The extended Sky Bet Championship weekend continues on Saturday afternoon when another nine matches take place up and down a very wet and windy UK as the competition begins to head towards the halfway mark in the campaign.
This is a usual Saturday despite other matches being saved for further televised offerings. That means we have one match to enjoy on Saturday on the TV and the usual ways of keeping up to date with the other ones.
Saturday’s fixtures are as follows: (3pm unless stated; UK TV in brackets)
Preston North End v Fulham (12.30 – Sky Football)
Birmingham City v Blackpool
AFC Bournemouth v Coventry City
Huddersfield Town v Middlesbrough
Hull City v Millwall
Luton Town v Cardiff City
Peterborough United v Barnsley
Stoke City v Blackburn Rovers
Swansea City v Reading
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Big Matches
The televised action on Saturday comes from Deepdale where Preston North End will look to build on their win at Middlesbrough on Tuesday night when they host the league leaders Fulham who have been in fine form recently despite their draw with Derby County in midweek. Bournemouth are the closest challengers to Fulham at the top of the table and they will be looking to move 10 points clear of West Brom when they welcome Coventry City to the Vitality Stadium.
Best of the Rest
The only other team in the top six who are involved in the Saturday action are Stoke City. They welcome Blackburn Rovers to the Bet365 Stadium. At the other end of the table two of the three sides in the relegation zone meet at London Road where Peterborough United take on Barnsley while Reading will be looking to pull away from the danger that heir six point deduction has plunged them into. They head to Swansea City. Huddersfield Town will be looking to return to the top six when they host Middlesbrough.
Betting
Swansea City form the basis of my bet on Saturday afternoon. They play host to a Reading side who are heavily depleted at the minute, so much so that they had to bring Andy Carroll in on a short term deal. I don’t know if that is a bad thing or not but clearly it is a sign that their options aren’t the deepest at the minute and that is not the place you want to be when playing the third game in a week like teams are doing here.
Swansea are unbeaten at home since August and are beginning to get into a real groove under Russell Martin and had it not been for one or two questionable refereeing decisions in recent times they might be even better than they are in the table. In Joel Piroe they have one of the form strikers in the division whereas at the back they look like they have got their playing out from deep style under much more control. This looks a tough assignment for Reading, one I think they fail.
Tips
Back Swansea City to beat Reading for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betfair
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