As with my Acca column this week, opening games of the season are just extremely tough when it comes to working out which teams are strong going forward and those potentially weak defensively. I’ve selected five games where I think BTTS has a good chance of coming in. This fivefold is priced up at 14/1…

We spread our Saturday 3PM selections across four different leagues this week and our only selection from the Championship comes from Ewood Park where two teams with ambitions of returning to the Premier League face-off. Blackburn were an outstanding side a year ago who were unlucky not to go up. Towards the end of last season they went on a good run of BTTS with four of their final five games seeing that bet come in. As for West Brom, I know its only pre-season but they’ve been scoring and conceding goals at a big rate. At this point, there is very little to go on so I’ll stick this game in.

I think Peterborough have the best striker in League 1 in Jonson Clarke-Harris and that always gives interest for BTTS columns. The Posh scored 75 goals last year, good for fifth in the division and only one team in the top ten conceded more. Reading have dropped down from the Championship thanks in large part to a very poor defence. Goals can be had in Berkshire on Saturday afternoon.

Like many of us, I kept an eye on Wrexham last season and whilst they were prolific going forward, they were always good for a ricket at the back. BTTS came in for 20 of their 27 competitive games in the calendar year of 2023 so far. Many will expect them to win but MK Dons have dropped down from League 1 and Graham Alexander has a huge job on his hands. I think they score and would be very surprised if the home side didn’t as well.

Last season at the old Betfred Blog I used to just flog the National League games for this column because they just kept coming in. Only five teams were below 50% for BTTS over the course of the entire season. Two of the very best were Altrincham (70%) and Gateshead (61%) and they are the two home teams I’ve decided to open with for those reasons.