, including those across leagues that may not be frequently covered as extensively as the Champions League or Premier League.
Read on for Unexpected Goals, our daily soccer betting roundup.
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Fulham vs Nottingham Forest
Fulham don't really profile well as favorites in these types of matches against decent low block teams. They are still struggling to create chances because Fulham used to be a team with a distinct identity. That was to get the ball into wide areas and swing in crosses to Aleksander Mitrovic, but now that he’s gone Marco Silva seems lost on how to set his team up to consistently create chances.
Raul Jimenez has not been the answer up top, as he’s only getting 1.8 shots per 90 minutes and has only scored once. In fact, Alex Iwobi is leading them in shot per 90 minutes right now, which doesn’t give me much encouragement facing an incredibly compact low block.
Nottingham Forest are the most passive team in the Premier League, but they’ve done a fantastic job at preventing teams into their penalty area. They are number one in final third to box entry conversion rate allowed and their defensive numbers have been much improved from last season.
They will be without Taiwo Awoniyi for an extended period of time, which is a huge loss, but Anthony Elanga and Morgan Gibbs-White have both been a 0.40 xG + xA per 90 minute attackers on the wings and can change a match with one transition attack.
I only have Fulham projected as a +131 favorite, so I like the value on Nottingham Forest +0.5 at -118.
Pick: Nottingham Forest +0.5 (-118 via BetRivers)
Aston Villa vs Man City
This is a really tough run of fixtures for Manchester City at the moment. Pep Gaurdiola’s side have had to play Chelsea, Liverpool, RB Leipzig and Tottenham recently. That’s incredibly draining even for a team like City that is used to playing top tier competition week in and week out. Now they have to travel to Villa park where to face an Aston Villa side that has won 13 straight matches at home in the Premier League.
They also are going to be without a bunch of key players because Rodri and Jack Grealish are suspended due to yellow card accumulation and Jeremy Doku picked up an injury against Tottenham. Rodri is the most important player on Manchester City by far and his loss in a match like this is massive.
Aston Villa are a very tactically diverse team and have shown ability to profile well in this types of situations. Typically, Unai Emery wants his team to play out of the back and control possession, but sometimes the match calls for them to play without the ball and in transition, which they have been very successful at doing. Since Emery has taken over, Aston Villa have played 16 matches where they have held under 50% possession. They are 9-1-6 in those matches.
I like the value on Aston Villa +1 at -130.
Pick: Aston Villa +1 (-130 via bet365)
➤Aston Villa vs Man City: Full Betting Preview
VfB Stuttgart vs Borussia Dortmund
This is a really bad spot for Dortmund, who are coming off a trip to AC Milan in the Champions League, a 1-1 draw with Leverkusen and now have to travel to Stuttgart once against to face one of the hottest clubs in Europe.
Stuttgart have had one of the best starts to the season of anyone in Germany and it’s because they have Serhou Guirassy ,who has already tallied 16 goals on the season. Stuttgart use a lot of the same principles as Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton and it has turned them into one of the best build up teams in the Bundesliga. Utilizing their fullbacks getting forward, Stuttgart can create chances centrally and out wide with plenty of support for Guirassy, which is why he’s thrived so much in a team that is averaging 2.49 xG per 90 minutes.
Dortmund have been very poor defensively this season, ranking 11th in the Bundesliga in non-penalty expected goals allowed. The problem is Dortmund don't have a lot of ball winning in the middle of the pitch. Emre Can is averaging 4.2 interceptions + tackles per 90 minutes – which is great – but nobody else is anywhere close to that figure. Jude Bellingham along with Can last season was a great combination, but without Bellingham's ball winning teams have been able to play through Dortmund.
The other problem that Dortmund have run into is they've been pretty poor in build up play. Right now, they do not have a clear plan of using short passes to play the ball through the opponent's line of defense, which means they've had to rely on long balls far too often.
Stuttgart dominated Dortmund right before the last international break, winning the match 2-1 and beating them on xG 4.2 to 1.0. I think we will see something similar today, so I like the value on the home side at +117.
Pick: Stuttgart ML (+117 via bet365)
