Chelsea rather than City the top-flight hosts set for most goals

Having blown Newcastle away before the international break, on the surface it makes perfect sense that Manchester City’s next Etihad outing against Bournemouth is deemed likeliest to produce the most goals in the Premier League for successive game weeks.

As part of Ladbrokes’ Weekend Premier League Specials, the bookmaker deems the Cherries’ visit to the Citizens’ backyard the 9/2 favourite to contain the most goals of any top-flight match.

The logic of City lining up another potential relegation candidate for a spanking aside, the mitigating circumstances are plentiful as to why this wager should be swerved for another primed match on the fixture list.

The most obvious blockade to a goal-storm at the Etihad is the absence of Sergio Aguero, scorer of no-less than five against the woeful Magpies.

Without their hamstrung hero in the team, City are like a cat whose claws have been filed down while it sleeps.

Manuel Pellegrini is also still bereft of defensive lock picker David Silva, leaving the onus on others including Aguero’s chief understudy Wilfried Bony – yet to get off the mark this season.

Meanwhile, Eddie Howe’s promoted visitors may have been afflicted by some key injuries early in their Premier League journey, but as their results show, the well-organised Cherries are unlikely lambs to the slaughter this season.

Unlucky not to leave Anfield victorious, only Norwich have recorded a victory over Bournemouth by greater than a one-goal margin.

Instead, Ladbrokes folk looking to get involved in this tantalising market would be wise to opt for Chelsea’s match up against Aston Villa instead at 11/2.

A brief check of the forecast in west London suggests a very strong chance of the floodgates opening if past meetings and current predicaments are anything to go by.

In 2012/13 this fixture produced a dark day for the Villans, who were trounced 8-0, while they were not quite as degraded by Mourinho’s men last term when beaten 3-0.

One of the bonuses for this bet is Villa’s ability to score on the road – they have done so in all four league matches at least once so far – while their last two away games have produced five apiece (3-2, 3-2).

Chelsea are wounded animals and welcome back chief goal threat Diego Costa after a ban and his and the Blues’ collective frustrations could well be released on a vulnerable Villa side.

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

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