Searching for EPL value bets

The outlook for the 2022-23 English Premier League season, which will begin Friday with Arsenal visiting Crystal Palace, looks familiar. Manchester City is once again the odds-on favorite to win the title, at -170, and the bookmakers view Liverpool (+230) as City’s most legitimate competition.

Looking beyond the title race, however, there are two teams that should provide sharp-witted bettors some value:

Buy: Crystal Palace

The most underrated team last season, Crystal Palace, once again looks to be flying under the radar heading into the new season.

That may sound like high praise for a team that finished 12th in the Premier League, with 48 points, but a look under the surface reveals that there’s more to the Eagles than meets the eye.

Not only did Palace finish with the seventhbest goal differential in a season in which they were expected to be firmly in the relegation fight, but also the Eagles boasted the sixth-best expected goal (xG) differential and were the fourthbest team at preventing big scoring chances.

Judging by their futures odds and the lofty price on Palace for their season-opener against Arsenal, the betting market seems to still view Palace as a bottom-10 team in the Premier League. Savvy bettors will disagree with that notion and will likely find value on Palace more often than not this season, starting with their curtain-raiser on Friday afternoon.

Sell: Leicester City

In a lot of ways, Leicester City is the antithesis of Crystal Palace. Though Palace looks to be trending up with an exciting, talented core and a manager who broke through in his first season, the Foxes are going in the opposite direction, with a roster that looks a little stale and a manager who seems to be at the end of his tenure.

On the surface it may have looked like business as usual for Brendan Rodgers’ side in 2021-22, but if you peel back a couple of layers, you’ll notice that the Foxes were standing on a pretty shaky foundation last season.

Now six seasons removed from winning the title as a 5,000-to-1 miracle in 2015-16, Leicester City could be a sneaky relegation candidate going into a season in which the teams projected to finish around them mostly got better. Meanwhile, the Foxes have yet to bring in any impact signings during the transfer period and could lose key midfielders James Maddison and Youri Tielemans before the window closes Sept. 1.

Leicester is currently 16/1 to get relegated at FanDuel. Though that is a little too short, there is some value on backing them at 40/1 to be the last-place team at Caesars or Bet365.

Michael Leboff handiaps the EPL for Action Network.