Leicester return to the south coast just three days after coasting to victory over Portsmouth in the Carling Cup but punters should be careful not to read too much into Tuesday night's events when analysing the possibilities of this clash.

Portsmouth v Leicester
Leicester return to the south coast just three days after coasting to victory over Portsmouth in the Carling Cup but punters should be careful not to read too much into Tuesday night's events when analysing the possibilities of this clash.

Indeed, it would be easy to look at the respective line-ups and conclude that the Foxes have the clear psychological edge after winning with a slightly weakened team against a full-strength Pompey.

However, if any manager needed to rest players it was Steve Cotterill, given that he's barely been able to replace his first-teamers with adequate substitutes for most of the opening seven matches.

Besides, playing in front of 8,327 fans at Fratton Park is one thing but double the attendance and throw in a few television cameras and it promises to be an altogether different and, dare we say, more intimidating experience this time around.

With that in mind, we'd be more inclined to side with the hosts at big prices but not enough to recommend a bet here. The time to get involved is if the home win drifts beyond the 3.00 mark on the exchanges in the run up to kick-off.

Best of the rest

Mark Robins accused his Barnsley players of 'lacking steel' when they last hit the road a fortnight ago and they can respond in the right manner to that criticism by avoiding defeat at Reading this weekend.

The Tykes were looking good for three points when leading Norwich at Carrow Road on September 11 but when Stephen Foster put through his own with 20 minutes to go, it proved to be the cue for a sudden collapse.

For Robins, it was an infuriating sight and it's clearly something he's unwilling to tolerate as a manager who prides himself on the mental strength of his players above all else.

The former Rotherham boss might be prepared to accept disappointing results when there's an obvious superiority in the technical quality of an opposing team but he will never accept failure based on an inability to maintain composure for 90 minutes.

His players have already responded once by showing some good character to come from behind and smash five goals past Leeds at Oakwell, three days after they crumbled against the Canaries.

Robins made three changes for that game, yet it's interesting that he refused to criticise the team when they followed up with a disappointing 1-1 draw with Derby last weekend.

Clearly, the message is to place pride in avoiding defeat because it was a game Barnsley should have won on the balance of play, and all of this could be serving to recreate the culture of consistency that the Tykes showed at this point last season when they tasted defeat just twice in 13 matches.

As such, we like the look of Bet365's 2.10 quote on them taking the spoils on the three-quarter ball in their Asian handicap line.

The case for this bet is only helped by the suspicion that Reading are still living on the reputation they developed towards the end of last season but results since the action resumed in August suggest they might struggle to live up to their lofty expectations at the beginning of the campaign.

Back-to-back victories against Leicester and Crystal Palace at the start of the month did offer some hope of restoring the confidence they showed when the pressure was off between February and May but they've failed to build on it adequately enough.

Overall, the past 12 months is a good measure and the Royals do look short at 4/5 when you consider they're only five points better off over that period.

PICK:
Barnsley (+0.75) to beat Reading on the Asian handicap at 2.10 at Bet365.