Plymouth vs Cardiff predictions: Hot-shot Whittaker can continue rich vein
- Plymouth’s 13 league games at home have produced 55 goals
- These sides drew 2-2 when they met at the Cardiff Stadium on Boxing Day
- Recommended bet: Morgan Whittaker anytime scorer
Ian Foster picked up a point in a 1-1 draw at Huddersfield in his first Championship match in charge of Plymouth, but needs to turn draws into wins to ease the Pilgrims away from danger.
Plymouth have drawn five of their last seven games and will see the visit of inconsistent Cardiff as an opportunity to chalk up a timely victory.
Team news
Right-sided midfielder Kaine Kesler-Hayden’s loan at Plymouth has ended so Joe Edwards is pencilled in to replace him in either a 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 set-up.
Centre-back Lewis Gibson should be fit after missing the 1-1 draw at Huddersfield.
Cardiff coach Erol Bulut reckoned he has 15 fit players for the trip to Devon.
Aaron Ramsey and Callum O’Dowda are back in training but are not yet ready to be involved.
Joe Ralls (groin) limped out of last week’s defeat by Leeds so Rubin Colwill should step in if he passes a fitness test.
The stats
Ipswich’s Portman Road is the only ground to have seen more goals than the 55 that have been piled up at Home Park in the Championship this season. That is an average of 4.2 goals per game.
Both teams have scored in each of Plymouth’s last seven matches.
The Pilgrims have drawn five of their last seven league games.
Morgan Whittaker has scored in six of his last seven games, including a brace in the 2-2 draw at Cardiff on Boxing Day.
Cardiff have won three of their last five league away games, each of them by 2-1 scorelines.
The Welsh side have scored 15 goals from set-pieces this season, the most in the division.
Prediction
There is never any shortage of goals at Home Park, so Both Teams To Score/Over 2.5 goals at 19/20 with LiveScore Bet is a hard one to overlook.
Given the difficulties faced by Cardiff's Erol Bulut in assembling a full squad for the trip to Plymouth, there must also be a temptation to get on Ian Foster’s hosts at 6/5 with LiveScore Bet.
The former England age-group coach looks like an astute acquisition and the Pilgrims are strong in front of their own fans anyway.
But Morgan Whittaker to score at any time is preferred at 13/8 with LiveScore Bet, given the red-hot form the home marksman is in.
The 23-year-old, inevitably being talked up in the transfer window, sounds committed to the Argyle cause and with seven goals in his last seven games they can ill-afford to be without him.
The pacy goal-getter scored both goals in Plymouth’s 2-2 draw at Cardiff at Christmas.
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