Football betting tips: Sunday EFL
Sunday 12:00 - Stockport vs Bolton
0.5pt Kyle Wootton to be carded at 9/1 (Sky Bet, Betfair, Paddy Power)
1pt Corey O'Keeffe to be carded at 4/1 (Sky Bet)
0.5pt Wootton and O'Keeffe both to be carded at 49/1 (Sky Bet)
Stockport vs Bolton
- Kick-off: Saturday, 12:00 BST
- TV: Sky Sports Football
- Live odds, form and stats
Jake Osgathorpe
Stockport have been heavily backed for promotion this season, while Bolton are many people’s dark horses, so this opening weekend meeting provides plenty of intrigue.
I think the hosts are priced correctly at 19/20 to win the match given how impressive they were last season and their excellent summer transfer business, but my eye has been drawn to the referee appointment.
Elliot Bell is the man in the middle and he was a busy man last season, flashing 162 yellows and nine reds in 39 outings – an average of 4.4 cards per game.
Bolton were the best team to follow for cards, collecting 118 and drawing 135, with their games averaging a huge 5.5.
I’m going to follow that thread but take a slight detour and chance a Stockport player TO BE CARDED, KYLE WOOTTON.
The striker is one to monitor in terms of team news, but at 9/1 he has to be backed early with a view to cashing out should he be on the bench.
Wootton only collected three cards last season, but committed the most fouls in the league (99) and averaged a huge 2.48 fouls per 90.
That’s not a one off either, with Wootton averaging 2.33 and 2.48 fouls per 90 in the two prior seasons, so he’s a serial offender, and with a card-happy referee, I’ll take a small swing at a big price that he gets carded on Sunday.
Joe Townsend
The loan signing of COREY O'KEEFFE from Barnsley was an interesting one for Stockport.
The right wing-back has clearly been signed for his strengths going forward, providing 34 assists for the Reds, Forest Green and Rochdale over the past four seasons. No bookmaker is currently pricing him in that market; look out for it when it's live.
Barnsley were happy to let him go after moving to a back four, considering O'Keeffe incapable of defending to the required standard in that position.
Edging ahead of his assists stats are the number of bookings he has picked up over the same sample of time, with 40 in total, plus two red cards.
With new Bolton manager Steven Schumacher now clear in his plan to use wingers, it feels inevitable that new signings Amario Cozier-Duberry or Thierry Gale will be tasked with challenging O'Keeffe, which makes his 4/1 price TO BE SHOWN A CARD worth taking.
And as it's opening weekend, we're take the WOOTTON-O'KEEFFE CARD DOUBLE at 50/1 as well.
Football betting tips: Saturday EFL
2pts Yousef Salech to score anytime in Cardiff vs Peterborough (12:30) at 5/4 (Sky Bet)
1pt Wycombe under 0.5 goals vs Bradford (15:00) at 2/1 (Sky Bet, bet365)
1pt Crawley to beat Grimsby (15:00) at 5/2 (Betfred)
Cardiff vs Peterborough
- Kick-off: Saturday, 12:30 BST
- TV: Sky Sports Football
- Live odds, form and stats
Jake Osgathorpe
Last season was a miserable one for Cardiff that culminated in relegation from the Championship. A change in the dugout this summer has brought renewed hope to the club, with Brian Barry-Murphy stepping in.
The Bluebirds have seen plenty of players depart with few incomings, meaning they are easily swerved in any outright bets, but one player they have managed to keep a hold of is January signing YOUSEF SALECH.
The giant Danish striker was a shining light in a dreadful second half of their Championship campaign, scoring eight times in 20 appearances for a struggling team.
He managed to average 0.50 xG per 90 in the second tier, so it's understandable why money has come for him to be the top scorer in the third tier, and he could well open his account this weekend.
We will back him to do so, with his TO SCORE ANYTIME price looking juicy at 5/4.
Opponents Peterborough have undergone a summer transition themselves and as a result look a team to oppose this term. Last season's 18th-placed finishers were defensively porous, conceding the second-most goals in the entire division.
