A big week in the Sky Bet Championship begins on Friday night when the first of three match days opens up with a clash between relegation favourites prior to the season starting Plymouth Argyle and Luton Town.
The Hatters were one of the favourites for promotion before a ball was kicked this season and while they haven’t caught fire from the very start of the campaign they look like they are getting into a groove. Plymouth will be eyeing an upset here so we are set up for a decent night of football.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Football channel with the build-up to the contest beginning at 7.30pm ahead of the 8pm kick off.
Plymouth Argyle
Having only escaped relegation on the last day of last season you would have thought that there would have been a projected improvement from those assessing them but that wasn’t the case as far as the bookmakers were concerned. They had Argyle favourites for relegation before a ball was kicked although it might be that the appointment of Wayne Rooney so soon after his disaster at Birmingham was one of the reasons for that.
Argyle haven’t exactly started in a positive fashion. They have only won one of their first six matches, although that was at home and against one of the better sides in the division in Sunderland. Statistically things aren’t great for Plymouth either. They have shipped the highest xGA in the division and are one of the lowest xG records too so at both ends of the pitch they are not getting the job done. A change in style is likely to be behind that but they need to turn those numbers around quickly.
Luton Town
After almost achieving the seemingly impossible and remaining in the Premier League last season, the emphasis will be on Rob Edwards and his men to get back to the top flight at the first time of asking. Things haven’t gone smoothly at the beginning of the season although Edwards did warn that his side would improve after a few weeks as they had some injured players to return to the setup and so we probably shouldn’t be surprised that Luton have won their last two matches.
Their performances in the matches they didn’t win prior to these two recent wins weren’t terrible. They were outclassed in their first game when the squad was at its thinnest but then they have warmed into the job. They are not firing in front of goal yet but there is so much class in attacking areas that they won’t keep misfiring. The positive after the number of goals they shipped last season is that since the opening day they have only conceded four goals in five games so Luton are heading in the right direction.
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Team News
Wayne Rooney has confirmed that he will have striker Muhamed Tijani available for the clash with Luton after he has recovered from injury. He will be without youngster Freddie Issaka though as he has a knee issue. Michael Obafemi could start as he is ineligible against his parent club in midweek.
Rob Edwards has confirmed that Jacob Brown has recovered from the injury which has seen him miss eight months of action and he is in the travelling party. He will be without Amari’i Bell, Shandon Baptiste and Daiki Hashioka though.
Betting
This feels like it could be one of those trappy games. Luton are odds on favourites and while I would rather side with them to win the game, I would like them to be in better form in front of goal before I back them. Plymouth did beat Sunderland in their last home game and this is a ridiculously long midweek trip for the Hatters to endure so while I think they will come out on top in the game I’m happy to pass them over at odds on.
One thing I am happy to play from a Hatters’ perspective though is for defender Mark McGuinness to have a shot on target. He has only played the last four games for the Hatters and he has had a shot on target in two of them. He actually had five shots in the match against Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend and although only one of them hit the target he is a massive set piece threat for Luton against a team who have been very weak defending set plays so far this season. Luton aim for McGuinness from every set play so I expect him to be a real feature in this match. You can get 23/10 on him having a shot on target, 14/1 on him having over 1.5 and 66/1 on over 2.5. With Luton so good at set plays it is worth laddering all three.
Tips
Back M.McGuinness – Over 0.5 shots on target for a 3/10 stake at 3.30 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back M.McGuinness – Over 1.5 shots on target for a 1/10 stake at 15.00 with Bet365
Back M.McGuinness – Over 2.5 shots on target for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with Betfair
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