Mark Langdon's best weekend bets and football acca

Wigan v Middlesbrough

3pm Saturday

The Sky Bet Championship promotion race promises to be a tight finish and Middlesbrough can chuck their hat into the ring by beating Wigan.

It was a tough February for Boro, who faced a number of difficult fixtures, but they beat West Brom away, drew with Leeds and lost only to Sheffield United in the league before landing back-to-back victories to nil against Blackburn and QPR.

Boro won the shot count 26-5 against ten-man Blackburn (7-1 on target) and showed their adventure with Jonny Howson and George Saville as wing-backs in the 2-0 success over Rangers.

Tony Pulis, not known for his attacking philosophy, seems to be grasping the need for wins and, with Lewis Wing behind Ashley Fletcher and Britt Assombalonga, Boro are more dangerous going forward.

Wigan are four matches unbeaten but that does not tell the whole story as the Latics looked average in rescuing a late point at home to ten-man Ipswich last time out.

They had been on a run of four defeats in five prior to that spell and may yet be dragged into the relegation battle.

Recommendation
Middlesbrough
1pt 6-4 Betfred, Sky Bet

Sky Bet Championship standings

Grimsby v Cambridge

3pm Saturday

Cambridge failed to fill their bench in last week's 1-0 defeat at Yeovil with Colin Calderwood having to recall Finley Iron from a loan spell at St Neots to help the cause.

Jake Doyle-Hayes, David Forde, Liam O'Neil, Kevin Pilkington and Jake Carroll definitely remain sidelined and Brad Halliday is a major doubt with boss Colin Calderwood hopeful Hayden Coulson and Harrison Dunk can recover to help the League Two strugglers.

Cambridge had only one shot on target in a 1-0 defeat at Yeovil on Saturday, a result which looks bad anyway, but reads even worse as the Glovers were so short on numbers they were using striker Yoann Arquin as a centre-back.

Well, they did until Arquin got injured after ten minutes, so Cambridge will have had to be really poor not to lay a glove on the Glovers.

However, Cambridge's latest away no-show will come as little surprise to their long-suffering supporters. United have lost nine of their last ten road trips and scored once in the last eight.

Grimsby have won four of their last five matches and should be able to overcome the suspension of Ludvig Ohman, who was sent off in last week's battling 1-1 draw at Swindon.

Sky Bet League Two standings

Recommendation
Grimsby
1pt 29-20 Betfred

Weekend football accumulators

Banker
Luton 4-9
The money keeps coming for Luton as the Hatters look for a seventh win in eight. Rochdale have allowed 21 shots on target in their last two games – defeats to Wimbledon and Plymouth.

Blowout
Stoke 23-20
Nathan Jones was a long-term appointment for Stoke and he is going to need time to turn things around. They have won once since Christmas and look too short against Nottingham Forest.

Accumulator
Luton 4-9, MK Dons 4-7, Lille 8-15, Chelsea 8-15 Betway

Both teams to score
Games at Brentford 4-6, Hull 4-5, Swindon 4-5 Betfred

Thought for the week

Gareth Bale looks done at Real Madrid.

In recent weeks he has been shown up by Marcelo for not speaking enough Spanish and Thibaut Courtois openly said Bale snubbed a squad dinner because he wanted to be in bed by 11pm.

Spain's Madrid-based papers reckon he is more interested in golf than playing for their precious Real Madrid and things came to a head last week when Bale refused to celebrate his match-winning penalty much to the chagrin of Lucas Vazquez.

Between now and the summer there will no doubt be a smear campaign, trying to rewrite history, but only Karim Benzema has scored more than Bale for Real in La Liga this season and the Welshman has been pivotal in their Champions League successes.

It was Bale who put Real ahead in extra-time of the 2014 final against Atletico and then last season he scored the most astonishing goal to help beat Liverpool.

Bale has had mainly bad press throughout his time at Real Madrid. Not as good as Cristiano Ronaldo, not as good as Isco, not as good as Vazquez and now not as good as Vinicius.

The simple truth is Bale is a brilliant player who is absurdly over-criticised in Spain and it will be the Premier League's gain if, or should that be when, he returns this summer.

Today's top sports betting stories

Follow us on Twitter @racingpostsport

Like us on Facebook RacingPostSport