Sporting CP vs Manchester City Prediction: Amorim can get one over his soon-to-be rivals

It's Sporting Lisbon v Manchester City on Tuesday November 5 (20:00), live on TNT Sports in what will be Ruben Amorim's last European match in charge of the Portuguese champions ahead of his much-awaited move to Manchester Unted.  

Portugal-based Jamie Pacheco thinks the hosts are good for at least a point and that goals may be at a premium so his tips for this one reflect that. 

Sporting CP vs Manchester City Odds

Manchester City are 5/6,  which gives them an implied probability of 54.5%; it's 11/4 the draw (26.7%) and 3/1 Sporting (25%).  

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Sporting CP

Well, there's obviously only one place to start. The brilliant Ruben Amorim will be in charge of a Champions League match for Sporting for the final time after agreeing to become the next Manchester United manager. For what it's worth, I think the timing is perfect. He's been at Sporting long enough to have proved his worth but if he let this job go, he might be in danger of having to wait a year or so until another one of this magnitude came about.  

Whether his preferred system will be a good fit for the players he has at Old Trafford remains to be seen, as will his lack of experience at one of the world's biggest clubs, but you obviously can't get that experience if you never make the move.  

He'll certainly have left the club in a far better position than the one he found it in. And that includes a super start in this competition with two wins and a draw from his side's three matches so far. Last time out they beat Sturm Graz 2-0 away with that man Viktor Gyokeres scoring once again. It was a result that slightly flattered them given the stats, but this is a results business after all. 

It was business as usual in the league on Friday night with a 5-1 win over Estrela da Amadora that included four goals from that man Viktor Gyokeres.  

Manchester City

There's a certain irony about one of the world's richest clubs being down to the bare bones as regards available senior players.  

Kyle Walker, Kevin de Bruyne and Jeremy Doku all returned from injury at the weekend with Walker starting and Doku coming off the bench. De Bruyne may play some part in this match but is unlikely to start; Rodri and Jack Grealish are still unavailable.   

You'd also imagine the likes of Erling Haaland, Josko Gvardiol and Bernardo Silva must be quite tired by now with games coming thick and fast, although the Norwegian didn't feature at all in their midweek defeat to Spurs in the Cup, while the other two came off the bench.  

But there's some good news for City. Like Sporting they have two wins and a draw from their three matches to date in this competition so even a slip-up here will leave them in a strong position to qualify for the next round.  

The bad news is that though they're very much favourites to win the league again, they're going through a rough patch where they're not playing particularly well and struggling to keep clean sheets, proof of which was their 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth at the weekend.  

Sporting CP or draw @ 19/20

Two and a half years ago these two clashed in the Champions League with City running out 5-0 winners here in Lisbon before a 0-0 in Manchester where the hosts dominated but couldn't get that winner; not that they needed to.  

But that was a Sporting side that was still somewhat finding their feet under Amorim and despite including the likes of Pedro Porro and Manuel Ugarte, theirs is a much better side and squad now than it was back then. So a repeat of that scoreline, or something similar, is pretty unlikely. 

One thing I am confident about is that Amorim will be treating this match as if it's business as usual rather than one where he's not that bothered and where his mind is already on the upcoming challenge at Old Trafford. And what better way to send a warning signal than to beat the Premier League's top side with 'little' Sporting Lisbon?   

I know this is City and they deserve plenty of respect, but this Sporting side is unbeaten in 13 since losing the Portuguese Super Cup and the only one of those 13 they didn't win, was a tricky away tie at PSV that ended 1-1.  

With City missing so many players, Sporting looking so strong and Amorim wanting to leave in style, I'm happy to oppose City by taking the 19/20 on Sporting or draw in the Double Chance market.  

Under 2.5 goals @ 11/8

I think when City are in action, the odds-compilers' first instinct as regards the over/under 2.5 goals markets is to make 'overs' as short as possible as long as they still see business for it. The rationale is simple: on their day Haaland, Foden and Co can rack up the goals between them while a strangely shaky-looking defence has been pretty vulnerable all season, recently conceding two at home to Fulham a few weeks ago and two in that midweek defeat to Spurs. A good recipe for having at least three goals in most of their matches.  

Fine, but I'm not sure that 'unders' should be as big as 11/8, implied probability 42%.  

If it's 0-0 or 1-1 after 70 minutes or so, I'm sure both managers would be pretty happy with that, keen to shake hands and move on. In Amorim's case, literally. 

It's also worth pointing out that all three of Sporting's matches in the competition have stayed 'unders' so far:  2-0, 1-1 and 2-0 so for that reason alone, it looks a decent price.  

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