Two newsletters today, three Capital One Cup and Champions League previews in this and a follow up at 16.00 UK time with the Wednesday morning ( for those of us based in Europe, J-League fixtures.

Tomorrow, there will be the standard 10.00 email and a very brief half time update of the Japanese matches as close to 11.50 UK time as is possible.

Capital One Cup: Tranmere Rovers-Bolton Wanderers

Wanderers are the only one of our long term selections who have started their campaign "poorly", but the level of performance has been far greater than return so far and I do not feel we should be pressing the panic button just yet, actually, I am going to update all of those positions later in the week, probably on Thursday afternoon, so will save further discussion on that, until then.

Bolton do not exactly fit the profile of a team you would expect to go deep in the League Cup, with promotion a priority, but as a club they have done well in the competition previously, their coach treated it with respect at his former club and they need to start winning games on a regular basis. We touched upon all of this ahead of their 3-1 win at Shrewsbury Town in the previous round ...

These two met here in pre season 17 days ago, the visitors (Bolton) were leading 3-1 with 25 minutes to and looked very comfortable and had missed several chances to score a fourth, but then took their foot of the gas, made some changes and the match ended 3-3.  The hosts had no real answer to Chris Eagles and Marvin Sordell, who were running riot upfront, Eagles picked up a knock on Saturday and will miss out, Sordell has since moved on to Charlton, but David Ngog and Craig Davies will be pushing for starts after featuring from the bench at Burnley, whilst new signing Andre Moritz will be looking to make his debut.Dougie Freedman has said he would name his strongest available eleven and tended to take the competition very seriously at Crystal Palace, several of his team looked in need of game time, something we touched upon yesterday, so I think we can take the manager at his word and they could do with a win, ahead of games against Reading, Forest, QPR and local rivals Blackbu rn Rovers before the end of the month. They did not win in pre season and having opened with that draw at Burnley, they would surely like to break their duck and build up a little confidence, going into that tough sequence of games. Hosts tried to address defensive weaknesses in the summer and do look a little stronger at the back, but boss Graham Turner has called this a transition year and upfront, despite the goals in pre season, they look short of options and the loss of on loan striker Akwasi Asante, leaves them with 20 yo John Marsden ( who made his debut in the 0-0 draw with MK Dons on Saturday) and 21yo Tom Bradshaw ( no goals in 21 appearances last season) as the recognised strikers, which is simply not good enough. A committed Wanderers should win this.

Wanderers should certainly welcome the lower level of competition after playing pretty much the best that the Championship has to offer over the last couple of weeks and whilst Freedman seems sure to rotate his squad, it will surely be a strong and hungry starting line up.

Andrew Lonergan, Andre Moritz, Tyrone Mears, Matt Mills and Craig Davies are all senior players who have featured sparingly in the Championship so far and are pushing for a start and the chance to highlight their claims to the management.Darren Pratley is available for selection after serving a one-match ban for his red card at Nottingham Forest. Whatever team they opt for should be strong enough to beat a much troubled Rovers team, whom we spoke about recently ....

Sometimes the league table does lie, at the end of last October Tranmere were top of League 1 and 12 points clear of Brentford . At the time I said that it was "impossible" for Rovers to finish above the Bees come the end of the season and there was indeed a 24 point swing between then and May. There was nothing really wrong with the Tranmere staring eleven,just that their squad lacked depth and they were very dependant on 3-4 players. The one I especially highlighted at the time was Zoumana Bakayogo (46-5-1), who was key to everything they did, the left back supplied the energy and cover on that flank which allowed very gifted 33 yo Andy Robinson (33-10-3) to weave his magic. All season I waited patiently for Bakayogo to get a knock or suspension and miss a game, so that we could oppose Rovers and he played all 46 matches !

Leicester City snapped up the defender in the summer and I hope the former PSG youth player gets the chance to showcase his talent in the Championship. Now Robinson is another year older and missing his partner.

In addition, coach Ronnie Moore has injury concerns over 32 yo striker Akpo Sodje, 40 yo central defender Ian Goodison and 33 yo midfielder Jason Koumas ( who came out of two years retirement in the summer) heading into today's game, none of whom trained on Thursday .  Moore looks like he has been recruiting from the Dad's Army cast list !
He also signed 32 year old Stephen Foster and 34 yo Ryan Lowe in the off season and they do not need a team coach as they can travel to away games using their free bus passes !

Money is tight at Rovers and they have always liked to sign a senior player or two, who are prepared to take a pay cut, most of whom are already based in the area (Liverpool), but this is going a bit far. Don't get me wrong, on a going day Robinson is a joy to watch and head and shoulders above all non-Brentford players at this level and likewise Koumas in his prime, but how many of those days will there be this season.

Of the others James Wallace (19-2-4) has not played in eight months with a serious knee injury and Joe Thompson who scored twice in the 3-3 draw with Crawley Town last week, has been away from the club with an "illness" this week.

That is a lot of problems for an already very thin squad in terms of numbers and cover, they have conceded three times in both league starts and look up against it today against a far more youthful and better balanced home team.

They lost that match at Crewe Alexandra and followed up with a 5-0 home defeat to Peterborough United on Saturday, where matters were hardly helped by the dismissal of Andrai Jones, but they were already two down at the time and three behind from the resulting penalty, before the break. Home coach Ronnie Moore described his team's defending as shambolic and added that he would spend all yesterday looking at youth/lower league football to try and find a player or two to bring in before the weekend, especially a left sided central defender. I do not normally like to oppose teams after such a heavy defeat, but it is hard to see how Rovers can turn things around in such a short space of time. Wanderers have played here twice in recent seasons, so a visit to Prenton Park will hardly be a trip into the unknown, they won both and the hat-trick looks firmly on the cards. 1.5 units Bolton Wanderers -0.5 ball 1.97 asian line/Ibramarket.

