Luton Town will find out who they will face in the Sky Bet Championship play-off final on Wednesday night when Middlesbrough host Coventry City in the second leg of the second semi-final at the Riverside Stadium.
This one couldn’t be better poised going into the second game after the first leg ended 0-0 on Sunday. This will be the third consecutive meeting between the two teams but the stakes are higher than ever before.
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 to the clash beginning at 7.30pm and kick off coming at 8pm.
Middlesbrough
After looking like they would cruise past Sheffield United in the race for automatic promotion six weeks or so ago, Middlesbrough have stumbled over the last month and are now in the last chance saloon with regards to achieving the promotion, which probably looked to be a pipedream when Michael Carrick replaced Chris Wilder a third of the way into the season. They have home advantage in this second leg but that comes with added pressure and expectation.
Middlesbrough are very strong at home and generally go at teams and look to get their attacking quartet right up the field and play on the front foot. That comes with its own risks and Boro are not as strong defensively in terms of the numbers as a result of that. It will be interesting to see if they go about their business the way they normally do at home or whether they just rein it in a little given the magnitude of the occasion.
Coventry City
If not many expected Middlesbrough to be in this position a third of the way into the season, even fewer could have thought Coventry would be where they are given that they really laboured out of the gates this term and have had so much adversity to overcome along the way. Full credit has to go to Mark Robins, his coaching staff and his players for delivering the second half to the campaign that they have and now they stand 180 minutes away from a return to the Premier League.
Coventry are a team who like to play out of possession and hit teams on the counterattack. They weren’t really able to do that in the first leg with Middlesbrough not really committing too many men in the away leg and leaving themselves exposed but this might play more into their hands. If Coventry are to go away and win then you would imagine Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres will need to have big games.
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Team News
Michael Carrick has suggested that he has no fresh players back for this second leg but Marcus Forss did return from injury in the first leg and it might get a greater role in this game, potentially in place of Isaiah Jones.
Coventry are expected to go into the second leg unchanged unless Mark Robins wants to reinforce his midfield for a potential onslaught which is coming their way in which case they could utilise Jamie Allen from the start.
Betting
Middlesbrough don’t keep too many clean sheets at home given the way they like to get men forward and I’m not convinced they keep one here either but I would expect them to put the Coventry defence under a lot more pressure than they did in the first leg at the CBS Arena. Even then Boro had chances in the match but found the home keeper in good form but with Boro 20 or so yards further up the pitch Coventry will find it tough to repel the wave of attacks that come their way.
The league match here nine days ago ended 1-1 and I think both teams will score here. The first goal in this match is obviously pivotal and whoever concedes it are going to have to take risks to get back into the tie otherwise their season is done. We basically have a match here where one team is going to get extremely desperate at some point and with neither defence wholly reliable I think there is a good chance that both teams will score here.
Tips
Back Both teams to score for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with William Hill
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