The stakes are high in the Sky Bet Championship on Tuesday evening as Ipswich Town continue their push for automatic promotion when they make the trip to the CBS Arena to take on Coventry City in the last match before the final day of the season.
Ipswich Town make the trip to the midlands knowing that if they pick up four points from their final two matches they will return to the Premier League next season. Anything less opens the door for Leeds United to pip them. Coventry are playing for pride now.
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 beginning at 7.30pm ahead of the 8pm kick off.
Coventry City
After narrowly missing out on a place in the Premier League by a penalty kick last season, hopes were high that this could be the year in which Coventry negotiated their path back to the big time and despite a tough start to the season, which was understandable given that heartbreak and the fact that a couple of huge players left in the summer, they looked on course to book a spot in the top six, however in recent weeks they have just run out of steam.
It looks like the amount of games they have been involved in recently has caught up with them and that, coupled with the agonising loss to Manchester United in the cup semi-final earlier in the month has left a team looking like they have run their race. If they can motivate themselves and get up for this one then they are a side who do have plenty of goals in them and they could easily play the role of the party poopers perfectly.
Ipswich Town
Ipswich had the chance to really put themselves in a fantastic position in the race for automatic promotion when they faced Hull City in the last match on Saturday and will be annoyed not to have taken full advantage of that opportunity, especially when they led three times in the match only to be pegged back on each occasion, however they are still in a wonderful spot, one which they would have snapped your hands off had you offered it to them back in August.
Any kind of positive result here will mean that their destiny is in their own hands going into the final day, whereas a win would mean that they only need to avoid defeat at the weekend to return to the Premier League. There are no shortage of goals in this Ipswich side but Kieran McKenna will be looking for a convincing showing from his defence, a back line which all of a sudden only has one clean sheet in its last five matches. If he gets that the Tractor Boys will be confident they have enough to win here.
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Team News
Coventry will be without the suspended Liam Kitching after he was sent off in the draw at Blackburn at the weekend. Mark Robins has hinted that he will need to assess all members of his squad to see who is fit to carry out the gameplan here.
Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna has the same dilemma with his side having had a few hours less than usual to recover for this one. Kieffer Moore is one of those players who will be looking to return to the starting XI.
Betting
I think we are in a similar situation in this match that we was in on Monday night, albeit Coventry are better than Preston North End. They have just run out of legs though and this will be the fourth game in just nine days for the Sky Blues and in one of those they went to extra time so this looks to be a prime spot for Ipswich Town to get the win they need to put automatic promotion very much in their hands going into the final day of the season.
I wouldn’t say Ipswich have looked like they have felt the pressure of being in the automatic promotion hunt, teams have just played to their ability against them but I’m not sure Coventry have it in their legs to do that here. This is a Coventry side who have just surrendered 30 shots to a pretty ordinary Blackburn Rovers side and if Ipswich get anything close to that number of chances you would imagine that the second highest scorers in the league will be away and gone. I’m not always with the supposed motivated side against the unmotivated one but the low energy levels of the Coventry players makes me think Ipswich have to be taken here.
Tips
Back Ipswich Town to beat Coventry City for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with Coral
