Cambridge United vs Portsmouth Predictions

• Portsmouth have won their last three League One away games – all with clean sheets.
• Cambridge United have lost their last two League One home fixtures.
• Cambridge United have failed to score in their last two league games.

A Pompey win chimes with us

Cambridge United will provide a good barometer for how seriously to take Portsmouth’s recent promotion push when the two sides meet at Abbey Stadium on Monday.

Pompey have risen to ninth in the table on the back of a nine-game unbeaten league run that has featured six wins and three draws. During that sequence, Danny Cowley’s men have beaten sixth-placed Wycombe as well as a number of squads closer to Cambridge at the wrong end of the table.

The U’s sit in 17th place right now and their only two league wins since the start of November came away from Abbey Stadium. It’s true that their fixtures have been pretty tough during that period, facing five of the top seven plus in-form Charlton, but they took only one point from those six games.

Cambridge goals drying up

So if Pompey want to be considered contenders they need to prove it by winning on Monday. Their away form is solid enough to warrant support in the match result betting and it’s also tempting to back Portsmouth to win to nil, given their last three road trips have ended in three such victories.

The U’s have scored in five of their last six home games and, overall, have been shut out only three times in 23 league games this term, but have now gone two games without a goal. Portsmouth average just 1.42 goals per game on their travels, so may need to keep another clean sheet to claim the points in this by a final score of 1-0.