Little has been done to remedy that, meaning Cardiff's main man Salech couldn't have asked for a better opening weekend opponent to get up and running for the season.
Bradford vs Wycombe
- Kick-off: Saturday, 15:00 BST
- TV: Sky Sports+
- Live odds, form and stats
Jake Osgathorpe
A lot was made of Walsall's fall off in League Two last season, but not as much of Wycombe's drop in League One. Walsall's capitulation started due to on-loan striker Nathan Lowe being recalled by his parent club, while Wycombe's began after the departure of Matt Bloomfield and the appointment of Mike Dodds.
When Dodds was made manager in early February, the Chairboys sat second in the third tier, just four points behind Birmingham but four points above Wrexham. They were also six ahead of a Stockport side who would go on to finish third while also having a game in hand.
They had collected 59 points (2.03 per game) scored 55 times in 29 games (1.90) and conceded just 30 (1.03), with Richard Kone on fire at the head of the division's top scorer charts. Oh, and for good measure they boasted the league's best underlying data.
Enter Dodds.
Across the final 17 games of the league season under the new manager, Wycombe accumulated just 25 points (1.47 per game), scored only 15 goals (0.88) and conceded 15 goals (0.88). They stalled badly, dropped to fifth and were beaten in the play-off semis.
What's worse is that Dodds stopped getting a tune out of Kone, with the Ivorian netting just twice in 15 appearances, and as a team the Chairboys failed to find the net in half of his 20 games in charge, including both legs of the play-off semi-final.
Not ideal, and with Kone the subject of more transfer speculation, it could be a slow start to the season for Wycombe.
They open up at Bradford, who carry a lot of momentum from a promotion-winning season that was built on the fourth tier's best home record (W17 D4 L2). At Valley Parade, Graham Alexander's side conceded just 13 goals in 23 games, so I'll have a small bet on WYCOMBE TO SCORE UNDER 0.5 GOALS.
Wycombe struggled to find the net under Dodds, firing 10 blanks, while Bradford found a rhythm at the back end of last season, keeping eight clean sheets in their last 11 home games on their way to promotion. It looks worth a poke, especially with there being a chance Kone isn't involved for the visitors.
Grimsby vs Crawley
- Kick-off: Saturday, 15:00 BST
- TV: Sky Sports+
- Live odds, form and stats
Jake Osgathorpe
During the League One and Two season preview we did for This Week's Acca, I was out on my own in thinking Grimsby are being overhyped and overestimated this season.
My logic was that they were the biggest over-performers in the league last season, finishing ninth but ranking 16th on the major metrics (xGD, or xG process, and expected points - xP).
If they continue to perform at the same level, which is likely given the same manager and mostly the same group of players, regression is likely to occur and they will be a bottom half team as opposed to a play-off contending one - which Tom, Gab and Jimmy all had them down as.
Well, by May I could be proven extremely wrong, or extremely right, but either way I'm going to start the season by fading them as I think they are simply too short at 11/10 to beat Crawley on Saturday.
They had the rub of the green last season, shown by their underlying data over-performance, but also by the fact that 14 of their 20 league wins came by a one-goal margin. Those fine margins could easily go the other way this time.
That's what the data says anyway, with one-goal wins counting towards 62% of their points total, and the league average being around 41%. Unless something drastically improves in their process, it could be a meandering kind of season for Grimsby.
So, I'm going to open up the season by backing CRAWLEY TO WIN at 5/2.
In contrast to the Mariners' good fortune, Crawley were perhaps slightly unfortunate to be relegated from the league above, ranking 18th on major metrics only to finish in the bottom four.
Scott Lindsay's return had a monumental impact, with Crawley ranking as the eighth best team in the division over the last nine games, posting a +0.29 xGD per game. Impressive stuff against tougher opponents, and while their squad has been reshaped this off-season, Lindsay is still at the helm and I like the business they've done.
All in all, I think they can cause an opening weekend upset by the coast.
Odds correct at 1525 BST (31/08/25)
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