Southend vs Port Vale Predictions, Betting Tips and Match Previews

After a disappointing defeat at the hands of a struggling Gillingham side, Southend will be looking to bounce back here. Fortunately for the hosts, they face a visiting team who’ve been very poor on their travels this season and, therefore, this looks to be an excellent opportunity for Phil Brown’s men to resume winning ways.

Although the hosts do boast form at home that is far superior to Port Vale’s on the road, at the prices, backing Southend to come out on top really doesn’t appeal. Instead, at odds of 1/1, ‘Both Teams to Score’ is the way to go.

Southend may be 19 points in front of their opposition here, but they’ve certainly not been defending well and it would be pretty hard to be confident of them keeping a clean sheet here. Scoring goals is not a problem for Brown’s side at home and they’ve now scored in all but one of their 17 home matches this season. However, keeping goals at the other end has proven to be difficult of late. Southend are without a clean sheet in their last five at home. In addition, they’ve shut their opponents out on just three occasions at Roots Hall this season.

It’s no secret that Port Vale have been poor on the road this season and they have indeed struggled to score goals. However, the visitors have picked up in that respect of late and come into this fixture having scored against both Bradford and Bristol Rovers – two teams who’re chasing promotion via the play-offs. This bodes well considering Southend’s recent defensive predicament.

The fact that only one team have seen both teams score at home more times than Southend have this season is also another big positive ahead of this one.

Whichever way you look at this fixture, even if you’re fancying a Southend win, it’s very hard to fancy the hosts to keep a clean sheet and, therefore, ‘Both Teams to Score’ looks a good bet.