Looking to put a little money on Reading vs Wolves? Dan Butler gives his tips for the game.
After a return to normality last time out with 0 winners tipped I’m half tempted to say I was too hasty in saying I had a future in this. Nonetheless, proper football is back and I’ve come up with a couple of decent (ish) looking bets for our trip to Reading, odds as always are taken from Skybet.
Wolves to win to nil
I never like backing us to keep a clean sheet in any game, let alone at a stadium we’ve failed to win at since 2005.
But Reading are 19th in the table in terms of goals scored and we have one of the best defensive records in the league. The Fulham game was unspectacular but showed just how far we’ve come defensively, when they came back into the game we were happy to sit off and keep our shape.
The central 3 were impossible to drag out of position and as a result Fulham were only capable of playing right in front of the defence instead of getting in behind, I can’t remember them creating one good chance. I’m still not sold on Douglas’ positioning at times, but with Boly’s return to the team the space left by Douglas should be covered by the Frenchman if needs be and he is quite comfortable defending the wide spaces.
At the other end we’re averaging almost 2 goals a game and in all honesty with the amount of big chances we’re creating we could have quite a few more goals than the 29 we’ve scored so far. As I said in a previous post, at some point someone is going to take an absolute battering off us, think the 5-1 demolition of Forest when we went up in ’09, a complete and utter demolition.
There’s no way Bonatini continues to miss such guilt edged chances and in a tactical sense at some point we’re going to catch a team on the break 2 or 3 times and put the chances away. Reading’s defensive record isn’t bad so we may have to wait another week or two (I’d quite like Blues to be the recipients) but it’s coming. Wolves to win to nil is 2/1.
Anytime goalscorer tips
This is a monumental fixture in the ‘former players who will probably score against Wolves’ stakes, because if anyone this season is more nailed on than Leon Clarke was when we played Sheffield United, it’s Dave Edwards. You could just see him popping up with a glancing header in the last few minutes and respectfully choosing not to celebrate, making it impossible to take the frustration out on him.
Whilst we’re on the subject of Edwards, if anyone starts singing songs about him I fully expect Wolves to issue banning orders to those found guilty, he was an average player in a string of terrible Wolves sides. Give him his respect for always giving 100%, but don’t worship him. Edwards to score is 5/1 and if that does happen, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Tim Spiers invade the pitch and start goading the away end.
For Wolves players this week I’m going to try something a bit different. As mentioned previously, Leo Bonatini is missing some big chances. While it’s encouraging we’re creating these chances, it’s about time he started putting them away. I’m going to say this is the week he starts being a bit more clinical, Bonatini to score a brace is 6/1.
Leave a Comment