James Milton: Football predictions & free betting accumulator tips

Free football tips, bets and analysis for this weekend's FA Cup, EFL and European action.

Best bets

Manchester City to win & both teams to score
2pts 8-5 BoyleSports

Bolton
2pts 11-8 bet365

Freiburg
1pt 2-1 bet365

Best FA Cup bet

Manchester City v Fulham 3pm Saturday

Premier League leaders Manchester City host the top team in the Championship in the FA Cup fourth round and an entertaining contest is expected between two confident attacking units.

Fulham, favourites to return to the top flight as Championship winners, were held to a 1-1 draw by Blackpool last time out but they had won their previous four league games by margins of 3-2, 6-2, 6-2 and 7-0.

The seven-goal rout of Reading was the Cottagers' second 7-0 win of the season – Blackburn, now second in the table, received the same treatment in November – and Fulham are averaging 2.85 goals per game on the road in the league.

Clearly, Marco Silva's men face a tougher test against the Premier League champions and Champions League favourites but the underdogs are worth backing to land a blow on the City defence.

Pep Guardiola's side have conceded in both of their cup ties against lower-league teams this season, a 6-1 EFL Cup win over Wycombe and a 4-1 victory at Swindon in the FA Cup, and failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their six Champions League group games.

City's home matches in Europe this season produced 6-3, 4-1 and 2-1 wins and backing the champions to progress with both teams scoring looks a decent bet on Saturday.

Best EFL bet

Morecambe v Bolton 3pm Saturday

Bolton lost four League One games in a row either side of Christmas but the Trotters are back on track having beaten Ipswich, Shrewsbury, Sunderland and Cambridge United to nil in their last four outings.

Last weekend's 6-0 drubbing of the Black Cats was an eye-catching result but they were also impressive against Cambridge in midweek, denying their in-form opponents a shot on target.

Bolton's front three of Dion Charles, Amadou Bakayoko and Dapo Afolayan caused Tuesday's opponents all sorts of problems and should be too sharp for this weekend's hosts Morecambe, who are conceding an average of 1.97 goals per game this season.

The Shrimps are in the relegation zone having won only three times in 19 games since the start of October. One of those victories came against bottom club Doncaster, who raced into a 3-0 lead inside half an hour, and the home defence may well struggle against a classy Bolton forward line.

Best European bet

Cologne v Freiburg 2.30pm Saturday

Bundesliga side Freiburg produced one of the most spectacular away performances of the 2021-22 European season in December, scoring six times in the first 37 minutes of their 6-0 win at Borussia Monchengladbach.

They start the weekend in fifth place in the German top flight, having beaten third-placed Bayer Leverkusen just before Christmas and defeated Stuttgart 2-0 in their last outing, and their expected-goals stats suggest there is no fluke about their success this term.

Christian Streich's men advanced to the quarter-finals of the German Cup last month with an impressive 4-1 away win over Hoffenheim and they are a big price to claim another road victory at Cologne.

The home side are enjoying a decent campaign themselves but all seven of their league wins have come against teams in the bottom eight and Freiburg are operating at a higher standard than that.

Weekend accumulators

Banker
Wolves
Norwich boosted their Premier League survival chances by beating out-of-form Everton and Watford but the Canaries should be outclassed by FA Cup hosts Wolves, who have won five of their last six.

Blowout
Stoke
The Potters have lost three of their last four home matches and should be troubled by Wigan, who beat Blackburn 3-2 in the third round of the cup and have won ten of their last 12 League One away games.

Accumulator
Wolves 4-6, Sutton 21-20, Inter 5-6, Borussia Dortmund 20-23. £1 accumulator returns £11.72 with Coral and Ladbrokes.

Both teams to score
Games at Stoke 20-23, Forest Green 4-5, Bayern Munich 1-2. £1 treble returns £5.05 with Betfair.

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