Brighton v Man City: De Bruyne on target as City win to nil

“At 13/10, you can back City to win to nil. With just three goals conceded all season, the Citizens are one of the few sides to have conceded fewer than Brighton, meaning things have been pretty tight at the back…”

Excellent start for the Seagulls

To be fourth after two or three games is one thing. To be fourth (on 15 points) after eight games, is quite another.

It’s four wins, three draws and one defeat for the Seagulls and getting early points on the board and feeling like relegation is quickly getting out of the equation means they can relax a bit and express themselves.

In typical Brighton fashion, they haven’t scored many: just eight. But they’ve only conceded five, which is the third-best defensive record in the league.

But keeping things tight against Manchester City is a whole different ball game.

City awesome in attack

For the champions, a decent performance against Burnley in a 2-0 win was followed in midweek by an awesome display of attacking football in the Champions League.

They beat Club Brugge 5-1 away from home and it could have been seven or eight. The only criticism of that performance was that the likes of Jack Grealish and Raheem Sterling were both guilty of going for glory once too many.

Neither of them scored and in the last 20 minutes or so, when they had a few opportunities, they both decided they fancied a goal at any cost. It surely won’t have pleased Pep Guardiola, who is all about the team. It didn’t cost them on the night but Pep will surely have taken note.

Riyad Mahrez scored two but such is the nature of being a Man City player that it doesn’t mean he’ll start here.

At first glance, the 1.454/9 on a Man City win looks pretty good.

After all, this is one of European football’s top three sides up against a team in fine form but who probably can’t expect much more than finishing in the top half of the table come May.

Then again, they’re separated by just two points in the league table and it’s worth remembering that it was Brighton and not City who won the last time these two met. The Seagulls triumphed 3-2 after being 2-0 down but they were helped by the early sending off of Joao Cancelo.

Prior to that City had won seven in a row against Brighton, with an aggregate score of 21-2.

The three before that defeat for City in May had ended 4-0, 5-0 and 1-0.

So at a much bigger 13/10, you can back City to win to nil. With just three goals conceded all season, the Citizens are one of the few sides to have conceded fewer than Brighton, meaning things have been pretty tight at the back this season.

City’s 16 goals this season have been pretty well distributed. Eleven different players have scored but no-one has got more than two.

Those with two so far are: Gabriel Jesus, Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and the injured Ferran Torres.

The one to go with may be De Bruyne. He didn’t score on Tuesday but he was taken off after 64 minutes, a tell-tale sign that he’s in line to start this one.

He’s now scored in his last two league games to go with a goal in the League Cup.

I actually think he’s been keener to get forward and into shooting positions recently than in previous seasons and that could bode well for us. He’s 12/5 and that will do just fine.

At 6/4 you can back Sterling.

He scored a hat-trick against Brighton back in July 2020 and again in September 2018 so he’s no stranger to netting against Brighton. He started the last league match and came off the bench on Tuesday. But only Pep will know if that means he’s likely to start here, or not.

There’s so much attacking talent on display that City can score three or more against anyone. Over 2.5 goals is 3/4 and that could form the first part of a Bet Builder.

And how about this for the second part: Joao Cancelo to get an assist. The brilliant Portuguese full-back opened the scoring on Tuesday, proof of how much he loves attacking.

He has two Premier League assists already and is 7/2 to get another. The double comes to 6.28.