Man U had never beaten The Mariner minnows away.
After Grimsby Town pulled off the biggest English football cup tie upset in many a long year by beating Manchester United, a few tipsters and analysts went scrabbling around to see if they’d missed something when they confidently predicted the Premier League icons would hammer their fourth-tier opponents.
Guess what? There were remarkable statistics almost no one picked up on before the second-round seismic shock in the Carabao (League) Cup.
Grimsby Town are actually unbeaten in NINE home games against Manchester United in all competitions – going back to when both teams were formed in 1878!
The two clubs last met when they were both in the top-flight of English Football in the 1947/48 season – when Grimsby won away 4-3 but ended up being relegated.
More recently, before Wednesday’s night’s match at Grimsby’s Blundell Park, Manchester United had won just one of their last six games in all competitions. Also, Ruben Amorim’s side had not won any of their last six away games played at the home of an English club.
By contrast, The Mariners were fourth in the League Two table after five games and had yet to suffer a defeat in the 2025/26 season. And they’d won all three of their home fixtures.
In terms of the League Cup, they’d made the second round for the third time in four years.
A tiny tipping site called Goonersguide.com referenced these stats before last week’s match – yet still predicted Man U would win 3-1. They tipped Grimsby to win with a 2.5 goal start (or “Asian Handicap”) – at fixed odds of 1.67.
All this shows that research, history and current form are important elements in sports betting.
If some of us had the above info to hand, we might have gone for Betway’s 5.90 on a Grimsby win.
On second thoughts, probably not!
However, we might now take a close look at Grimsby Town to prevail in the third round of the League Cup in mid-September, when they meet financially stricken Sheffield Wednesday – who are two divisions above them in the Championship and likely to start as favourites.
