The Sky Bet Championship weekend continues on Saturday when 10 matches are down to nine after yet another postponement because of the pitch situation in Coventry. This is the end of a busy week with points at a premium even this early in the campaign.
This is a rare Saturday where we don’t actually have an early kick off or a TV game so if you are not going to any of these matches and want to follow them you will need one of the score update programmes of social media.
Saturday’s fixtures are as follows: (All 3pm)
Birmingham City v Wigan Athletic
Burnley v Blackpool
Preston North End v Watford
Queens Park Rangers v Rotherham United
Reading v Middlesbrough
Sheffield United v Blackburn Rovers
Stoke City v Sunderland
Swansea City v Luton Town
West Bromwich Albion v Hull City
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Big Matches
Blackburn Rovers lost their 100% record in midweek but they still stayed top of the table and they will be looking to stay there when they cross the Pennines to head to Bramall Lane to take on Sheffield United. Two sides sit a point behind them heading into the day and they both go on their travels on Saturday afternoon. Hull City head to The Hawthorns to take on former manager Steve Bruce and his West Bromwich Albion side while Watford make the trip up the M6 to take on a Preston North End who have drawn three of their four matches this season 0-0.
Best of the Rest
At the bottom end of the table Coventry City are once again not in action on Saturday so Luton Town will be looking to pull away from the bottom end of the table. They head across the Severn Bridge to take on a Swansea City side who might still be wondering how they didn’t beat Millwall in midweek. Reading have now made an acceptable start to the season after their win against Blackburn in midweek and they’ll be looking to better that when they host Middlesbrough while QPR take on Rotherham United in another game. Promotion chasing Burnley will welcome Blackpool to Turf Moor while Birmingham City take on Wigan Athletic. The other match sees Stoke City hosting Sunderland.
Betting
A midweek and a Saturday away game in this division is extremely tough but even more so when you are new to the level and furthermore when you play with 10 men in the first of the two matches. That makes me think Sunderland might be found wanting a little when they head to Stoke City on Saturday. To make things even tougher for the Black Cats, that midweek game was on Wednesday night so they have had next to no time to recover or work on anything that went wrong.
I’m not convinced Stoke are anything special but the schedule has gone very much in their favour here. They were at home in midweek and are at home here and to be fair to them they have a win and a draw from their two home matches. The draw came in that midweek match against Middlesbrough who a lot of people believe are promotion contenders this season so that isn’t a bad result. It might well be that the longer this one goes on the harder Sunderland will find it and with Stoke having decent options off the bench and five subs to use I fancy the home side can come out with a win here.
Tips
Back Stoke City (-0.25AH) to beat Sunderland for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with BetVictor
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