Betting.Betfair

Having played out a fairly insipid first leg 0-0, the layers were quick to hand advantage to Sheffield United for Monday night's return match at Bramall Lane, with the Yorkshire club now strong favourites in the To Qualify market at 1.48. Friday's game at the Lamex was a shocker to be honest. There were as many chances as addresses in a hermit's contacts book, with Stevenage coming closest to breaking the deadlock with a deflected shot hitting the bar. The quality of passing and possession was really poor on a very dry pitch (unhelpful for slick passing) with both too cagey for any attacking options. [u]Tactics[/u] The Blades clogged up the midfield in the opening leg, playing a 4-5-1 asking Stevenage to break them down - which they couldn't. United played Chris Porter as a lone...

You've got to hand it to Birmingham. In an era when we regularly hear top-flight players bleating about playing twice in a few days or having a fixture backlog due to their own success, it is refreshing to see the Blues in the play-offs at the end of a season where they have played a massive 60 games. Not only have they had the standard 46 league games to cope with, but Chris Hughton's side have also played six domestic cup matches and a further eight fixtures in the Europa League. And let's not forget, Birmingham were as low as 14th in the table at the start of 2012. They did climb as high as third in late February but then the sheer amount of football they have played probably took a toll as a run of one win in seven effectively ended any lingering hopes of automatic promotion. But...

For so much of the season, promotion to the Premier League looked like a combined Southampton and West Ham private members club. Then Reading came along with a run that, in all honesty, would have been pretty unstoppable regardless of what happened at St Mary's and Upton Park. Yet there must be an element of head scratching going on down the East End of London as to how the Hammers have ended up in the play-offs and haven't gone up automatically. Sam Allardyce's side were in the top two pretty much constantly from early October until mid-March, they have lost only eight games all season and they have what looks, to me at least, the strongest set of players in the division by some distance. Only 11 home wins may have been a contributory factor, and certainly a run of seven games...

[b]Accrington v Stevenage[/b] Accrington players want to make amends for a below-par performance at Stevenage last week, when they took a long time to get going. Long-standing players such as Andy Proctor, Ian Craney, Phil Edwards - even Jimmy Ryan with 148 appearances is beginning to look like a long servant - will be desperate to complete this story of the underdogs from non-League rising to League One. What a tale it would be. Since rejoining the Football League, Accrington have survived the sort of financial troubles that, as before, threatened their very existence and an unseemly ownership squabble. They need the town to back them and this is a sell-out. Alan Hansen would argue John Coleman should have played his best team in the last league game at Burton, when Stanley made...

I know a couple of Nottingham Forest fans, and despite their fine end to the regular season, neither was overly confident of even getting to the Playoff Final, let alone winning it. So, failure to break down a Swansea side that played with 10 men for 89 minutes has done little to increase their optimism - and while I couldn't understand their negativity before kick-off in the first leg, I must admit I share their feeling that the Welsh side will now progress. History does give Forest a chance - teams who drew the home leg have gone on to reach the final on three of the last seven occasions that the opening game has finished all square. But with Forest having a man advantage for virtually the whole of the game at the City Ground, you do feel their chance may have passed them by. That...