Fleetwood can take a big step towards the knockout stages with a win over the Leeds United Academy here.

Fleetwood seemed to take the competition fairly seriously as they worked hard to come back from 2-0 down, to draw 2-2, against Accrington in the opening match of the group. It is also an advantage for them to be at home here, as their home form seems to be much better than their away form at this stage. They won their last match at home 4-2, collecting eight points from five home matches, seeing 18 goals from those five matches in the league, with BTTS landing on each occasion.

Leeds U21, like most Academy teams, see a lot of goals in their matches; even so, Leeds see higher goals totals than most. They lost 4-1 to Port Vale in the first match of this competition; however, they won 3-1 against Scunthorpe in the National League Cup, and there have been 21 goals in their opening six PL2 matches, an average of 3.50 per match.

Whilst I would favour Fleetwood for the win, goals are a more secure fold for the acca.

Wolves U21 have already been beaten in this competition 5-3 at Stockport County, but Wigan were also handily beaten by Salford 2-0 at home. This leaves both teams in this fixture unlikely to progress, but definitely requiring a win to at least have a chance to in the last round of fixtures. 

I am unwilling to back either team here because I doubt Wigan will commit much priority to this, both physically or mentally. Whilst this may not be good news for backing Wigan, it should be good for goals.

We have already seen that Wolves U21 need no encouragement to get involved in a goal-fest with eight in their opening EFL Trophy match. They followed that up with a 3-2 defeat to Forest Green in the NL Cup, then a 3-2 PL2 defeat to Arsenal and a 4-3 PL2 win over Leicester. There have been 23 goals in Wolves’ five PL2 matches, and BTTS has landed in all of those as well.

Interestingly there is a little bit of history in this competition between these two teams. Whilst it isn't necessarily predictive of what will happen here because of the nature of U21 football, but it is interesting to see how this match usually goes. The H2H is 2-1 in favour of Wycombe but more interestingly all of the matches have seen BTTS and over 2.5 goals, with the most recent encounter in 2023 ending 3-2 to Wycombe. 

The group situation here is that both teams lost their opening match, so they need a result here to keep their campaigns alive. This can sometimes lead to goals as both teams look to get the win.

Wycombe have scored in their last seven matches in a row, notching twice in four of their last five home matches themselves, so they are certainly ones to watch from a goals perspective.

We have seen Fulham U21 lose heavily to Gillingham in the opening round here, 4-1, they also lost in the last round of the NL Cup to Truro City, who are struggling towards the bottom of the National League. They have had 22 goals go in during their PL2 campaign over six matches, at an average of 3.67 per game.

There are few aspects that coalesce in this bet.

Firstly, teams at the top of League One do tend to do well in this competition. This is, of course, logical from a quality perspective, the teams at the top of League One are the best in the competition. However, some may assume that they might not take the competition seriously.

Secondly, the depth of squad between Cardiff and Newport is a massive gulf. A club that was in the Championship only last season, and a club that is one of the leanest outfits in the EFL is a big gulf that I suspect may emerge in this match.

There is also the Welsh aspect to this. In many EFL Trophy group matches, there is little to no emotion attached to it from fans, or, probably, many players and staff. However, with this being an all-Welsh encounter, there may be something a little more to it for Cardiff to take seriously.