Previous top-flight pastings mean under 2.5 goals next for Man City

Manchester United may have followed up their 7-0 thrashing of Barnsley in 1997 with a 6-1 demolition of Sheffield Wednesday, but it is a big rarity for the same club to go goal crazy in successive games.

In fact, the follow-up fixtures struggle to generate anywhere close to the same level of excitement for supporters, if previous Premier League drubbings are anything to go by.

This suggests that rather than anticipating Manchester City running up a cricket score against CSKA Moscow in the Champions League, after taking Norwich to the cleaners, the best bet at the Etihad may be the 29/20 that under 2.5 goals are scored in the match.

Here are four previous instances of teams to go wild in the Premier League, to then fall dramatically short of repeating the dose on their next outing.

Manchester United 9-0 Ipswich (March 1995)

A trip to mid-table, nothing-to-play-for Wimbledon looked perfect for Man Utd to hit some additional high-scoring notes in 1995 after their demolition of Ipswich.

After all, this was the same Wimbledon that had shipped seven at Aston Villa just four games earlier.

However, the Red Devils ended up settling for a true title-winners result of a 1-0 win at Selhurst Park, with Steve Bruce getting on the scoresheet.

Tottenham 9-1 Wigan (November 2009)

Tottenham were showing a great penchant for goals before thrashing Wigan, as they had already put five past Hull, Doncaster, Preston and Burnley in the 2009/10 campaign.

However, a trip to an Aston Villa side situated in the top four that had beaten Bolton 5-1 in their last home game was hardly a likely place to score a hatful again.

Spurs read the right script as Michael Dawson’s equaliser in the final 15 minutes earned his team a 1-1 draw.

Chelsea 8-0 Aston Villa (December 2012)

Fast forward three years and Aston Villa’s nosedive from European challengers to relegation battlers was clearly visible, especially after a young side was blown away at Chelsea.

Chelsea had then scored 13 goals in two outings and visited a Norwich side that had gone six games without keeping a clean sheet.

They didn’t keep one against Chelsea either, but the Canaries were only downed by Juan Mata’s solitary strike.

Arsenal 7-0 Middlesbrough (January 2006)

Everton were still a team on the upgrade under David Moyes in 2006 and despite winning three games in succession to gain some breathing space from the relegation places, they were still expected to lose to an Arsenal team that needed points to get into the top four and had beaten Everton 7-0 in the previous season.

But having battered Middlesbrough, Arsenal ran out of ideas at Goodison Park as Everton claimed a third 1-0 win in four games, as James Beattie settled the clash.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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