Jones Knows is backing Nottingham Forest on the double chance to avoid defeat at 5/4 with Sky Bet ahead of another busy Premier League weekend, and the case rests on numbers that look strong on the surface but less convincing underneath. The column also flags Manchester United, Everton and Sunderland, with the United discussion shaped by Michael Carrick’s short managerial spell rather than any single result.
Carrick has won 10 of his 15 Premier League games in charge this season and collected 33 points from a possible 45, a return bettered only by Manchester City in that span. No side has won more matches than United over that run, and those are the sort of figures that can make a backer sit up. Jones Knows says those numbers scream progress.
But the deeper read is less flattering. United are operating at just +0.1 xG per 90 minutes under Carrick, and across the last eight Premier League matches only Wolves and Burnley have a worse xG supremacy figure than United at -0.3 per 90. Jones Knows puts the split plainly: results have been excellent, but the process has been far less convincing. That is the tension in the United case, and it is why the betting edge is not always where the table suggests it should be.
That argument matters today because this weekend’s slate offers punters several teams whose recent form can be read in opposite ways. Forest are being backed to keep themselves in the game, while United’s record invites respect but also caution, especially when the underlying numbers do not match the points return. In a betting column, that gap is the whole story.
The same logic carries into the other games Jones Knows discussed. Everton arrive without a win in their last five Premier League games, their longest winless run of the season, while Sunderland have failed to win any of their last four and have drawn their last two. Across the last 70 top-flight matches, the draw has landed at a 33 per cent strike rate, a reminder that stalemates are never far away when teams are short of a clean edge.
There is also a more direct attacking case elsewhere, with Ismaila Sarr used as a marker of reliable output. He has scored 20 goals across all competitions this season and nine goals in his last nine starts on the road, with 17 shots on target in those nine away starts. Those figures help explain why the market can look generous when a player keeps producing chances and end product away from home.
For Forest, the appeal is simpler. The double chance at 5/4 leans on the idea that a team does not need to dominate a match to frustrate a side whose underlying control is not as convincing as the results suggest. For United, Carrick’s spell has produced wins and points in quantity, but the xG figures leave the larger question hanging over the run: whether the performance is really as solid as the record makes it look.
That is why the weekend’s betting case is not built on reputation. It is built on what the numbers are saying now, and on which teams can keep living up to them.
For readers following the United story more closely, the Casemiro links around the club’s build-up frame another layer of interest before kickoff, but the central question remains the same. Carrick’s results have been real; the sustainability of them is still open to challenge.
