With the midweek comes the league cup and the Capital one cup is back upon us and the early rounds up to the third round is identifying games where the prices are too short and the basis of which teams will and will not take the cup seriously.
Swansea City won the title last season in an encounter with Bradford. Their reward was a ticket into Europe, but a lot of the teams in round one may have renewed motivation for a cup run as Bradford made the final from League two in a big money spinner.
Some reminder of what happened last season:
- Biggest win in a final: Swansea City 5–0 Bradford, 24 February 2013
- Highest scoring game: Reading 5–7 Arsenal, fourth round, 30 October 2012
Betting odds for the 2013/14 competition:
- Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United – 7/1 general
- Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs – 10/1 BetVictor
- Everton – 20/1 bookies
- Villa and Newcastle – 40/1 BetVictor
- Southampton, Swansea, Sunderland, Fulham and West Ham – 50/1 Coral
- The rest – 66/1 and above
Brentford are placed at 4/6 to win against Dagenham, who in our opinion were all over the place last season and lost 3-1 at Fleetwood on Saturday. Brentford scored a respectable score draw with Port Vale in a 1-1 draw. Watford will want to maintain their winning start and are even money to beat a Bristol Rovers side that slide out on the first hurdle last year and take on promotion contenders Watford. I am sure the manager of Watford will see this competition as seriously as the league and early into the season can use the cup as extra competitive match practice and are evens with Skybet.
Looking at the qualifying markets, Oxford could be a shade of at 11/4 to qualify to take Charlton out. They came from behind to put four past Portsmouth at Fratton Park on Saturday. Charlton lost 2-1 to Bournemouth and could be the case that their priorities will not be on the league cup and more so in the league.
We cannot avoid looking at Bradford that have the energy in their promotion status after a very respectable 2-2 draw with league favourite Bristol City. Again Bradford have been to the final and got the t-shirt and at 7/4 to qualify will raise some interest, especially knowing that Bradford are very successful in penalty shootouts.
League cup recommendations:
- Brentford to beat Dagenham and Oxford +2 – 2.26 Boylesports
- Crawley to qualify – 8/11 Paddy Power
- Wolves/Leicester and Watford all to qualify – 2.55 Paddy Power
