Premier League Gameweek 16: The best player prop bets for Lukaku, Rashford, and Silva

The Premier League fixtures are coming thick and fast with the teams set for another three fixtures between now and the one night of the year Santa gets to work. This is the time of the season where the cream rises to the top, and Manchester City will be looking to try to put some breathing space between themselves, Chelsea, and Liverpool.

With a cracking slate of fixtures coming up over the weekend, here are the best three player props for Gameweek 16 in the Premier League.

Manchester City vs. Wolves: Bernardo Silva to score a goal (+170)

Bernardo Silva is on a hot streak and who are we to stop him! The Portuguese attacker now has five goals in his last five league games for Manchester City – taking his Premier League tally up to seven for the season. That’s more than twice as many goals as any other City player, which is remarkable given how talented their squad is and how many they score.

City average 2.4 goals at the Etihad Stadium this year, and rank second for shots per game (18.3) and shots on target per game (6.5). There is nothing like watching Pep Guardiola’s side in full flow.

Silva got a rest in midweek as Guardiola chose not to play him in the Champions League, so he comes into this fixture fresh and firing. This season he has an astonishing conversion rate of 39% and that gets even better if you take his five-game purple patch. In that period, he’s had just nine shots and found the net with five of them, giving him a conversion rate of 56%.

While that unstoppable form cannot be maintained and Silva will have to regress slightly over the course of the next 20-odd games, he’s a great bet to keep the run going a little longer when City host Wolves on Saturday.

Chelsea vs. Leeds United: Romelu Lukaku to score a goal (-118)

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and nothing is truer when it comes to Romelu Lukaku. The Belgian star has only managed 149 minutes of football since Oct. 20 as he recovers from fitness, but he was back in the starting line-up and scoring goals as he hit the back of the net in the Champions League on Wednesday against Zenit Saint Petersburg.

Don’t let the last six weeks make you forget just how good Lukaku is. Across two seasons in Inter Milan, Lukaku scored a goal every 125 minutes in the Serie A, and converted an impressive 24% of his chances.

He then arrived at Chelsea, and although his conversion rate dipped to 16%, he still bagged four goals in his first four games for them across all competitions. Now he is back to full fitness and there’s every chance he can get back to that form, especially in a favorable match-up at home to Leeds.

Chelsea rank third in the league for shots, averaging 17.4 attempts on goal per game. Leeds’ defense on the road ranks 16th in the league, allowing 15.9 shots per game, so there should be plenty of opportunities falling Lukaku’s way.

Leeds have kept just one clean sheet on the road this season in the Premier League, and it’s hard to see Marcelo Bielsa’s side keeping out the Blues.

Norwich City vs. Manchester United: Marcus Rashford to score a goal (+170)

While we are expecting Silva to eventually come back to earth and regress towards the mean, the same can be said of Marcus Rashford going the other way. The United striker hasn’t scored since Oct. 30, and has barely had a sight of goal in recent weeks. In his last three Premier League games against Crystal Palace, Arsenal, and Chelsea, Rashford has managed just one shot on goal.

That is not good for bettors, but more importantly it is not in line with Rashford’s usual statistics. Last year he was averaging 2.3 shots a game for Manchester United, and you’d expect him to regress closer to that average over the course of this season.

The perfect start to getting back to normal is a trip to Carrow Road to face Norwich. The Canaries have conceded more goals than anyone else in the league this year (31), and they allow 15 shots to the opposition per game, which means their defense is ranked 16th in the topflight.

Rashford also scored three times in the last two matches against Norwich as the Red Devils won 4-0 at home and 3-1 away in 2019-20. Manchester United are getting back on track since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer left the club. They’re unbeaten in five games in all competitions since Ole left, and they’ve scored in each of those games, with eight goals in total.