JACK Wright's (@JackWright_BSB) Bet of the Day continues on Friday as we head to the League One play-offs.
Blackpool vs Oxford | Friday 21st May 2021, 19:45
After a fantastic 3-0 win at the Kassam Stadium on Tuesday night, Blackpool defend the biggest first leg advantage of any of this season's play-off teams and are red hot favourites to book a place in the Wembley final.
Defend being the operative word here as the Tangerines conceded the fewest goals in the regular League One season, shipping just 37 goals from their 46 games and to have any hope of overturning the odds Oxford will need to find a way past that defence for the first time in 270 minutes of action between the sides this term.
However, Karl Robinson’s men scored the most goals outside of the two automatically promoted sides so know they have the potential and we should expect all-out attack from them here with no time to lose in trying to get back in to this tie, with the manager already saying how they need to be “fearless”.
So, my take on this one isn’t to try and predict the outcome, always tricky when one side would sign for a two goal loss right now, while the other would still be going flat out 1-0 up and 10 minutes to play.
Although goals is an angle I quite like again when one side doesn’t need to score it is off putting enough for me to leave, especially with the side who need to find the net have failed to do so once in the three previous meetings this season.
One thing we do know is that Oxford have to go for it and will be all out to pile on the pressure, with the home side content to soak that up and look to play on the counter.
For that reason, I am putting forward a selection based on corners and for the U’s to cover their line of 5+ as set by Sky Bet.
They took six flag kicks in both the last two meetings, as well as crossing the line in four of their last five regular season matches and in four of their last five away from home – with those two misses coming in the 4-0 home win over Burton and the 6-0 win at Crewe – clearly both games where they did not need to chase or play with optimum intensity.
With a season average of 5.35 I am happy to take the odds of 5/6 that they can hit similar numbers in this do or die tie.
Best Bets
Blackpool vs Oxford – Oxford 5+ corners (5/6 SkyBet)
