This is the second time this season that Port Vale have hosted Wrexham in the EFL Trophy, the two teams met in the group stage in November where the matched ended in a 1-1 draw and Port Vale gained an extra point by winning on penalties.

Wrexham can enact revenge on Vale here in their round of 16 tie.

The reason for the confidence in the selection is because Wrexham have built a stacked squad of multiple options, meaning any reaction to selection rotation should be negated.

Their bench for Saturday’s 2-1 win v Crawley contained Arthur Okonkwo, Dan Scarr and Seb Revan (unused) as well as Steven Fletcher, Jack Marriott, Ryan Longman and Elliot Lee (used). Paul Mullin, Ollie Palmer and Mo Faal weren’t even part of the matchday squad.

The winner of this tie will host Bolton in the quarter-finals. Wrexham’s Hollywood owners must be highly motivated to reach the final with a trip to Wembley just 3 wins away.

Wrexham’s form has been muddling of late. They’ve won 2, drawn 1 and lost 3 of their January matches, and Port Vale certainly deserve respect. They are unbeaten in their 5 matches of 2025 but 4 of those matches have come against teams either in mid-table or the bottom half of League Two. Wrexham are a different proposition here and hold plenty of appeal at a shade under evens.

Rotherham’s home form has been very good of late and they can continue their New York Stadium run v Bradford.

Rotherham have played 3 home matches in 2025, they beat Bolton 3-1 in a match where they created 2.93xG from 20 shots, they then saw off Charlton 4-2 in a game where they created 2.30xG from a total of 22 shots. Finally, they beat Cambridge 2-1 in a match where they created 1.26xG from 18 shots.

Rotherham’s overall home League One record this season reads W8 D3 L3. They average 1.64 goals scored per home game and have conceded 1 goal per home game on average.

Bradford had been in decent form of late, until they came up against AFC Wimbledon at the weekend where they lost 1-0 and only mustered up 5 shots. Bradford have only managed 3 away league wins all season and have only tallied 14 away points compared to 33 gained at Valley Parade.

The winners of will play the winners of Peterborough v Cheltenham in the semi-finals, which looks like a nice pathway for The Millers to reach Wembley.

Stevenage and Birmingham are going to become very familiar with each other over the coming weeks – Tuesday’s EFL Trophy quarter-final will be the first of 3 fixtures between the two clubs between now and the end of March.

For that reason, it could be the case of the two teams figuring each other out with this match becoming a jabbing contest.

Stevenage have a wonderful defensive record and their matches this season have, in the main, being very low scoring, low margin affairs. Stevenage average 1 goal per game in League One this season, on average they concede 0.92 goals per game.

17/27 of Stevenage’s League One matches this season have ended with under 2.5 goals.

Birmingham, for their impressive points tally this season, have been prioritising control in matches rather than running up big scorelines. They have conceded just 19 goals in 27 League One matches.

Like Stevenage, 17/27 of Birmingham’s League One matches this season have ended with under 2.5 goals.