Bradford City v Walsall Betting Tips: Bantams to bounce back at Valley Parade

This League One match sees play-off hopefuls Bradford City host Walsall, whose own play-off campaign has now faltered.

Bradford’s seven-match unbeaten run came to an end last time out after they lost away at fellow play-off occupiers Scunthorpe United in a high-scoring match – which I tipped! This result meant that Scunthorpe leapfrogged Bradford into 4th place, however, The Bantams are still six points ahead of 7th place and will be confident they can retain their top six spot.

Although they shipped three goals at Glanford Park in their last match, defensively, Bradford have been very good with just 39 goals conceded in 40 league matches – one of only four teams to concede fewer goals than matches played. Having said that, they have not kept a clean sheet in any of their last three. Stuart McCall’s side were having rather big goal-scoring problems before the new year but their potency in front of goal has improved since the turn of the year and they have found the back of the net in each of their 15 matches in all competitions since 14th January.

The Bantams have an excellent home record this season and they are yet to lose a league match at Valley Parade. However, too many draws (12) on home turf means they only have the eighth-best home record in the division. Additionally, Bradford have scored at least twice in all but one of their last five home games.

Walsall looked like they could make a late surge for the play-offs until a run which has now seem lose their last two and not win in their last three, putting them 13th in the table and ten points off the top six.

Until these last few games, The Saddlers had been quite impressive at the back with four clean sheets in the six matches before the bad run they are currently on which has seen them concede five in three. The final third has been a problem for Walsall this season with just 47 goals in 39 games – the worst of the top 17 teams in the league.

Away form has been a massive problem for Jon Whitney’s team in this latter half of the season and they are without a win away from Bescot Stadium in 2017.

Bradford are the favourites here and rightly so, especially given Walsall’s abysmal away record in this calendar year. ‘Bradford City to Win & Over 1.5 Goals’ looks a very good bet at 11/10. With the added motivation, the hosts should do the business against a Walsall side with little left to play for.

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