Friday 1st August 2025

In Across the Leagues today:

• The season starts here…
• Stockport v Bolton…
• Grimsby v Crawley… 

A pair of Scorers for the opening weekend…

The new season gets underway this weekend…

It’s a staggered start, with Leagues One & Two kicking off this weekend, along with the Scottish Premiership. The Championship begins next weekend. And then the Premier League 2025/26 campaign starts from 15th August.

We’re taking a similar staggered-start approach to our new-season bets…

Top Goalscorer update…

As you’ll have seen in last week’s Scottish scorers piece, I put plenty of groundwork in there. But you can’t force a bet. Not all the bookies are up. And no one player truly catches my eye as an Each Way underdog at the prices…

I can tell you that our old friend Martin Boyle was in the Scottish Premiership notes again. The Hibernian striker is 32 now. He got 11 league goals last term, finishing two away from the (Top 3) Each Way places. Boyle is 33/1 at best this time with BetVictor, and 28s and 25s in general, with the firms actually offering the market that is (for example, Skybet have yet to get involved). Right now, Boyle is not a bet for me.

I’m much more optimistic about our chances in English Leagues One and Two, though…

Our two men in the EFL…

Earlier this week we took a deep-dive into the English Football League scorers/ penalties stats. And two men emerged as outsider-bet prospects, making the cut as our first ante-post selections for 2025/26…

• In League One, Stockport’s new signing Malik Mothersille went in the book at 25/1 Each Way (1/4 odds 1-4 places). The highly-rated 21-year-old is now trading at 20/1 in general
• While in League Two, we’ve plumped for Grimsby’s experienced striker, Danny Rose. The 31-year-old can still be backed as I write at a top-price 33/1 Each Way with several firms: Bet365, William Hill, 888 Sport, Ladbrokes, Coral, Boylesports

As I say, with the Championship, Premier League - and other top European divisions - all to come, too. We’ll be making a few more moves in the outright, season-long markets over the next week or so.

I’ve already started looking at the matchday markets, too…

Linking up with the above pair of Top Goalscorer selections, both men appeal in their opening games this weekend…

Stockport County are one of the favourites to do well in League One this season, and new signing Malik Mothersille is expected to be a big part of their promotion push in attack. We’ll back up our outright pick by taking him to score on his home debut.

Grimsby Town and Danny Rose also start with a home fixture, and we’ll also follow the forward in the Anytime Scorer market here.

If you fancy bigger odds, the League Two stats on your members-only Across the Leagues website show that seven of Rose’s 13 scoring appearances last season also delivered for First Goalscorer, with eight paying out for Last Goalscorer:

League Two 2024/25 - Top Scorers:

Log-in to view all our stats for 18 leagues, hundreds of teams, and thousands of players at:

www.acrosstheleagues.co.uk

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TODAY’S PICKS & BEST ODDS

See above for full details

Stockport v Bolton

League One, Sun 12 noon - Sky Sports

• Anytime Scorer: Malik Mothersille @ 2/1 (3.0) Skybet, Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook, 15/8 (2.88) and 7/4 (2.75) in general

Grimsby v Crawley

League Two, Sat 3pm

• Anytime Scorer: Danny Rose @ 13/8 (2.63) Skybet, 6/4 (2.5) and 7/5 (2.4) in general  

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I’ll be back next week with more new-season analysis & advice for you…

Enjoy the football…

Best wishes,

Oliver Upstone

Across the Leagues