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football betting tips -
League 1:
 
2023/24 Overall Home Away
P W D L F A Gdf Pts Form P W D L F A P W D L F A
  1   Portsmouth 13 9 4 0 22 8 +14 31 WWWW 8 6 2 0 12 4 5 3 2 0 10 4
  2   Oxford United 12 9 1 2 24 10 +14 28 XWWW 7 5 1 1 13 5 5 4 0 1 11 5
  3   Barnsley 13 7 2 4 26 13 +13 23 XWWL 6 2 0 4 13 10 7 5 2 0 13 3
 
League 1 : 23/24 season outright (written July 24th)
 
Last season I went with Bolton Wanderers and my first set of notes on them are reproduced under the "good luck" sign off . They finished 5th with the second best defensive record, conceding only 36 goals and the two teams who gave up a similar number (Ipswich and Wednesday) were both promoted and every other team conceded at least nine more. The Trotters were very much in the mix, ticked most of the boxes and in any other year would have gone even closer and they also won the EFL Trophy at Wembley, beating champions Plymouth 4-0 (!) before a crowd of almost 80,000. They are a club heading firmly in the right direction and who I feel will continue to flourish and grow under astute and fair minded ownership who will make well judged decisions and I will be surprised if they are not top 6 again. However, the loss of goalkeeper James Trafford and RB Conor Bradley (see my notes from last season below) are HUGE, the former returned to Manchester City and has subsequently been sold for £15m to EPL side Burnley and Bradley is back with the Liverpool U21 team and I assume they will be looking to loan him to a Championship side to further his development. It will be very tough to replace the two and whilst they have already signed a RB and two new keepers, they look either of lower quality /potential and also, in one case (the main keeper), a little injury prone. Most importantly of all, the Bolton odds are, quite rightly given how well they did, half what they were last season. Having said all that, this is a MUCH weaker third tier than it was 12 months ago and Wanderers should go close and I would love to see them promoted, but they cannot make my short list (of one) this time around.
 
Last season's table......
 
2022/23 Overall Home Away
P W D L F A Gdf Pts Form P W D L F A P W D L F A
  1   Plymouth Argyle 46 31 8 7 82 47 +35 101 WWWW 23 20 1 2 44 16 23 11 7 5 38 31
  2   Ipswich Town 46 28 14 4 101 35 +66 98 XWWW 23 16 6 1 60 13 23 12 8 3 41 22
  3   Sheffield Wednesday 46 28 12 6 81 37 +44 96 WWWW 23 16 6 1 49 16 23 12 6 5 32 21
  4   Barnsley 46 26 8 12 80 47 +33 86 LXLW 23 16 1 6 45 24 23 10 7 6 35 23
  5   Bolton Wanderers 46 23 12 11 62 36 +26 81 WWLW 23 14 5 4 32 13 23 9 7 7 30 23
  6   Peterborough United 46 24 5 17 75 54 +21 77 WOLW 23 13 4 6 38 25 23 11 1 11 37 29
  7   Derby County 46 21 13 12 67 46 +21 76 LXWW 23 13 6 4 40 20 23 8 7 8 27 26
  8   Portsmouth 46 17 19 10 61 50 +11 70 XXWX 23 9 11 3 34 22 23 8 8 7 27 28
  9   Wycombe Wanderers 46 20 9 17 59 51 +8 69 XLLW 23 11 5 7 32 24 23 9 4 10 27 27
  10   Charlton Athletic 46 16 14 16 70 66 +4 62 XWLW 23 9 7 7 44 31 23 7 7 9 26 35
  11   Lincoln City 46 14 20 12 47 47 +0 62 WLLW 23 7 14 2 22 17 23 7 6 10 25 30
  12   Shrewsbury Town 46 17 8 21 52 61 -9 59 LWLL 23 11 3 9 32 32 23 6 5 12 20 29
  13   Fleetwood Town 46 14 16 16 53 51 +2 58 XLWO 23 7 8 8 25 25 23 7 8 8 28 26
 
The top three were all promoted and along with Derby County, Town and Wednesday were the biggest clubs in League 1 and all massive in third tier terms, capable of attracting 25,000 + crowds week after week. They have been replaced by Wigan Athletic , Reading and Blackpool two of whom have lurched from one financial crisis to another, and Athletic already start with an eight point deduction, we are not sure the money troubles are over with the Royals and they and the Seasiders are having to rebuild. As I said, this is definitely a weaker division.
 
Across the last four seasons, the top 3 places (12 teams total) have been filled by seven who finished between 6th-13th the previous season, which is why I cut short the table at half way.  The three biggest amongst those are Derby, Portsmouth and Charlton and each will be expected to kick on from last season's finishing position, but it is Pompey I am interested in.
 
Portsmouth overspent and fell on very hard times, when, after two FA Cup final appearances (2008 and 2010), seven straight seasons in the EPL and a place in Europe, they suffered three relegations in four seasons, along with three separate points deductions and found themselves in League 2 in 2013/14. It took four seasons on the breadline and almost starting from scratch to get back into L1 which they did in 2017, much of the hard work in rebuilding was done by the Pompey Supporters Trust, but they agreed to sell to the Tornante Company owned by former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner ahead of the start of 17/18 and they have been knocking on the door ever since. Eisner is not the sugar daddy type or likely to simply throw money at any project, but he has got the club stable and under him they have finished 8-4-4-8-10-8, they should have been promoted in at least two of those seasons, lost in the playoff semi finals twice and blew very good positions on other occasions but I feel this could finally be their time.
 
