Peterborough are playing fast and loose again this season. It has become their modus operandi as a club, especially in League One, that they will play open, attacking football, and this inevitably leads to shortcomings at the back.

Posh are clearly missing some of their stars from last season, especially in defence, with Harrison Burrows now playing for the Championship league leaders, and Ronnie Edwards having left for Southampton as well.

Those individuals had the quality to paper over some structural cracks for Darren Ferguson in terms of allowing so many players to join in the attacks.

Of course, it is almost mandated to play this way so that Peterborough’s attacking players are given the opportunity to flourish. It is working for the likes of Kwame Poku, currently injured, but also Ricky-Jade Jones and Malik Mothersille.

Peterborough have produced the highest xGF in the whole division, 30.9 after 19 matches, but they are bottom 7 for xGA as well, which is why they are often a good pick for both teams to score bets, a massive 15 of their 19 League One matches have finished with both teams notching.

Stockport are pretty free flowing and loose defensively as well, which hopefully bodes well for an entertaining match, as well as for our bet. They have conceded over a goal a game, even at home, and, even though they are 3rd in the league for xGF, they are overperforming that in terms of actual goals scored, with Louie Barry helping that stat immensely with his excellent finishing from range.

The Aston Villa loanee is highly likely to be recalled in January, and perhaps sent out to the Championship for the second half of the season, so undoubtedly he will be keen to contribute as much as he can to the club that he has spent a season and a half with.

Recently, Stockport have had some shocking defensive performances though, including most recently at Stevenage. The squad, though big for League One standard, is beginning to creak under the strain, and with Peterborough’s attacking talent, there should be chances both ways in this match.

The battle of the Wanderers could be pivotal for both clubs’ assault on promotion to the Championship.

It is Wycombe who sit in a much prettier position for that goal at the moment, although Bolton have recovered from a difficult start. Wycombe also seem to have a bit more serenity about them at this stage, Bolton’s reverse at home to local rivals Wigan on Saturday has turned up the pressure on manager Ian Evatt once more, and he came out firing in the press about that.

Bolton have actually won half of their away games this season, but that begets a worrying trend in that they have lost pretty comfortably against the better teams in the division. Birmingham brushed Bolton aside 2-0 at St. Andrews, they lost 2-0 to Charlton at The Valley early in the season, and, more recently, were totally dismantled by Stockport at Edgeley Park.

When we add home defeats such as 0-4 to Huddersfield, 0-2 to Exeter, as well as last week’s poor result into the mix, then Wycombe begin to look like opponents that could also easily fall into this trend.

We also have to be mindful of Bolton’s absentee situation at this stage as well. Defensive lynchpins George Johnston and Ricardo Santos are suspended, Eoin Toal, Kyle Dempsey and Josh Sheehan are all out injured too. The defence and midfield will be makeshift at best. Adding in the fan unrest from the above results and form, and there isn’t an ideal set of circumstances to be travelling to one of the best teams in the league.

Wycombe were expected to challenge for playoffs, but they have been very impressive so far this season, and have a real shot at automatic promotion. Matt Bloomfield is getting great credit, and rightly so, Wycombe have lost only twice in the league, both of those were in August, and both were tough games against Wrexham and Birmingham.

Since then Wycombe have won 13 and drawn 4 of their 17 League One matches, winning 6 out of 7 at home. They have scored the highest number of goals in the division by a wide margin, and sit in the top 6 of the league for both xGF and xGA for the season as well, showing that their position is no fluke.

This is a big game for both clubs. Derby have very much kept themselves clear of trouble at the bottom so far this season, but Paul Warne has a lot of experience of the situation at the bottom of the Championship, and he will know how important it is to win, or at least, not lose, the matches against the other teams in and around them.

For Luton to even be one of the teams in and around Derby, and the battle at the bottom, illustrates how difficult a start this has been for Rob Edwards and his team. So far, the Luton hierarchy seem happy to stick with Edwards, and, as long as everyone is happy to adapt to new seasonal goals, then there is ample opportunity to recover the season, as some of the building blocks for that are in place already.

Unlike many teams near the bottom, Luton possess a genuine goal threat. This bet is built around the idea that Luton are regular scorers, especially at home. Indeed, Luton have scored in every single home game in the Championship this season, scoring 16 goals from 11 home matches.

However, they are still trailing their expected goal numbers. They have generated 26.0 xG so far this season, but have only scored 23 goals, so there is room for that to increase in the next few weeks.

Given that Luton have scored in every home match, any time they also concede will obviously result in a both teams to score scenario at Kenilworth Road. This has happened in 8 of 11 occasions in the Championship, so the next question is, how likely are Derby to score in this match?

There were major concerns at the beginning of the season over whether or not Derby could create enough chances to compete. So far, those fears have proven to be unfounded, as the Rams have notched 26 goals in 21 games, and, although this is overperforming their xG, which is 22.4, this is within the realms of acceptability. They are an obvious threat from set-pieces, with more goals coming from set-pieces than open play at this stage, and that will be a ploy that they will look to succeed with here too.

Though Derby have failed to score in their last 2 away games, they were up against the most difficult defences in the division at Leeds and Burnley, so they should be forgiven those blanks. Before that, Derby were on a run 5 consecutive away matches in which they scored, and, indeed, conceded as well. So there is some strong evidence to suggest that this bet is a good value one.