An absolutely huge weekend in the Sky Bet Championship gets underway on Friday night with a big match for the two teams involved when Blackpool welcome Millwall to what is likely to be an edgy Bloomfield Road.
Blackpool head into this important encounter knowing that if they lose they will be playing League 1 football next season. Millwall know if they are beaten they could be condemned to another season in the Championship.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football channels with the build-up getting going at 7.30pm and the match itself kicking off at 8pm.
Blackpool
This has not been the second season in the Championship that Blackpool would have wanted. A combination of poor decisions off the field and a number of injuries on it has left their second-tier status hanging by a slender thread. They are now in the position where if they lose this match they will definitely be relegated but even if they win it they will need a lot of results to go their way over the coming week to stay in the division.
Blackpool went fairly late with the decision to sack Michael Appleton but replacing him with Mick McCarthy never worked and now they are right up against it. The Tangerines have only won four of their last 15 matches in the Championship and none of those wins were against top half sides. In fact, they were all against strugglers or teams struggling at the time they played them. The Blackpool players are going to need to come up with their very best here.
Millwall
At the beginning of April it looked like Millwall were going to cruise into the play-offs when they were sat in the top five and were playing well but they have now embarked on a run of just one win in their last seven matches and that has seen them drop out of the top six. A win would move them back up to fifth place in the table ahead of the rest of the matches but their destiny is no longer in their own hands, which is always a tough position to be in.
The reason for this slump in form of the Lions is a serious drying up of the goals. In this run of one win in seven the Lions have scored just three times and two of those came in the match in which they won. That is a real concern and a defeat at bottom of the pile Wigan last week suggests that the pressure might have got to them at the worst possible time. Much like their opponents here, they need to summon up their very best for this game.
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Team News
Blackpool interim head coach Stephen Dobbie is hoping that Jerry Yates, Keshi Anderson, Shayne Lavery and Jordan Thorniley will all be good to go in this match. They require fitness tests to guarantee their availability.
Millwall have a bit of an injury crisis to overcome for this match. They are going to be without Charlie Cresswell, Murray Wallace, Ryan Leonard and George Honeyman who might all be starters for them. Andreas Voglsammer will be hoping for a recall.
Betting
The situation these two teams find themselves in should mean we get a thoroughly entertaining, if a little nervy, encounter here. The opening goal in the game is going to have a huge impact on proceedings because the need for both to win will mean whoever concedes it is going to need to take risks to get back into the game so there is every chance that this one explodes into a bit of a crazy game rather than anything tactical.
With that in mind, I expect to see goals here but rather than risk Blackpool scoring them and then find that all of their attacking players who have fitness tests to pass fail them I’m just going to take the Millwall goals where over 1.5 is odds against. Millwall have a number of defensive injury concerns so even if they go 1-0 up here sitting back and holding onto what they have is going to be a risky move. Even were they to do that, they might well find the route to goal opening up for them anyway given that Blackpool have to get something from the game. Blackpool have a real issue with defending balls into their box and few teams in this division send the ball into the box more than Millwall do, whether from open play, dead balls or long throws so this is going to be a real test for the home side, one I think they will fail. I think there is a better than even chance that Millwall score twice so I’ll play over 1.5 away goals.
Tips
Back Millwall – Over 1.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with BetVictor
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