There is one promotion place to be won in the Sky Bet Championship and the battle for it begins on Saturday evening when Sunderland host Luton Town in the first leg of the play-off semi-final at the Stadium of Light.
Sunderland made it into the end of season showdown on the final day of the season while Luton have known they would be competing for a place in the Premier League for a few weeks now. Both will be eager to head to Kenilworth Road in the dominant position in the tie.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Football channels with the build-up at the Stadium of Light beginning at 5.15pm and kick off coming at 5.30pm.
Sunderland
At half time in the final match of the regular season, the Black Cats were not in the top six. 45 minutes later they had done what they needed to and got the help that they required elsewhere to give them the opportunity for back-to-back play-off successes after their promotion from League 1 via this route last term. Sunderland will hope the memories of last season will act as inspiration and help them in the next couple of weeks.
They might need them to in this home leg because the Black Cats finished the campaign with just one win in their last eight matches at the Stadium of Light, and that came against a Birmingham side who had nothing to play for at the time. A bigger concern would be the number of goals they have conceded in those outings with 16 goals given away in that period. Sunderland have been better on their travels this season so they will be hoping they are still in the tie for the second leg.
Luton Town
This will be the second successive season that Luton Town will be in the play-offs too. Unlike Sunderland, the Hatters were competing in them at this level last season when they were in the opposite spot to where they are now. Last term they finished sixth in the table and had a mad late scramble to get in and had nothing left when the semi-final came around. It is completely different this time around. Luton have had three weeks to prepare for these matches after finishing third in the table.
Luton head into the play-offs unbeaten in 14 in the Championship. They haven’t lost on their travels since the first game after the World Cup break, which was the first of the Rob Edwards era. Luton have only lost eight matches all season and only Burnley kept more clean sheets than them and won more points on their travels this term. The Hatters have a very good home record under Edwards too so they will be happy to be in the tie heading into the second leg but will fancy picking up a lead here.
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Team News
Sunderland have seen their extensive injury list potentially added to after Lyndon Gooch and Dennis Curkin went off with injury in the win at Preston last week. They could potentially join the likes of Ross Stewart and Danny Batth on the sidelines.
Luton were able to bring defenders Gabe Osho and Reece Burke back from injury for 45 minutes each in the 0-0 draw with Hull on Monday. That leaves Cauley Woodrow as their only injured player heading into this semi-final.
Betting
I’ve been doing this long enough now that everyone will know I’m a Luton fan who is going to this game and as such it is very hard for me to approach this match with my head rather than my heart so I am not going to get too deep into things in this preview. There are plenty of statistical sites which highlight why Luton should be favourites for the tie without my heart having to do it. I will go with one bet which does have a fair degree of logic to it in this first leg though.
Sunderland are missing a number of defenders, particularly at the heart of their defence, and that can’t be good when going up against probably the most physical strike pairing in the division. Carlton Morris has been an animal up top for Luton this season and has already scored against Sunderland in the league game at Kenilworth Road and I find it hard to believe that full-backs or defensive midfielders will contain him. Luton can provide service to Morris from either flank or through the creativity of Jordan Clark and Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, while Morris can also find his own space and get the ball deeper and score from there. We saw Sunderland concede from two set plays when Watford were here in the final regular home game and with the aerial threat Morris provides as well as the physical one he could be the man to send 2000 Hatters potty up in the gods.
Tips
Back C.Morris to score anytime for a 2/10 stake at 3.40 with Bet365
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