Capital One Cup: West Ham United - Cheltenham Town

United look booked for an upper mid table finish in the Premier League (a little higher would be nice) and like Swansea City last season, fit the profile of a team who should go deep in at least one of the cup competitions, my pre season notes on them are reproduced at the foot of the page. They have four points from two EPL starts and will be eyeing up three more when Stoke City visit the Boleyn Ground on Saturday. Big Sam will make a lot of changes tonight and players of the quality of ......

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English Premier League ( < span style="color: rgb(255, 4, 255);" class=""> Written August 16th 13.33 UK time)

"Without the Big Six"

This is the "best of the rest" market, excluding the two Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool.

Top four spots in each of the last three years have been filled by ....

2012-13
Everton
WBA
Swansea
West Ham United

2011-12
Newcastle
Everton
Fulham
WBA

2010-11
Everton
Fulham
Aston Villa
Sunderland

Everton have dominated this market and have finished top 8 in each of the last seven seasons.

They are again a worthy favourite, but at circa 2.50 look plenty short enough given that they have lost their manager in David Moyes,who was at Everton for 11 years and there is no telling how this might affect the club and players. New boss Roberto Martinez might well be a good fit, but funds are tight, his big summer signing was Arouna Kone from his former club and whilst he has managed to keep the much admired Marouane Fellani, Leighton Baines and other star names so far, the transfer window is open for another couple of weeks and there is plenty of business still to be done and Moyes is keen to spend some cash at Manchester United.

I want to look elsewhere and my eyes have settled in East London and the Hammers.

West Ham United were a very promising tenth last season in their first season back in the top flight and I find it hard to see them doing worse this time round. The second season can often be the most difficult, but manager Sam Allardyce is an old hand at keeping a steady ship and United now realise that he is the man to take them forward and into the Olympic Stadium. The board have given Allardyce a target of a top ten in each of the years leading up to the move to Stratford and are prepared to back him in the transfer market. Funds/pockets are perhaps not as deep as at many clubs, but the money will be found for the right player and the permanent signings of Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Adrian and Razvan Rat, all look really good business and I expect at least one other "name" to arrive before the end of the month, but Big Sam might have to unload one or two players that are surplus to requirements before then. The people who run the Hammers are football guys, but also quite hard businessmen an d they know what is realistic and what is not, they are not going to do a Blackburn Rovers and sack a coach who is comfortably keeping them in mid table, I wonder how many times Rovers have regretted getting rid of Allardyce. He is still fondly remembered at Bolton Wanderers, where , incredibly, he took them into the top 8 four years in a row and also a cup final and europe en route. Once he left, the Trotters finished 13th-18th for the next five years and now, like Rovers are in the Championship.

Allardyce is a master at getting the best out of his players and especially those other coaches think are ready for the scrapheap, or who have underperformed elsewhere. Both Carroll and Downing fall into the latter group, Liverpool spent £55m+ on the pair, Sam barely a third of that and he plays football that will get the best out of both. He wants Downing to play wide on one flank and Matty Jarvis wide, wide , wide on the other, plenty of crosses into the box for Carroll to feed off. He will play to both players strengths, which is exactly what Liverpool did not do. Adrian has been brought in as cover and an eventual replacement for Jussi Jaaskelainen and is typical on the type of deal Allardyce likes to do, the keeper was being tracked by a number of clubs, but Sam did a speedy deal, as he knew Real Betis were short of funds and he has got a young keeper who played a full La Liga campaign last season for one of the stronger teams and who will only improve. Left back Rat has played almost 100 times for his country and has won a European club title with Shakhtar Donetsk, where he played for a decade, including over 50 Champions League matches and it reminds me a little of the Ivan Campo signing Allardyce made at Bolton.

Mohamed Diamé, Kevin Nolan, Mark Noble and Joe Cole, along with the two wide players give the Hammers some really classy options across the middle and if they could bring in one more striker (and he might be on his way), they would be in business ! Joe Cole is the joker in the pack, supremely gifted he has openly stated he is eyeing up a return to the England squad and he has been in top form in pre season, along with Ravel Morrison, who looks to have flourished from a year on loan at Birmingham, he was once called "one of the best talents I have ever seen" by Sir Alex Ferguson and at just 20yo, has time on his side and has sworn his well publicised wayward days are behind him.

United were very strong at Upton Park last year, where they did not lose to any team outside the top seven, the losses came against Arsenal, Everton , Tottenham and Liverpool and they led in all four matches (!), also taking points (five in total) off the top three clubs.

They do not play a "top six" team until October and whilst long term it should make no difference, it is always good to get some points on the board and winning breeds confidence, similarly opening with a couple of poor results, immediately puts a team under pressure, especially in a league where they are no "gimmes".

Andy Carroll has not featured in pre season, which has gone very well for West Ham and was expected to miss the opening couple of weeks, but Allardyce said yesterday ... "There's no injury news from our team at the moment. It's the first time in my management career that I've gone through a pre-season without a single injury. We've had knocks, but no player has had to miss a game because of injury throughout the entire summer, so I hope that continues all the way through to next May!"

They seem odd comments, unless he has forgotten his star striker ! Anyway, he is unlikely to be out for long and might even make an early return.

United are an option in the "handicap" markets, or you could take them for a top 10 finish ( circa 3.0), but I prefer an each way bet on this market, you can view odds on this link.

1.25 units West Ham United each way 15.0 1/4 odds a place 123 with several companies.

That is 2.5 units staked in total, 1.25 units to win, 1.25 to place, if West Ham are top three excluding the big six, the place part will pay out at odds of 4.50. (14-1 divided by 4 = 14/4 , sorry if that is obvious to some of you, it is not to others).

Good Luck.

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