Bradford v Burton: Bantams hungry for second Wembley trip

The lure of Wembley unquestionably derailed Bradford’s promotion bid, but their Capital One Cup final disembowelling left them with a sense of unfinished business with regards to the home of football.

Since getting a 5-0 thrashing from Swansea, the Bantams have only lost two games. Contrasting this to the five defeats they suffered in the seven outings between their Capital One Cup semi-final first-leg triumph over Aston Villa creates the impression that they’re desperate to have another crack at national stadium success. They’re 19/20 favourites to make home advantage count here.

They’ve avoided defeat in eight of the previous nine coming into this play-off duel, winning five times. One of these wins came at home to Burton, their second victory (although the first came via the medium of extra time) over the Brewers in three attempts this season.

Gary Rowett’s men come into this clash on the back of winning three of their previous four matches. Interestingly though, all of these victories came on home soil; they’ve been beaten by an aggregate of 8-1 on their two most recent away day.

Of their previous 17 League Two away matches, they’ve kept just the solitary clean sheet which makes backing over 1.5 Bantam goals in this one a decent prospect at 1/1.

Another bet promising a return is for Phil Parkinson’s men to open the scoring at Valley Parade. Burton have surrendered an advantage to their hosts in four of their last five road games and, at 4/6, if you’re going to punt in this market, it’s got to be on Bradford.

Similarly, working on the premise that the Yorkshiremen will poke their noses in front in this race to Wembley, backing the first half to yield the most goals is likely to produce a windfall.
In each of Bradford’s last four home wins, the bulk of the goals were registered before the interval; for those willing to invest on the continuation of this pattern can get paid out at 2/1.

All odds and markets accurate as of publication’s time and date