Young head coaches have had great success in this division in recent years and none of those would know League 1 as well as 37 yo Pompey boss John Mousinho, who played over 300 games at this level (550 total) including some 70 for Brentford, his first professional club. He only played some 30 odd games in the Championship, but made a good and very long career making the most of his ability and he was always going to stay in the game and become a coach after he retired. John was a leader on the pitch and very well thought of at every team he ever played for. He had a player/coach role at Oxford United, his final club, before taking the job at Portsmouth in January. Mousinho is well educated, attended college in the US, took a UK University degree whilst still playing and his UEFA Pro License whilst also being chairman of the Professional Footballers Association, stepping down from the role to join Pompey. At the time of his appointment, Portsmouth chief executive Andrew Cullen highlighted Mousinho's leadership and motivational skills as key and his contract has only ever been announced as "long term" which is odd. However, I am led to believe it is very long and was only not announced to avoid putting additional pressure on the first time head coach or club.
 
A whole host of well known and successful coaches were interviewed for the job, but Mousinho was named the stand out candidate and the one always wanted by Director of Football Richard Hughes who is even younger, despite holding that role for over 4 years at Forest Green Rovers until September last year. He was chased for a year by Pompey, the two will work closely together and this is their first proper transfer window together and they have been busy. Clearing out a lot of players seen as surplus to requirements and bringing in a mixture of young talent from clubs further up the football pyramid and others with a lot of experience. RW Gavin Whyte has almost 50 games in the Championship under his belt and is a full Northern Ireland international. CB Regan Poole and LW Anthony Scully have both played in L1 playoff finals in the last two years , the former is closing in on 200 games at this level and the latter has a West Ham grounding ( many years as a youth) is still only 24yo and already has a 38 goal contribution from out wide in L1. They have also been scouting wide and far and CF Kusini Yengi has arrived from Australia and scored a hat-trick at the weekend in a 9-1 win over L2 side Crawley Town. Afterwards, Mousinho spoke about the "fierce competition" he has for starting places amongst his forwards.
 
It was exactly half way (23 games) through last season that Mousinho took charge, they conceded just 20 goals from that point on , which if we extend that to the full season, puts them in that elite defensive ballpark that I touched upon earlier and collected 39 of their 70 points, losing just four times and ending the campaign on an 11 match unbeaten run. Immediately before his arrival, Pompey had taken just 11 points from a possible 45 games, either side of which they averaged 1.903 ppg which is usually good for 2nd-4th place and the club were very tough to beat all season (10 defeats with the third fewest), obviously too many draws, especially at home, but fine margins decided those and key areas where they can clearly improve. Avoid the extended poor run and be a little more ruthless in front of goal and if they can achieve one, hopefully both, in a less competitive division, they have to go well.
 
Chelsea academy manager Jon Harley has joined as #2 to Mousinho, after a decade with the Blues and it looks as though there will be some more EPL loanees coming in via his contacts.
 
The club has already sold over 14,300 season tickets (less than 200 remain) which means that the home ends will be sold out most weeks at famous old Fratton Park (capacity 20K).
 
 
 
1.5 units Portsmouth to win League 1 @ 10.0-11.0 general quote.
 
3 units Portsmouth to gain promotion 4.0 general quote.
 
Cambridge United- Portsmouth
 
Time to update our Pompey notes and it is all good news, they sit top of the league, are unbeaten since March and in 24 L1 games total, they have won their last six and whilst they needed a very late goal to take the three points from Carlisle United at the weekend, they looked good and created enough chances to have won at least 2 games (5-0 BC's). That was the third game running that they had created 5+ BC's and they have averaged 3.9 across their last nine starts. The last time we discussed one of their fixtures was for a midweek road trip to a promotion rival in Barnsley five weeks ago and my notes for that included ......
 
Portsmouth are our League 1 team  and I am pleased with that, those notes and the start they have made. They should probably have a couple more points on board and xG has them T3rd with a game in hand on the two teams above them, but we have 39 games for things to even out in that regard. Pompey are proving very resilient and are unbeaten in 18 league games and the only L1 team without a defeat this season, one of only four in the EFL. They have been very tight defensively, strong from set pieces on both sides of the ball and with a big offensive threat down both flanks and they have been creating plenty of chances, second most in the third tier. Number one for chances created are Peterbourgh who Pompey beat 3-1 in their last home game and also outshot. They are coming off a 1-1 draw at, still favourites for promotion Derby County, at the weekend where they restricted the Rams to one attempt on target in  99 minutes, creating five themselves along with three BC's.John Mousinho has got them very well organised and we can expect the goals to flow a little more freely at some stage and Portsmouth to kick on from an already strong position.
 
They were 3-0 up inside 17 minutes and won 3-2 with that the fist of those six consecutive wins.
 
This morning Pompey are priced at 2.625-3.0 to win League 1 and 1.44-1.57 for promotion, whilst no one is counting any chickens, we have fantastic value and things could hardly have gone any better so far and Portsmouth are where they are on merit, also top on expected points and a respective 9 and 15 xP above the other two top three teams in the actual table, Oxford United and Barnsley.
 
Cambridge United are without a win in nine games in all competitions ( 6 defeats), 7 in the league, they lost 4-0 at home to Barnsley earlier this month and away to Cheltenham Town on Saturday, Town were on a nightmare run (0-2-13) so the form line is pretty bad! Pompey did the double over Cambridge last season and look twice the team now and United are struggling and at a low ebb. Their head coach Mark Bonner said post match on Saturday: "Our performance level hasn’t been where it was at the start of the season, there’s lots for us to do to get better.“The next games come very quickly at the moment. We need to have some courage and step up and I’ve got to find some solutions in terms of team selection and making the right decisions while preparing the team well.”
 
None of that sounds good to be honest and this is a game that Portsmouth should win and possibly with a degree of comfort if they are to finally put in that big Championship push.
 
2 units Portsmouth -1 ball 2.52 asian line.
 
Good luck!
 

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