Tuesday's cup treble shoots at 6/1!
Portsmouth v Southampton
I’ll kick-off with the big one on Tuesday evening: Portsmouth v Southampton.
While the Form Book famously Goes Out Of The Window during cup ties and local derbies, it’s a little difficult to ignore just how poor, to many people’s surprise, Portsmouth have been this season.
Kenny Jackett, who is under massive pressure, has won just one of his opening seven League One matches, and things simply aren’t clicking at Fratton Park.
The Saints beat Fulham (who are far better than Pompey) 1-0 away from home in the previous round of the competition, and they’ll have too much quality for their arch-rivals on Tuesday.
Pompey have shown glimpses of their old selves during early-round victories against Birmingham and QPR, but this’ll be a bridge too far for them.
In what’ll be the first meeting between these two in seven years, 17/20 looks a good price for an away win.
Luton v Leicester
Leicester have a good record in this competition, and Brendan Rodgers will be looking to better their efforts of the last two seasons, where they reached the quarter-finals.
The Foxes will be gunning for glory this season, and I can’t see them faltering against a Luton side who are a little all over the place.
Graeme Jones’ men have conceded nine goals in their four home Championship matches, and I don’t expect Leicester to show then any mercy.
Arsenal v Nottingham Forest
Finally, I have Arsenal to beat Nottingham Forest and both teams to score.
Generally speaking, this is a market which is perfect for the Gunners: both teams have scored in five of their six Premier League matches, and judging by their fairly shambolic defensive performances against Watford and Aston Villa, I’ll be amazed if they shut Forest out.
The away side are unbeaten in their nine matches since the opening day of the season, and they’ll travel to the Emirates fully believing they can deal damage.
Arsenal are always capable of throwing in the odd, fantastic performance—like their second-XI beating Frankfurt 3-0 in the Europa League—but 8/5 is enticing enough to back a BTTS victory.
Follow @RyanEJourno
