FA Cup picks

I’m absolutely delighted to see Bolton starting to put the wins together. It’s nothing more than their loyal fans deserve after such a difficult start to the season and all the worries about going out of business completely. We’re backing them to record a fourth successive win when they tackle Plymouth this weekend in the FA Cup as well, with Betfair Sportsbook offering 9/5 and a host of others up at 7/4.

The Trotters will surely go down of course, but it’s a credit to them that they are now within seven points of Southend and just 15 behind MK Dons and AFC Wimbledon given they started the season with a 12point deficit and all the troubles they went through. They also have a host of games in hand so could claw those back yet.

After failing to win a game in their first 14 this season, they have now beaten Bristol Rovers, Man City U21s and Fleetwood in quick succession and they are expected to name a decent squad for their match with Plymouth despite a couple of injuries.

Plymouth will themselves be without Conor Grant and Jose Baxter, plus possibly also Dom Telford and Ryan Taylor who are both recovering from injury. The Pilgrim’s have lost their last two outings – going down 4-0 at Exeter and 1-0 to Chelsea U21s.

Stepping up a division should be a challenge for Plymouth here despite Bolton’s troubles earlier in the season, and the 9/5 represents value here.

We recently tipped Cambridge to beat Exeter at 9/4 – a crazy price for a team performing so well in League Two – even if results haven’t always matched. They duly won 4-0 that day, so it’s a surprise to see them chalked up almost as long 19/10 to win this fixture again just three weeks later.

Since that day, they drew at home to Grimsby – a match they probably did enough to win, before losing at Northampton in a match where they actually won the shot-count and xG as well. Then followed a 2-1 win over Crawley and a 1-1 draw with Arsenal U21s – but they made 10 changes for that one so it counts for little.

Exteter have lost both away trips since the visit to Cambridge – losing at Scunthorpe and Bradford, while they did win a convincing derby match against Plymouth 4-0 a fortnight ago. They come into this one without captain Jake Taylor following his dismissal at Bradford, but they do have Tom Parkes available after his red card was rescinded on Friday.

Exeter manager Matt Taylor did suggest a pretty tough set of injuries in his Friday press-conference – saying they would be without around eight faces for this one – without naming exactly who would be in and out, and that's enough to persuade me to roll out a 3-pointer here.

1pt Bolton to beat Plymouth at 9/5 (Betfair Sportsbook)

3pts Cambridge to beat Exeter at 19/10, 15/8 (Bet365, Betfred, Betfair, BetVictor, Ladbrokes)

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