Griffin Wong gives his best bets at DraftKings Sportsbook for Matchweek 29 of the Premier League.
There are still four Champions League places to fight for with 10 matches remaining in the Premier League season, and there are 11 teams with at least a somewhat realistic shot of getting there. Liverpool, with 70 points, has effectively secured the title, but from Arsenal on 55 points to Brentford on 38, the final four likely Premier League spots are wide open. There’s also a little bit of intrigue at the bottom of the table, but unless one of Leicester City (17 points) or Ipswich Town (17) can rattle off wins to catch up to Wolves on 23 points, the three new sides are likely to get the immediate axe.
DraftKings Sportsbook has plenty of bets available every week for players looking to get it on the Premier League action. Here are my top betting picks for Matchweek 29, which has just eight matches this weekend.
First, let’s take a look at the full list of fixtures:
West Ham United at Everton, 11 a.m. ET, March 15
Nottingham Forest at Ipswich Town, 11 a.m. ET, March 15
Brighton at Manchester City, 11 a.m. ET, March 15
Wolves at Southampton, 11 a.m. ET, March 15
Brentford at AFC Bournemouth, 1:30 p.m. ET, March 15
Chelsea at Arsenal, 9:30 a.m. ET, March 16
Tottenham Hotspur at Fulham, 9:30 a.m. ET, March 16
Manchester United at Leicester City, 3 p.m. ET, March 16
Credit to the Tractor Boys for trying. Ipswich has certainly been a less disappointing and more entertaining addition to the Premier League than either Southampton — who might break Derby County’s record for futility — or Leicester City, although the Foxes have fared better by advanced statistics. Leicester was supposed to stay up, but Ipswich wasn’t. Either way, it seems almost unfathomable that either team will stay up at this point, so while we’re giving the Tractor Boys their flowers, we should also note that they aren’t a Premier League-quality side, and Forest made a statement with its 1-0 win over Manchester City in Matchweek 28.
To be fair, Forest doesn’t score a ton — its 45 goals this season are around the middle of the pack — so perhaps it won’t rack up enough goals to beat Ipswich by multiple goals. But their 33 goals conceded are tied for the third-fewest in the league, and the Tractor Boys’ 26 goals are the third-fewest, so far from a guarantee that Ipswich will put one past Matz Sels at all. Forest has scored at least three goals seven times and at least twice an additional three in 28 league matches, while Ipswich has been shut out 10 times and scored only one goal an additional 11.
If Manchester City can beat the Tractor Boys by six goals at Portman Road, Forest can certainly win by two. When these teams faced off in Matchweek 13, it finished just 1-0 to Forest, and they drew 1-1 in the FA Cup a few weeks ago before Forest eventually won on penalties, but Forest has improved since Matchweek 13 while Ipswich has only gotten worse.
The Premier League’s second-best Egyptian forward has acquainted himself well in his first month and a half at Manchester City since coming over from Frankfurt in Germany. Marmoush has netted three times in six appearances (five starts), and he ranks in the top quintile among Big 5 league forwards in non-penalty goals, shots, and shot-creating actions. In fact, Marmoush is so good that his top comparison is none other than Vinicius Junior. To be fair, all of his goals in the Premier League came in City’s 4-0 win over Newcastle United on February 15, but he did get off four shots the following week against Liverpool. He’s either a regular member of the starting 11 or the first man off the bench.
Brighton is the hottest team in the Premier League, having picked up four straight wins, so it won’t be easy for Marmoush. But in one of those matches, the Seagulls were relatively lucky not to concede multiple times to Bournemouth, who racked up 1.5 expected goals, and Brighton’s also just over a month removed from giving up seven in a thrashing at the hands of Forest, so it’s far from untouchable. For the season, the Seagulls have given up 40 goals, tied for the ninth-most in the league, and City is due for a bounce-back performance.
Fulham’s main man in the middle isn’t an incredible goalkeeper; in fact, Leno’s 68.5% save percentage ranks in just the 34th percentile among goalkeepers in Europe’s top-five leagues. But he’s made four or more saves in three of his last four matches in all competitions, including an eight-save masterpiece in the fifth round of the FA Cup against Manchester United, a match in which he ultimately knocked the Red Devils out on penalties. The Cottagers’ main man did save only two of Brighton’s four shots on goal the following week, though.
This is mostly a bet on Spurs, who have had an extremely solid attack despite a very disappointing league position. Tottenham is just 13th in the league, but it’s scored 55 goals, more than any team besides top-of-the-table Liverpool. The goal-scoring has been distributed well across the club, with Dominic Solanke, Dejan Kulusevski, and Son Heung-min each recording seven goals and Brennan Johnson and James Maddison contributing nine each. It’s not a surprise, then, that Spurs are fifth in the league in both total shots and shots on target per match. Fulham hasn’t allowed a lot of shots, but those that have been taken find the target at the league’s fourth-highest rate.
I’m not very convinced by either of these teams. The Blues are coming off of two straight wins in the Premier League, and while the 4-0 thrashing of bottom-of-the-table Southampton was nice, everyone’s beaten up on Southampton. A 1-0 victory over Leicester City counts as a disappointing result, while a pair of narrow victories over FC Copenhagen in the Europa Conference League aren’t particularly convincing either, even if Copenhagen is one of the better teams in that competition. Meanwhile, draws in each of their last two Premier League competitions don’t sell me on Arsenal either, although the 7-1 thrashing of PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League was nice.
Even at home, where the Gunners are 8-4-1 with the second-most points in the league, I’m not convinced that they’re all that much better than Chelsea, and these two London rivals have a tendency to draw. The teams’ first match of the season was a 1-1 draw that also finished dead-even on expected goals, 1.5 to 1.5, and even in the Blues’ disappointing 2023-24 Premier League campaign, in which they finished just sixth, the first London Derby finished in a draw. Chelsea has a better squad this season, and Arsenal is both in subpar form and has one eye ahead on the Champions League quarterfinal coming up against Real Madrid.