National League - Midweek
Two fancies on Tuesday’s full schedule of matches, starting with the mighty Torquay United. Fan of the Gulls have been down in the doldrums for far too many years, and are loving following their side again after last season’s promotion and a great start to life back at this level.
Gary Johnson is doing a terrific job down there, and five wins from his last six sees the Devon outfit up to 8th in the table, and they have scored no fewer than 19 goals in that six game run. No side has scored more in the National League (33) that Torquay, and they rank 1st in the division for Shots on Target Ratio, and are more than acceptable on the shots-metric as well. They look a very good side this season, which makes it baffling to see them drifting like a barge to beat a struggling Wrexham side.They are now out to 11/8
The Welsh outfit were heavily fancied for the division in pre-season, so no-one was predicting them to be down in 22nd at this stage. Their away form has been the real issue (although they’ve hardly sparkled at home) as they have collected just three points from nine matches on the road so far.
Their 51% shot ratio and 44% shot-on-target ratio gives enough hope that they can improve a little at least, although probably a mid-table finish would be the highest the ambitions should be set at this season after their start. With inconsistent results for Wrexham, it looks worth backing the hosts in this one.
Another home side running nicely are Bromley. Top of the league with 10 wins and just three defeats this season, Neil Smith’s are in fine fettle – a home record of 6-2-1 and 20 goals already scored in front of their own fans. The data underneath the performances show’s Bromley posting 51% of shots (53% recently) and 56% on shots-on-target (54% recently). They are probably overachieving slightly thus far, but winning becomes a habit as they say, and they ran out 5-0 victors against a capable Halifax side on Saturday – albeit one with 10 men.
This week’s opponents are Stockport, a side who upset one of our weekend picks with a 1-0 win at Dover. More widely recently, they have lost six of their last nine, failing to score in six of them. Just six scored in 11 away matches suggests they are vulnerable, and a 42% shot-ratio is joint worst in the division (dropping to 37% recently).
I’m was amazed to see Bromley almost touching odds-against here and while that price has been tipped (and moved) elsewhere – they look more like a 4/6 shot in my eyes in this one, so I'm happy to still play at 4/5
4pts Torquay to beat Wrexham at 11/8 (General)
2pts Bromley to beat Stockport at 3/4 (General)