League Two is always so hard to predict and with no teams seemingly in real financial difficulty like we have seen the previous few seasons it is even harder.
To that end, I am going to propose a double for my best bet in League two and take both Crawley and Northampton to finish in the top half. We can back that with Boylesports at 7/5.
Expectations are high among the Crawley fans after the club has brought in several quality signings for League Two. The club has new owners in WAGMI united and backed manager Kevin Betsy in the transfer market and they have, at the time of writing added 10 new players for the new season.
Crawley managed to secure the services of League Two leading scorer from last term, Dom Telford from Newport and he will add more quality to a forward line that already boasts Kwesi Appiah, Tom Nichols and Ashley Nadesan. Nadesan and Jack Powell provided 12 assists between them last term and will both play pivotal roles this season. I really like the signings of Brandon Mason from MK Dons. He is an exciting wide player and will bring some pace and energy to the team. All the new players have brought into what is happening with Crawley and there appears to be a positive and exciting feeling around the club in what they can achieve this season.
Tom Omole from Spurs is a decent ball-playing centre-back with Spurs said to be disappointed that he left the club and the capture of Dion Conroy, another centre-back from Swindon will add some stability at the back given that they conceded 66 league goals last season. Going forward they scored 56 goals but with the additional signings, I am confident that they will concede fewer and score more.
Crawley finished in the top half last season and with the improvements on the pitch, I see no reason why they can’t do so again. It should be a season of improvement for Crawley with the players they have brought there is no reason why they can't be setting their sights on a top seven finish this term. However, we need them to finish 12th or higher for this part of our double to win.
Northampton should go well again this season after just missing out on automatic promotion thanks to Bristol Rovers winning 7-0 on the last day of the season to pip them to 3rd place on goal difference.
No side conceded fewer goals than the Cobbler's last season and despite losing centre-back Fraser Horsfall to Stockport and star goalkeeper Liam Roberts to Middlesbrough they have replaced them well with Lee Burge who was released by Sunderland, Sam Sherring from Bournemouth, and Akin Odimayo from Swindon. The capture of Danny Hylton to play up top should also be a key signing for them.
The Cobblers did struggle for goals at times last season with just 61 scored and with an xG of just 49.91 which put them in the bottom half for expected goals, but with their excellent defensive output with just 39.9 xGA, the 3rd best in the division, they shouldn’t need to score plenty of goals to win games. I can’t see any scenario where they finish outside the top half.
Northampton are currently 5th favourite for the division title, and we need them to finish in the top half for this section of the bet to win. They have finished in the bottom half of League two just once since the 2014/15 season and given the squad and financial position of the club they should be challenging for automatic promotion this term.
