Sunday Football Tips: Clean up with 30/1 FA Cup punt

• Two teams high in League 2 fair-play table

• Ref already has 2 no-card games in FA Cup this season

• Bet Builder for no cards on offer at 30/1

Stockport v Walsall
Sunday 8 January, 14:00

Our low-cards-in-the-FA-Cup theory produced good dividends on Saturday with a 6/1 winner, so why change tack?

In fact, with a bit of profit in the bank, let's take a chance on a 30/1 shot.

The game in question in Stockport v Walsall, two sides are very much towards the top of the fair-play table in League 2 this season.

Stockport have received only 23 cards in their 23 games this season - by far the lowest tally in the fourth tier - but the stat the layers appear to have focused too heavily on is that five of them have been red.

As for Walsall, only five teams in League 2 have seen fewer cards so that's encouraging for those looking for a clean game.

Another boon is the appointment of referee Andrew Kitchen.

He plies his trade mainly in League 2, so should know these sides, and he's averaging just 2.22 cards per game in that division so far this season (nine games).

As explained in yesterday's column, card totals are generally lower in the FA Cup than in the Premier League or EFL and Kitchen's record reflects that - he's had two no-card games already in this season's competition with three shown in his other Cup tie (in 2021/22).

All things considered, I think it's worth throwing some small change at no cards in this contest - and if you put a Bet Builder together of under 0.5 cards for each team than you can get tasty odds of just over 30/1.

It obviously doesn't take much for this type of bet to go wrong so it is a long shot but not that long and I'll put half the day's stake on that with the other half going on a cover bet - a straight single of under 2.5 cards which also looks overpriced at 23/10.

More FA Cup: Eight stand-out bets for Sunday's matches