The second semi-final of the Sky Bet Championship play-offs gets underway on Monday evening when Cardiff City host Fulham in the first leg of their tie at the Cardiff City Stadium, as two sides relegated from the Premier League last term look to go a step closer to an immediate return.
Cardiff made it into the play-offs with an emphatic win on the final day of the campaign, while Fulham were condemned to the postseason when they failed to see off Wigan on the last day, although they were always huge outsiders to snatch automatic promotion anyway.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Football channels. The build up to the contest starts at 7pm with the match itself kicking off at 7.45pm.
Cardiff City
One of the form sides since the restart were Cardiff City and that saw them make a charge toward the play-off places, and then get over the line and finish fifth to have a crack at a Fulham side who they have had some tasty battles with down the years. Cardiff won six of their nine matches after the lockdown so they have built up a head of steam, one which they will be looking to use to their advantage to secure a lead to take to London with them later in the week.
One of the reasons for the success of Cardiff has been their directness. They were famed for that under Neil Warnock but might even have cranked it up a notch under Neil Harris. The one thing Harris has done is coach the Bluebirds’ forwards to get them into positions to score goals, something they were struggling to do prior to the departure of Warnock. If they can handle what Fulham throw at them defensively you would think the Welsh outfit have every chance here.
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Fulham
When the season started, most judges expected Fulham to be the ones challenging Leeds United for the title. That never really played out though with Fulham being extremely inconsistent, especially on their travels, and their 11 defeats never really gave them a chance of being genuine title challengers. They have got it going when it matters though and go into this match off the back of five wins and two draws from their last seven outings.
The reason Fulham have never been outside the top six this season has been the goal threat that they carry. Aleksandar Mitrovic won the Golden Boot in this division and he is sure to pose a big threat here. What has let the Cottagers down this term has been their defence. The 48 goals they leaked was comfortably the highest out of the top four sides and that is something that needs rectifying whatever happens in these play-offs.
Team News
Cardiff City have no new injury concerns so Isaac Vassell and Greg Cunningham remain their only absentees. Josh Murphy was rested for the win over Hull City and he is expected to come back in for Danny Ward despite the latter scoring in that game.
Fulham are sweating over the fitness of Ivan Cavaleiro who has a hamstring injury. Harrison Reed has served his suspension and should return. Bobby Decordova-Reid and Harry Arter could both face their former club.
Betting
Unlike the first semi-final, neither side will be going into this one deflated from a near miss on automatic promotion or anything like that. They are both in decent touch too so we should get a really good game of football, but for me it is Fulham who I want to be on here for no other reason than I just believe they are the better team of the two. They also have recent history of winning the play-offs that many of their squad can call upon.
Fulham are likely to control possession and having been away to Nottingham Forest, West Brom and Leeds since the restart, they are nicely tuned in on facing the bigger sides on the road so this is not going to worry them. There are a lot of goals in this Fulham side from all angles and I think that can be big too. I respect Cardiff but their only clean sheet in their last five was against a terrible Hull City side and that is a concern. Fulham beat Cardiff at the Cottage just over a couple of weeks ago and if there is a winner in this match I expect it to be them.
Tips
WON – Back Fulham to beat Cardiff City (DNB) for a 3/10 stake at 1.90 with BetVictor
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