Carling 11 to 12 Jan

Expert picks for Carling Cup games of 11 to 12 January, 2004

Chelsea vs Manchester United

The handicap line on this game opened at 1/2 goal and is now 3/4 goal in favour of Chelsea as the bookies and the bettors start to realise that Sir Alex Fergusson is going to play a seriously second strength team in this competition.

The reasons for this are obvious. The EPL and Champions League are more important to Sir Alex than the Carling Cup and they have an early game against Liverpool on Saturday.

So the question is, just how bad will United`s team be and how strong will Chelsea be? The latter is fairly clear. Mourinho has said he will play a near to full strength squad and even if he played his second team, Chelsea are likely to be a pretty strong side. United`s fans will not be happy to be knocked out of a competition in which they have a realistic chance of getting a European place (and easily their best chance of silverware) but I think Sir Alex will ignore them.

As this game is over two legs, Mourinho is likely to want to get a decent lead to take to Old Trafford and I suspect he will go all out for the win. I would rather take a shorter price about Chelsea on the 1/2 ball handicap than take the 3/4 ball handicap, so my advice is to have a two point bet on Chelsea (-1/2) at 1.79 with Bet Asia Betting.