WEDNESDAY’S League One clash features two teams fighting for survival at the bottom of the table. Mark O’Haire (@MarkOHaire) goes in search of the winning angle.
Coventry City v Leyton Orient | Wednesday 19.45
Ten points from 18 under Tony Mowbray’s charge has been enough to lift Coventry City out of the League One relegation and the new Sky Blues boss will know a maximum return from the visit of fellow scrappers Leyton Orient on Wednesday night could push Cov six clear of the dreaded drop zone.
Since Steven Pressley was axed, the founding Premier League members have collected four vital wins in eight games. During the Scotsman’s reign, Coventry had bagged just four league wins in their previous 24 outings. The mood around the Ricoh is now cautious optimism but Sky Blues supporters are well aware, results on home soil must also improve.
City have secured just two wins at the Ricoh since September and with Wasps now sharing the ground, the pitch certainly hasn’t helped Coventry’s cause. Mowbray knows they must find the magic formula sooner rather than later with the visit of Orient the first of five six-pointers against fellow relegation battlers on the horizon.
The Sky Blues will be without injured trio Marcus Tudgay, Reda Johnson and James Maddison again on Wednesday night but will be buoyed by their weekend win at Peterborough. Played in blustery conditions, goalmouth action was few and far between but City stood firm to sneak a 1-0 victory.
Mowbray has called on his troops to produce another resilient and dogged display but would I invest my faith in Coventry keeping a third home clean sheet since September? Certainly not. The Sky Blues’ home performances have been littered with defensive mishaps and the hosts have conceded at least twice in nine of their 19 fixtures on home soil.
So we should be backing Orient? Umm….no. The Londoners have been chalked up as favourites for this encounter but the O’s continue to let down punters. It’s just six wins on the road all season and although there’s been signs of life in recent weeks, four of the five victories earned in their past 10 matches came at Brisbane Road.
Saturday’s 3-1 success at home to Port Vale featured a large dollop of luck too. Orient opened the scoring with a penalty, faced a Vale side reduced to 10 men who then gifted a bizarre own goal to Fabio Liverani’s men. Their away record is a reasonable W6-D5-L7 but there’s no way I could be tempted to back the visitors at 13/8 quotes.
So what’s the play? The 5/6 from 888 Sport on Both Teams To Score seems fair. If we translate the 5/6 odds into probability, 888 Sport have given the BTTS bet a 54.5% chance of success and by my workings out, there’s a smidgen of value in backing the bet at those odds.
Coventry have scored in 14/19 home fixtures this term but managed just four clean sheets in those games. There’s no surprise then that Both Teams To Score has proven a profitable selection in 12/19 (63%) of the Sky Blues matches as hosts. Orient have netted in 12/18 away games and kept only four shutouts on the road this season. The BTTS bet has landed in 9/18 (50%) of those matches.
So if we put the two Both Teams To Score percentages together and find the average, we should be expecting the BTTS bet to land in 56.5% of games involving these two teams, which is closer to 3/4 than 5/6 in odds terms. It’s another value Both Teams To Score bet which I’m keen to invest in.
Best Bets
Coventry City v Leyton Orient – Both Teams To Score (5/6 888 Sport)
88th Minute Refund
Back a team to win or a Correct Score and if a goal after the 88th minute ruins your bet you’ll get your bet refunded as a free bet when backing it at 888 Sport.
