Football Betting Tips: Tom Lee Picks An EFL Weekend Double

Tom Lee's Panel Tips For Saturday, May 3

• Tom Lee's Panel Tip 1: Reading To Beat Barnsley - 4/6 With Coral
• Tom Lee's Panel Tip 2: Leyton Orient To Beat Huddersfield - 23/20 With Unibet

Reading Vs Barnsley, Saturday, 3pm

Looking to finish the regular EFL season as we began back in August with a winner, the first leg of this double takes us to the home of Reading.

Currently known as the Select Car Leasing Stadium, it's fair to say this is no Elm Park, the ground the Royals inhabited for 102 years until 1998.

Ramshackle, old fashioned venues beat modern stadia hands down, but my hunch is the locals inside their current home will at least have something to cheer this Saturday afternoon, as their play-off chasing side entertain Barnsley.

This is seventh versus 12th, a team on a good run and with serious play-off hopes against an outfit who appear, since early March, to have almost completely given up. 

Noel Hunt's Reading simply need to win and hope Leyton Orient, tied with them on 75 points but above them courtesy of superior goal difference, slip.

The Berkshire side's form has been inconsistent, but they took a point off subsequent League One winners Birmingham back in February, before beating another would be promoted side, Wrexham, in a fiery clash in March, signalling their capabilities.

What's more, they're rounding off the campaign with their shooting boots on, thumping Mansfield 5-1 away on Easter Monday, before doing a professional job when winning 2-0 at Bristol Rovers last weekend. 

I suspect that vein of form will be more than enough to see off lacklustre Barnsley, a team who since they kissed goodbye to any notion of involvement in the end-of-season play-off drama, have completely surrendered. 

Last Saturday's home defeat to relegated Shrewsbury marked a new low for a team who in the month of April alone conceded 16 goals.

Champions Birmingham walloped them 6-2 at the start of the month, while Reading's rivals for that all important sixth place, Leyton Orient, penetrated them four times on what turned into a bad Good Friday for the Tykes.  

At 4/6 with betting apps, it's Reading who are a clear pick for leg one of the wager.

Tom Lee's Panel Tip 1: Reading To Beat Barnsley - 4/6 With Coral

Huddersfield Vs Leyton Orient, Saturday, 3pm

Ironically, Reading's efforts will be in vain if leg two is accurate, because joining them in the double are none other than their direct rivals for that final, cherished play-off spot, Leyton Orient. 

The form team of League One, the O's have arrived with a wet sail in recent weeks, banging in 13 goals in five games and in doing so winning a series of see-saw thrillers. 

A 69th-minute Charlie Kelman goal was sufficient for them to edge out Mansfield 3-2 away from home, they were losing at Crawley but came storming back to win 3-1 with a Kelman brace again vital, and  they had to come from behind to triumph 2-1 at Cambridge.

Better still, they were 2-0 and then 3-1 down at home to Barnsley before emerging as 4-3 victors, and last weekend they held their nerve when edging out Wycombe by a 1-0 scoreline.

Nail-biting certainly, but Orient have momentum and at 23/20 with football betting sites can carry that form all the way to listless Huddersfield Town on the final day.

The home side appeared to have headed on their summer holidays some time ago, losing five on the bounce and conceding 11 times in the month of April, dropping to 10th position in the process. 

That losing sequence will extend to six if Orient can deliver in Yorkshire, in doing so holding off Reading's bid for the play-offs.  

Tom Lee's Panel Tip 2: Leyton Orient To Beat Huddersfield - 23/20 With Unibet

Tom's weekend double on Reading and Leyton Orient to win pays out around 9/4 with Coral.