Andy Robson's Tips

Bradford will be buoyed by their stoppage time winner against nine-man Wigan on Friday, which saw them solidify their spot in League One’s top three. Only two sides in the division can boast a higher points tally from games on their own patch than the Bantams, and having won three in a row at Valley Parade, they’ll be full of confidence coming into this one. 

In Port Vale, they host the worst team in the division, who make the short trip to Bradford having just been humbled 5-0 at Huddersfield. The Valiants have lost seven of their last nine league games and four of their last five on the road without scoring, and so the last thing they need is another visit to a promotion-challenger.

Huddersfield come into this on the back of a 5-0 thrashing of Port Vale and they're currently on a run of five-matches unbeaten across all competitions. They could be hitting top form at the right time following a dip.

They're finding goals easy to come by, particularly at home. Huddersfield have scored 3+ goals in four of their last five matches at the Accu Stadium.

As for Northampton, they've lost four of their last five matches in all competitions. Their last two matches on the road were 5-1 and 2-1 defeats to Burton and Peterborough respectively.

Bolton's home form is incredible and they're actually unbeaten at home since April. The only slight taste of defeat they've tasted since was being knocked out of the EFL Cup by Sheffield Wednesday on penalties.

So for Bolton, it's a run of 19 matches without defeat at home across all competitions. And they've won 11 of their last 12.

Bolton and Mansfield met as recently as the 9th of this month in the reverse fixture. Bolton won 1-0 but it should've been a more handsome win as they had 75% of the ball, 20 shots but weren't at their best when it came to converting them.

Two super quick players face off in Josh Rock against Callan Rydz.

Callan Rydz from my neck of the woods, you know, is going through some personal problems, with his grandad passing over the weekend.

So in one way, he'll look at that as a real inspiration. I'm sure it'll be in the back of his mind, and it won't be easy up there.

But he is playing someone in Josh Rock who's been touted to be one of the real top dogs for a long time now, and he's had a great 2025.

He's the type of explosive, ferocious player who can live with the scoring power of the likes of Luke Littler and Luke Humphries.

There'll be a lot of 180s again, but I just Rock will hit more.

Ryan Searle was so good in his last 32 game against Martin Schindler.

I fancied Schindler to go really deep, and I had that game down as a real 50/50. It was far from that, with a 102 average from Ryan Searle.

He's now up against James Hurrell, a really good friend of mine. James Horrell, let me tell you, I'm really, really proud of him. He really shouldn't even be on the dartboard because he was very poorly a couple of years ago, so to see him up there plying his trade with the opportunity of reaching the last 8, it's mega.

But I'm going to go against my friendship, and I'm going to go for Ryan Searle at 2/5 to beat James Hurrell in their last 16 clash.

Reminder, Hurrell did beat the 4th seed in Stephen Bunting.

He'll be no pushover, far from it.

But I see Ryan Searle coming out on top.

There is a big average of yellow cards in matches that take place at St. Andrew’s. This was mentioned in the preview for the match against Derby, and was totally proven correct. There were two red cards, one granted for two yellows, and there were another couple of yellow cards for good measure.

That took the average number of yellow cards shown per match at St. Andrew’s to an impressive 4.91.

The good news for this bet is that we have seen something similar in Southampton away games. The Saints themselves average 2.25 yellow cards, and their opponents get even more at 2.42, making a total of 4.67 per match.

Given this data, the price for over 3.5 cards in this match is a backable one.

Both of these teams are big corner merchants in their matches, so the ingredients are there for a double-figure total in this match.

Birmingham at home average 6.64 corners per match, a figure helped by 12 won against Derby this week and 10 in their last home match too. So it is possible that Birmingham could cover the vast majority of this by themselves, but they do also concede an average of four corners at home as well, so that takes the average over 10 per game.

Their last four home matches have seen 13, 13, 12, and 11 corners respectively.

However, Southampton’s style of play also makes them big corner merchants. They are averaging 5.77 corners per match, and when you include their concessions, they average over 10 corners in their matches. Their last three away games have seen 12, 11, and 15 corners in them.