Luton vs. Blackpool Predictions: Look to the home side to continue their promotion charge

Luton take on Blackpool in the early Championship game this Saturday and they will be looking to continue their promotion charge.

Luton come into the match with a slim chance of automatic promotion. They currently sit six points behind second place Bournemouth, but the Cherries have played two games fewer than Luton. Nathan Jones’s side have won their last two matches 1-0 against Cardiff and Nottingham Forest respectively. Despite having very little to play for, Blackpool comprehensively beat Birmingham in their last match; scoring a whopping six goals in the process. They will be looking to carry momentum from that game to Luton on Saturday.

Luton’s miraculous rise from non-league to the top end of the Championship has been largely overlooked by the media this season. The club were playing in the conference as recently as 2014, a notoriously hard league to get out of, now they have a real chance of reaching the top flight of English football for the first time since the Division One was rebranded as the Premier League.

With Blackpool safe from relegation and Luton in no real danger of dropping from the playoff spots, I’m expecting a fairly drab affair here in terms of goals.

Luton’s home form has been solid this season and they have won 39 points from their 21 games in front of their home fans at Kenilworth Road. Despite the good home form, the team haven’t been the most free scoring. Luton are averaging just 1.67 goals per game at home this season and the matches overall are averaging just 2.67 goals. Blackpool’s away matches have also been low scoring affairs this season, with their games on the road averaging just over 2.4 goals. For this reason I’m happy to back against goals here

I’ll also be adding corners to this bet. The home side have a lot more incentive than their opponents here and I’m expecting them to spend the majority of the game on the front foot. Luton applying pressure should lead to them winning corners and the team are averaging over 5 corners per game at home this season.

 Blackpool opponents when they play away are also averaging just over 5 corners per game, so the over 4 corners in our builder has some value here. In Blackpool’s last 5 matches, their opponents have had 7,7,7,3 and 8 corners in the match.

For the longshot, I’ll add Luton to win the match to the angles we’ve taken in our main bet. Luton won the reverse fixture between these sides 3-0. That score line would be no good to us here, but I’d be surprised to see a goal fest here given the averages in both teams matches.

Blackpool have only picked up 20 points from their 20 away games, winning just 4 of those matches. Therefore, I would be surprised if they managed to come away with anything here.