There are actually three huge football matches on Sunday. There are the two NFL Divisional Round matchups, and there is the Premier League headliner between Arsenal and Manchester United at 11:30 a.m. ET.
Arsenal is a -115 home favorite over United, who can make things very interesting with a win that would pull them within five points of the Gunners is the title race.
Can the Red Devils continue their surge up the table? Or will Arsenal put them firmly in their rear-view mirror?
Arsenal vs. Manchester United prediction
The Premier League has been full of surprises this season. Arsenal are atop the league instead of Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea are both in the middle of the table and Manchester United are, somehow, in the title race.
Of all the surprises, the fact that United are in this position may be the biggest when you consider they started the season with hopeless losses to Brighton and Brentford.
But sometime after the first international break the Red Devils really got their legs under them. United is 8-3-2 (W-D-L) with a +8 goal differential in the Premier League since Oct. 1, giving them the third-best points per game mark in that span behind Newcastle and Arsenal. United’s statistical data suggests their hot stretch is no fluke, either. The Red Devils own a +11.78 expected goal differential over their last 13 matches, so if anything they’ve been a tad unlucky.
And if we want to zoom in either further, you can make a salient argument that United have been the best team in the Premier League since the competition resumed after the World Cup. United won their first four matches after the hiatus and then drew against Crystal Palace, but even that result was more about a world-class moment of magic from Palace rather than anything United did wrong.
The Red Devils have allowed just two goals on 2.89 xG in their five matches since the break and their +8.04 xG differential is the best mark in the circuit in that span.
Arsenal have done very little wrong this season and continued their great form in a resounding win over Tottenham in the North London Derby, but this price looks a little short on the Gunners, especially since their only loss this season came to United.
Whether that result holds any water here is up for debate, but what is certainly clear is that Manchester United are a much, much better team than the one that beat Arsenal back in September.
Source: nypost.com
