Fleetwood Town vs Lincoln City

Fleetwood Town host Lincoln City for this English League One match at Highbury Stadium early Wednesday morning Beijing time. This is the 3rd tier of English football and the level of this league is on average considerable lower than that of The Championship, not to mention The Premier League! It is a physically challenging league where most teams play pretty straightforward football. There are not too many skilled individuals playing in this League Two. This match will probably not offer particularly good entertainment for football fans, unless you really like very traditional “1980’s style” of English football. Fighting hard for every ball is expected from the players – especially the defenders. Betting-wise this is an interesting battle though! The betting market has the wrong favorite here in my view! The visitors are so much better by raw class than the hosts that they have 40% chance of winning this one. The total market value of their team, according to a respected website Transfermarkt.com, is 4.78 million euros but this is definitely too high. I would say 3.2 million is the fair value. At least 4 players are over-valued. The visitor’s squad is valued at 7.35 million, but around 9 million would be a more realistic number. The probability for my fans and myself to win the +0.5 goals handicap bet on the visitors is 71%. Fleetwood Town do not have the best fans and have not performed too well at their stadium. Indeed, they have not won any of their latest 5 home matches!

Overall, the hosts are in very bad form and have won just 2 of their latest 15 games! They might even be relegated to League Two for next season.. They are currently in the 19th place in the standings with 37 points, but I rate them as the 21th best team in my power ratings that illustrate the teams’ pure class. The betting marker has failed to understand how bad they are and over-estimates their chances, once again! Lincoln, on the other hand,  have grabbed 45 points and much better in defense. They have conceded 15 goals less than Fleetwood! They played a solid match, especially in terms of defensive structure, in their most recent match against a dangerous team Sunderland away from home winning 2-1. Fleetwood finally took a win in their latest match. It was an away win 3-1 over the rock-bottom, and a seriously weak team Crewe. The 3 points were somewhat undeserved though as the hosts had over 60% ball possession and recorded more goal attempts, completed passes and dangerous attacks..