League One playoff predictions: Fast-finishing Oxford are value to go up

Free football tips, best bets and analysis for the League One playoffs, which get underway on Tuesday, May 18.

Best bet

Oxford to be promoted
1pt 3-1 general

Playoff preview

It's absolutely no surprise that Sunderland are clear favourites for the League One playoffs, but fast finishers Oxford look more attractively priced and are in much better form.

Handed a place in the playoffs by Portsmouth's last-day bottle job, the free-scoring U's can blast their way past Blackpool before seeing off either Sunderland or Lincoln at Wembley.

And whatever the odds say, it's far from guaranteed that it's going to be Sunderland lying in wait in the final.

The Black Cats boast the worst form of the quartet with one win in their last nine matches – and even that sole success was against a Plymouth team who were down to ten men.

And while they do indeed boast a decent head-to-head over Lincoln, the Imps, who also stuttered across the line, have all their key players back in the nick of time.

Oxford and Blackpool would have few fears about taking on either of those two at Wembley.

It will be a contrast of styles at when those two clash in the semi-final at Bloomfield Road and the Kassam Stadium, Blackpool having been superbly drilled under ex-Liverpool coach Neil Critchley into the best organised side in the division.

They also play some nice football and of course have a historical pedigree when it comes to the post-season lottery. Their record of five promotions via the playoffs is a record.

They have lost only twice in the last three months, keeper Chris Maxwell is the proud holder of the Golden Glove having kept 21 clean sheets, and they have in Jerry Yates and Ellis Sims a strike-force in good form.

But when it comes to goals and attacking intent, everyone else takes a back seat in the company of Karl Robinson's Oxford.

Last season's beaten playoff finalists, even more than fellow slow starters Blackpool, have come from nowhere to get their ticket to the end-of-term party.

The U's were actually bottom of the table in November, a factor that cannot be based solely on the sale of star defender Rob Dickie to QPR, but defensively Robinson was definitely finding it hard to get his back four to gel.

Now it's hard to see what the issue ever was, to the extent that Rob Atkinson, Dickie's replacement, wound up in the League One side of the year.

The missing piece in the defensive jigsaw was actually in goal where Jack Stevens was drafted in before Christmas and has kept 13 clean sheets. They just look so much more secure.

They also missed playmaker Cameron Brannagan – who was out for three months with an eye injury – but once he returned and Oxford started firing, they were unstoppable.

They go into the playoffs the top scorers of the four contenders having scored at least three times in six of their last seven and that's the kind of firepower which takes teams to promotion.

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