A huge week in the Sky Bet Championship continues on Saturday afternoon when the 22 sides who were not in action play the first of the three matches they are scheduled to play over the next seven days or so.
Usually on a Saturday we would begin with a TV match and then the rest of the games would follow but we don’t actually have a televised game this week so all 11 fixtures will kick off at 3pm and will have updates in the normal places.
Saturday’s fixtures are as follows: (All 3pm UK time)
Blackpool v Rotherham United
Bristol City v Norwich City
Burnley v Preston North End
Cardiff City v Middlesbrough
Coventry City v Luton Town
Queens Park Rangers v Millwall
Sheffield United v Swansea City
Stoke City v Hull City
Sunderland v Reading
Watford v Blackburn Rovers
Wigan Athletic v Huddersfield Town
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Big Matches
The leaders Burnley will be looking to reach 10 in their run of successive wins in the Championship on Saturday afternoon. If they are going to get to that number they will need to see off local rivals Preston North End, who make it tough for teams on the road. If they do slip up then Sheffield United will be looking to take advantage while maintaining the gap on the chasing pack for second spot. The Blades welcome Swansea City to Bramall Lane. There is a huge clash at the bottom end of the table as bottom of the lot Wigan Athletic welcome managerless and third from bottom Huddersfield Town to the DW Stadium for what is the first home game in charge for Shaun Maloney.
Best of the Rest
There is quite a charge looking to come at Sheffield United with the chasing pack led by Middlesbrough. They will be looking to continue their good form when they make the long trip to Wales to take on Cardiff City. Luton Town are next in the table. They face a much shorter trip to Coventry City while Watford in fifth are the only team in the play-off places at the start of the weekend who are at home. They host Blackburn Rovers. Norwich City and Millwall are on the outside of the top six looking in and both are away on Saturday afternoon. The Canaries travel to Bristol City while it is a short trip for the Lions to take on QPR.
Betting
Middlesbrough have won 10 of their last 13 matches with the two defeats in that time coming away to runaway leaders and the standout team in the league in Burnley and the other at Sunderland when they were down to 10 men just after half time when the match was 0-0. In the main the 10 wins have been emphatic and I expect something similar when Boro make the lengthy journey to take on Cardiff City.
Cardiff have only scored one goal in their last seven Championship outings, and that was against bottom of the table Wigan Athletic, so it is hard to expect a sudden avalanche of goals from the Bluebirds. While they have tightened up under Sabri Lamouchi, they have still lost both their matches 1-0 and aren’t creating a whole lot. If scoring wasn’t enough of a problem, in this match they have to tackle the leading scorer in the division and a Middlesbrough side who are pretty rampant at the minute. I don’t see this Cardiff outfit keeping up with this Middlesbrough one in the goal department.
Tips
Back Middlesbrough (-0.25AH) to beat Cardiff City for a 3/10 stake at 1.84 with Bet365
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