The Sky Bet League 1 weekend concludes on Monday night when the last two sides to compete in the latest round of matches do so at Vale Park as lowly Port Vale play host to promotion chasing Stockport County.
Port Vale have dropped into the bottom four in the table after the weekend matches and will be looking for the win which will see them escape it again while victory for Stockport will see them go into the FA Cup break on top of the pile.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football channels with the build-up in Staffordshire beginning at 7.30pm ahead of the 8pm kick off.
Port Vale
Port Vale have made a fair start to life back in League 1 although it has probably been overshadowed by the fact that Bradford City, AFC Wimbledon and Doncaster Rovers, the three sides they were promoted with, all reside in the top half of the table. The difference is largely down to the start to the campaign that the Valiants had, where they picked up just the two points in their opening seven matches, although in that time they faced Cardiff, Stevenage and Leyton Orient so it wasn’t an easy schedule.
In the six matches since then, Vale have picked up 12 points so they are getting to grips with the division despite the loss to Wigan last weekend which was their first defeat in six in the league. The problem that Vale are having is finding the back of the net. Only rock bottom Peterborough United and Northampton Town have scored fewer goals than the Valiants, but on the plus side for Darren Moore’s charges, only the top two and Lincoln City have conceded fewer than them.
Stockport County
After missing out in the playoffs last season, Stockport County were fancied strongly to challenge for promotion once again this time around and after winning four of their last five games they are very much in place to achieve that aim. They have the incentive of potentially going top of the table if they can come out on top of this one with a win and would be at the summit for the better part of two weeks with League 1 pausing for the first round of the FA Cup next weekend.
Three of those four Stockport wins have been 1-0 so while they have been solid, they haven’t been blowing teams away but you don’t get extra points for scoring more goals in this competition. Only AFC Wimbledon have more points on their travels than Stockport this season so that is something that will give Dave Challinor’s men confidence and it will be interesting to see if they can impose themselves on this contest and potentially make things comfortable the longer it goes on.
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Team News
Darren Moore suggested that Cameron Humphreys is a doubt for this game as he has missed some training but he would be assessed closer to this match. Jordan Gabriel is out for a period of time and will miss this match.
Stockport full-back Owen Dodgson missed the win over Exeter last week which allowed Ben Osborn the chance to deputise for him. There is no word on whether the left-back will be fit to return. Callum Camps and Lewis Fiorini will be pushing for starts.
Betting
This looks like it has the potential to be a tight match. We have two sides here who don’t concede many goals but Port Vale don’t score many either and it might that the difference is exactly that. Stockport County have that extra class and quality and I think that will decide the contest. There is no reason not to back Stockport to win the match but if you wanted to be cautious they are perfectly backable on a draw no bet line at an acceptable price.
I think we can get even more value on a Stockport win though by adding under 3.5 goals into the mix. Vale Park hasn’t been a hive of entertainment this season. There have only been 12 goals in the six matches on this ground this term and five of them came in one match. None of the last six Stockport league matches have had more than three goals in them and with them only conceding three goals in that time not only finding the net seven times I think we can suggest this won’t be a high scoring classic so I’ll play Stockport to win and under 3.5 goals here.
Tips
Back Stockport County to win and under 3.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with Sky Bet
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