Sheffield Wednesday VS Bristol Rovers

Sheffield Wednesday welcome Bristol Rover for this English League One round 16 clash at Hillsborough in Sheffield early Thursday morning. This is the third highest level of English football and is undoubtedly the best third tier on the planet. There are some skilled, young players playing in this league who will surely build a career at higher levels. There is no doubt about the fact that the the hosts are the better team here. They have an edge over the visitors in all areas of the game. However, especially in terms of offensive quality the gap between the two teams is much smaller than the betting market seems to estimate. Even the biggest, sharpest bookies see the hosts as very clear favorites here. I have to disagree and see their chance of winning being only 56%. However, all my fans I need is the visitors to avoid a defeat by more than one goal's difference. The chance for this is 69%. I expect to visitors to play defensive, even cautious football here and patiently wait for chances for counter attacks. They are, in fact, really good at this! I believe they will not increase the risk level even if they are trailing by one goal's difference..

The hosts currently occupy the 3rd place in the standings but I only rate them as the 5th best team in this league in my power ratings that illustrate the teams' pure class. Their goal difference is good – 28:13 but they have also had luck on their side in terms of especially expected goals but also in terms of expected points. They are a quite big team by financial resources and historical success - these factors probably in part explain the over-valuation here.. However, I think the reason for too big odds on the visitors is that the bookies clearly under-estimate Bristol Rovers! They are indeed in very good form after a slow start to the season and have not lost any of their most recent seven matches and are high in confidence at the moment. In their latest match they convinced me taking a draw against Plymouth who currently top the standings with 38 points to their account. They were clear underdogs in this match, priced around 3.00 to win but played and aggressive match and the winning would not have been unjustified at all. It was, however, a 2-2 draw after a high-level game! They had only 48% ball possession but recorded several more goal attempts and shots on target than the strong visitors.