Football Bet of the Day: United to scrape past Ipswich

We’ve got plenty of Premier League action coming our way on Wednesday night, as we turn our attention to Old Trafford for our Football Bet of the Day, as Manchester United welcome Ipswich Town (19:30, TNT Sports 4) to the Theatre of Dreams. 

The Tractor Boys need to get some wins on the board if they are to stand a chance of pulling off an unlikely survival, as all three promoted teams find themselves in danger of going straight back down for a second consecutive year. 

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Ipswich have perhaps been the team we expected them to be when they came up in recent weeks. They’ve scored in each of their last four Premier League matches but only picked up one point during that run, at Aston Villa. Home defeats to Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton have been damaging, and they do look likely to finish below the dotted line now. 

Who knows where they would be without Liam Delap though? He’s been simply sensational this season, scoring 10 goals in 25 matches for the strugglers. Pace, power and finishing ability all in one, it feels incredibly unlikely that he will be playing in the second tier next season, even if Ipswich are. 

Manchester United vs Ipswich Odds

This team can be an attacking threat as well, as we saw when they beat Coventry City 4-1 in the FA Cup to set up a fifth round tie at Nottingham Forest on Monday. With Delap, they do have a chance of scoring against a Manchester United defence that has been far from solid. I was going to back Ipswich to get something in this Wednesday night clash, given I believe they will score, but it is their soft underbelly that has cost them this term. 

They’ve conceded four against Spurs, six against Man City and four against Liverpool recently, as they struggle to keep the goals at bay. Their last league clean sheet came against Chelsea on December 30, and I can’t see them keeping United out here. I also think United will win due to their attacking threat. They showed a level of resurgence in that second half at Everton, and I’d be very surprised if they don’t win here to silence any lingering doubts of relegation this term. 

Football Odds

They may be rubbish, and currently sit in 15th, but they have beaten Leicester 3-0, Everton 4-0 and Southampton 3-1 at Old Trafford this season. Against the relegation-threatened teams, they tend to win at home, and they have enough quality to do so here. Ipswich didn’t come up against any players like Bruno Fernandes in the Championship last term, and ultimately that quality will probably make the difference. 

I’m expecting a 2-1 or 3-1 home win, with Delap a great price to get on the scoresheet. As a former City academy graduate, he’d love nothing more than to score at Old Trafford and he opened the scoring at Villa Park last time out in a 1-1 draw. 40 per cent of his goals this term have come away from Portman Road, and I think Ipswich can give United a scare. Ultimately though, it won’t be enough. Home win with BTTS is our Football Bet of the Day. 

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