Juventus vs Man City prediction: Erling Haaland to help City end recent woe

After dropping more points in the Premier League on Saturday, Wednesday’s trip to Juventus in the Champions League could be a welcome distraction for Manchester City (kick-off 8pm, TNT Sports and Discovery+).

City have now won just one of their last nine games in all competitions, a run which has left them 16 places and seven places behind Liverpool in the Champions League table and three places and eight points behind them in the Premier League table, having played a game more.

It has been a period to forget for Pep Guardiola, despite him continually telling the press he is proud of his players and their performances.

They have picked up eight points from their opening five Champions League games, thanks to wins against Slovan Bratislava and Sparta Prague and draws with Inter Milan and Feyenoord.

Perhaps most shocking was their 4-1 defeat at the hands of Sporting in Ruben Amorim’s final game in charge of the Portuguese side, before taking over at City’s local rivals United – made even worse by the fact they took an early lead through Phil Foden.

City must have thought they were through their rough patch when they took a 3-0 lead against Feyenoord, last time out, through Erling Haaland (2) and Ilkay Gundogan only to concede three goals in the last 16 minutes and draw 3-3.

They have conceded seven goals in their last two Champions League games after keeping three clean sheets in their first three matches.

Despite their current form, betting sites still have City as the second favourites to lift the trophy in May at 5/1 just behind Liverpool who are 9/2.

Juventus have also had a mixed start to their campaign and have the same number of points as City and sit two places below them on goal difference.

They beat PSV Eindhoven and RB Leipzig in their opening two matches before a home defeat against Stuttgart was followed up with draws away at Lille and Aston Villa.

The Italian side also have exactly the same number of points from their opening 15 league games, although they are unbeaten, while City have lost four already.

This will be the seventh meeting between the two sides and although City got off to a winning start when they first met in the Uefa Cup in 1976 Juventus are unbeaten in the last five, winning three and drawing two.

Their last meeting was in 2015/16 when they met in the Champions League group stages and goals from Mario Mandzukic and Alvaro Morata earned Juve a 2-1 win at City and completed the double a few weeks later when Mandzukic scored the only goal of the game.

Despite City’s recent run, football betting sites are still backing them to win in Italy, with odds of 1/1, while Juventus are 16/5 and you can get 38/15 on a draw and considering the home side have played out 11 draws from 20 games, including their last four, it might not be a bad shout.

You can get 19/5 on both teams to score and the game to end all square, and such is the fragility of City’s confidence that you can’t be sure they’ll get over the line, while they are also struggling with even more injuries defensively with Manuel Akanji, John Stones and Nathan Ake all missing.

With City so hard to predict right now, we’ll go with something that has become very predictable and that is Erling Haaland to score. Even though the team is struggling Haaland has still scored 18 goals in 21 appearances, including five in the Champions League so far.

He bagged braces against Sparta and Feyenoord and also scored his first league goal in four games at the weekend, so he seems a sensible option.

Bettors can get 7/1 on him scoring two or more, 7/2 to score first, or 13/10 to score any time on certain betting apps, with the latter being our preferred option.

Juventus vs Man City prediction: Haaland to score any time - 13/10 MGM

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