The Sky Bet Championship run-in begins on Friday night when the division returns from the international break with the leaders Burnley looking to move closer to securing automatic promotion when they host Sunderland at Turf Moor.
Burnley are a maximum of three wins away from confirming an immediate return back to the Premier League but Sunderland won’t have given hope of promotion either. They need to win to close in on the top six.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football channels. The build-up begins at 7pm and the action kicks off at Turf Moor at 8pm.
Burnley
I don’t think it is rewriting anything to suggest that Burnley have been the standout team of the season in the Sky Bet Championship and now that they have been knocked out of the FA Cup they can put all of their focus into making sure that they secure automatic promotion. This season has been a remarkable one for the Clarets, made all the more special by the fact that they completely transformed the way they played ahead of it once Vincent Kompany had replaced Sean Dyche.
If you wanted to be critical of Burnley then you could point out that their underlying numbers don’t match the totals they have achieved this season but I doubt anyone involved with the Lancashire club would care a jot about that. They are free scoring, don’t concede too many and are very hard to beat, especially at Turf Moor where 19 have tried to win and all have failed to do so. Burnley are top scorers in the league and have conceded the fewest and will be promoted at some point next month.
Sunderland
At the halfway mark in the campaign Sunderland were nicely placed to make a dart for successive promotions but one win in seven has put them back in the pack a little and now they need a fast finish to the season if they are going to have a chance of making it to the play-offs. You wouldn’t think that anything less than 72 points will finish in sixth place so the Black Cats need to find 19 points from their last eight matches in order to have a chance of being involved.
I don’t think there is any hiding the fact that the international break came at a good time for Sunderland. Injuries certainly haven’t helped their campaign and as most people suspected, the injury to Ross Stewart has detracted from their potential this term. While Sunderland have scored in each of their last seven matches, they have only scored one in each outing and will need to improve on that if they are going to put a late charge together.
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Team News
Vincent Kompany could have defender Taylor Harwood-Bellis back for this match while Josh Brownhill could also return to the squad for the Clarets. The league leaders will be without Lyle Foster though as he hasn’t made it back from international duty in time.
Sunderland continue to battle through a raft of injuries which were added to in the international break when Jewison Bennette and Dan Ballard picked up issues while on national duty. Amad Diallo could return to the starting XI after returning from the bench against Luton.
Betting
I think the Championship will return with a flurry of goals in this match. There were six of them in the reverse meeting between these two sides and while we might not get to those heights, the fact that the teams have had a couple of weeks off just to relax after a hectic schedule should ensure that there is plenty of energy in these teams. You get the impression Burnley will fly home now and Sunderland have to win so there is much to be excited about heading into this one.
Burnley are quite capable of covering a 2.5 goal line on their own in this match. Sunderland are beginning to creek at the seams defensively with just one clean sheet in seven and Stoke recently putting five past them but I do like the dynamism that Sunderland have in attack and would expect them to create chances through the likes of Patrick Roberts and Jack Clarke. There is no reason for Burnley to tighten up now and Sunderland can’t afford to so I like over 2.5 goals in this one.
Tips
Back Over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
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