Port Vale VS Peterborough United

Port Vale welcome Peterborough for this English League One  round 27 clash at Vale Park in Stoke on Trent early Tuesday morning Beijing time. However, in reality both teams have played just 24 games so far in this league, the 3rd tier of English football. The biggest, usually pretty sharp bookmakers with the largest stake limits see the visitors as marginal favorites – at least at the time of writing this preview Monday evening. I see Peterborough as more clear favorites to travel home with all three points. With the recommended +0.5 goals handicap on the visitors my fans and I have a 74% chance of winning as a draw would be enough. Once again I will not let the league table fool me. Peterboroug are currently in the 9th in the standings with 35 points to their account. The hosts, very surprisingly, have grabbed the same number of points. They were promoted from League Two for this season and have done much better than the bookmakers, probably most football analysts, their fans or I would have expected before the season started. Yes, I have raised their power rating that reflects the teams' pure class. However, the bookmakers are now respecting them too much already. I rate them as the 16th-best team in League One. Peterboroug were relegated from the Championship for this season. They had a difficult season but also performed pretty well in some games. They finished in the 22nd place in this league with a total of 24 teams. The 37 points they grabbed was just four points less than the team that finished in 21st place - and avoided relegation - grabbed. I see them having a good chance of making it to the top-6 and earning a spot in the Playoffs in the spring. They have potential to improve in all areas of the game. 4-5 regular starters have performed below their normal level so far. They would have to defend in a more organized way and the midfielders should be more active in this area of the game – putting móre pressure on the opponent to stop them from building organized attacks. Some of their defenders have also made too many individual mistakes.. Perhaps, buying a new defender and or a hard-working midfielder would be a good idea..

The score difference reflects the difference between the teams pretty well: Peterborough have scored 39 goals so far - more than Derby – currently in 4th place! They have allowed 31 goals. In terms of expected points (xPTS) they would have earned 41.21 points. The host's xPTS is just 30.63. 7-8 of their players have played at a better than their normal level. It is, in fact, pretty common that newly promoted teams - that often have a pretty thin squad - do well in the first half of the season but start to fade away – mainly due to fatigue, injuries and the extra energy received as a result of promotion declining.. Their score difference is bad - 27:32. In their most recent match they beat Forest Green, the rock-bottom team, 3-1 away from home. They were the better team on the pitch but the final score flatters them.. The visitors, Wycombe, beat theam 3-0. Peterborough had 63% ball possession and recorded many more goal attempts (25-13), total passes, completed passes, attacks and dangerous attacks. The betting market seems to have over-reacted to this surprising and undeserved loss!