There is one match left in the Sky Bet Championship weekend and it is a big one in the race for promotion as Huddersfield Town host Luton Town at the John Smith’s Stadium in a clash between fourth and fifth in the table.
The incentive for the winner of this match is there for all to see. They will go into the Easter period third in the league table, but more importantly they will put three more points between themselves and the team outside the play-off zone so expect this to be competitive.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and the Sky Sports Football channels. The build-up to the contest begins at 7.30pm with kick off in Yorkshire at 7.45pm.
Huddersfield Town
For much of 2022 Huddersfield Town have been right in the hunt for automatic promotion, albeit with the caveat that they had always played a lot more matches than AFC Bournemouth in the race for the top two. The longer the calendar year has gone on though the tougher the Terriers have found the going, potentially not helped by a decent FA Cup run. The positive of playing all those matches earlier in the season is that their schedule doesn’t look too bad now and indeed they’ve only played once in more than three weeks.
They haven’t pulled up any trees of late and while you could argue that their slump in form was a result of all the matches they have played, they had a two week rest going into the match with Hull City last time out and looked pretty average in a 1-0 win albeit against a side who had 10 men for an entire half. In contrast prior to that break their opponents here cruised past that same opponent 3-1. That win over Hull snapped a three game winless streak.
Luton Town
Heading into the international break some Luton fans were wondering if they could be the ones to chase down Bournemouth and miss the play-offs in the best possible way. Two draws coming out of the international break has probably confirmed it won’t be them but we shouldn’t let that detract from the amazing season that the Hatters are having, one which has seen them lose just two of their last 10 matches, one at Middlesbrough less than 72 hours after chasing Chelsea around Kenilworth Road and the other against QPR where they were let down by the officials.
Luton have won six of the other eight in that period and are the fifth best team in the division in terms of points picked up on their travels. The Hatters are the fourth highest scorers this term and their defensive record is incredibly creditable too despite them perhaps not having the standout stars that other teams in this league have. Draws against Millwall and Peterborough in the last week don’t look great but Luton were the better team in the first of those games and three minutes away from winning the second.
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Team News
Huddersfield defender Matty Pearson will not be fit to face his former club after he sustained a knee injury in training. There is positive news for the Terriers with Jonathan Hogg and Danny Ward being passed fit after missing the win over Hull last time out.
Luton are not without their own injury issues. Glen Rea and Gabe Osho have been ruled out for the season and Cameron Jerome went off early at Peterborough on Tuesday. Jordan Clark will also miss out but there could be welcome returns for Tom Lockyer, Luke Berry and Reece Burke.
Betting
The underlying statistics for this division will tell you that Luton Town are where they are expected to be in the league table while Huddersfield Town are drastically above where they are perceived to be. That doesn’t always tell a tale of a game but it is interesting that the four matches Huddersfield have lost at home this season have been against the current top three and Middlesbrough who probably will be in the top six when everything is finished. They also drew with Sheffield United so against the better sides they find wins hard to come by.
I think this will be a tight and competitive match because of where both sides are in the table and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if both teams cancel each other out and we get another stalemate like when these two met at Kenilworth Road earlier in the season. Given that I’m going to the match I hope that isn’t the case but there is the very real possibility of that happening. If there is a winner though it might well be Luton. I’m obviously biased but thankfully the statistics tell us they are the better side and they bring the better form into the game with them. In Elijah Adebayo they probably have the standout player on the pitch from an attacking sense as well. Luton are hard to beat and at home especially Huddersfield find it hard to beat the better sides. They haven’t actually beaten Luton since the Hatters returned to the Championship with three draws and two Luton wins in that time. I’ll take the visitors on the Asian lines here.
Tips
Back Luton Town (+0.25AH) to beat Huddersfield Town at 1.85 with BetVictor
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