Uefa Europa League sees a clash between two former Champions League winners on Thursday as Manchester United and FC Porto go head to head. United have been on bad form both in Europa League and Porto have won 6 out of their 7 in the Portuguese League, so this one promises to be a good matchup with a lot of betting action.

Game Overview

We are expecting a high scoring affair, both teams are in bad defensive form (although you could argue about Porto) and tend to concede a lot of goals against better opponents. Furthermore, Man Utd have one of the worst ratios of goals scored against expected goals in Europe, meaning they tend to create chances but not convert them. This is one of the stats that slowly goes more and more towards the average the more games are played.

The winner of this game is hard to decide. While we would like to jump on the fire Ten Hag narrative and we agree that United have been playing poorly, Porto just isn’t that impressive either. Their games against strong opponents have been poor at best and it’s hard to see them having an easy victory here like the odds suggest. Therefore, we are skipping the moneyline and instead giving you totals and player props this week.

Porto vs Manchester United Best Bets

Best Bet – Over 2.5 Goals (-137)

United have been truly bad this season, but we’ve still seen glimpses of beautiful performance from individual players such as Alejandro Garnacho or Bruno Fernandes. With Rasmus H?jlund back for this game, United should be in a better form than what they’ve been showing us for the first part of the season. However, Erik Ten Hag’s crew is still uncoordinated and lacks disicpline, which will show on the defensive side. Therefore, we are sure they are going to concede at least one. However, with H?jlund heading the balls from long crosses, goal scoring opportunities will also arise.

Porto on the other hand have gone 6-1 in there first 7 in the Portuguese league and only conceded 3 goals. However, we can be realistic here. Against Bodo/Glimt they conceded 3 in the last round of Europa League, and while they won agaomst Sporting in the final of the Super Cup of Portugal, they conceded 2. In addition, they conceded 2 in their only domestic loss of the season against Sporting. All of this taken into account, Porto is not a good defensive team, whereas United have missed the most big chances in the Premier League. The line for over 2.5 goals is fair at -137, but even the line of over 3.5 goals at +175 is a great bet at most US betting apps.

Best Goal Scorer Props Porto vs United

Both teams have good goal scorer bets available for this mathcup. As we are confident both teams will score, this just begs the question who is the most likely goal scorer on both teams.

For United, we will go with H?jlund. It’s likely that the Dane will start this game and while he hasn’t been on top of his game due to lack of playing time, 9/10 last goals scored against Porto have been from inside the box. H?jlund is also much bigger than the Porto go-to CBs in Pedro and Perez, standing more than 2 inches taller than the tallest of the pair. At +210 for anytime goal scorer, we’d be fools not to bet on Rasmus H?jlund to score. Also, take a stab at the Dane to score 2 or mor at +1450 as a fun bet.

As for Porto, it’s not as clear given United’s absolutely trash of defence form in the last games. While we can’t blame the defence for Bruno’s straight red against Tottenham Hotspurs, the United defence lack discipline all around. Therefore, we’re taking a double stab here with Samuel Omoridion as the first goal scorer at +575 and Wenderson Galena anytime goalscorer at +275. Galena has been on scintilating form in the Portuguese Primera League, but he didn’t start against Bodo/Glimt. However, when he is on, he is the penatly taker for Porto. Therefore, +275 are pretty good odds for him to score any time in the match. On the other hand Omordion has started last 3 out of 3 games for Porto and scored in each of those games. Given that he should be the no.9 for the Portuguese side, we are very surprised we can find his first goal scorer odds at as high as +575.

Best Same Game Parlay

This game provides itself with ample opportunities for SGPs as we think some of the US betting apps are way off on their lines such as the total. We will use ouur over 2.5 goals as the baseline and build our SGP on that.

In addition to over 2.5 goals, we’re picking Man UTD over 4.5 corners. United have reached this amount of corners in 4 out of their last 5, including the humilitating 3-0 against Liverpool. Since we’re banking on H?jlund to score, we’re also taking Rasmus H?jlund +1 shot on goal for a total odds of +340. We think this is a good price for this Parlay. So in total, we combine

• Over 2.5 Goals
• Over 4.5 Man Utd. Corners
• Rasmus H?jlund Shots on Goal 1+