The Sky Bet Championship weekend concludes at the CBS Arena on Monday night when West Bromwich Albion make the short trip down the M6 to take on Coventry City in what is another key game for both sides.
West Brom have started well enough to be in a position to pounce for promotion over the remainder of the season while Coventry have come a little slowly out of the blocks and will hope to turn their form around here.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Main Event & Sky Football channels with the build-up beginning at 7.30pm ahead of an 8pm kick off.
Coventry City
Whenever a team loses in the play-off final the season before, they tend to begin the next campaign slowly. The obvious heartache hangover is always one reason for that while inevitably their better players leave for the bigger clubs and leagues and in turn there is less time to recruit new players and integrate them into the squad and the way a team plays. You sense Coventry have suffered with all of that this season but we are approaching the end of the first third of the campaign and they need to click into gear now.
The positive for the Sky Blues is that they have played catch up before and come out in a position where they wanted to be. They were in a much worse position than this in the earlier stages of the previous campaign and made it to within a few kicks of a ball away from Premier League football. Those experiences will be key to fall back on but they do need to get back to winning ways soon after three without a win. They could do with a convincing win just for confidence purposes.
West Bromwich Albion
West Brom make the short trip to Coventry in decent enough form and in a good position in the Championship table. They have only lost one of their last eight matches and are clearly a better side after a year under Carlos Corberan than they were when he arrived, which is progression that all teams at this level crave. A win here could move them into the top five in the table and while the top two look to have flown, they will be in a position to pounce should one of them come back to the field.
One area of concern for the Baggies might be their away form. They have only won one win in six on their travels, which looked like an excellent win at the time over Preston North End but the Deepdale outfit have crumbled since then. The big positive for West Brom though is that they are able to maintain a respectable position in the table despite a large number of injuries which have affected them throughout the season so far.
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Team News
Callum O’Hare has recently returned to action for Coventry City but he is understandably being managed back to full fitness and might be on the bench for this game. Liam Kelly and Kasey Palmer will be missing with injuries.
West Bromwich Albion have serious availability issues ahead of this match. They have already been coping without the likes of John Swift, Josh Maja and Semi Ajayi and now Cedric Kipre has joined the lengthy injury list.
Betting
Both of these sides are missing some key players but there is no doubt that West Bromwich Albion are feeling the pinch the most. Their bench in the win over QPR last week included a number of youth team players and they lost another senior player in that game so the real genuine options for Carlos Corberan to make a change in this game could be few and far between, particularly if he needs a positive switch.
That isn’t going to be the case for Mark Robins and Coventry City. Although losing at Rotherham in midweek doesn’t look a great result, and wasn’t a great result, he did at least have the likes of Haji Wright, Callum O’Hare and Bobby Thomas on the bench to call upon. While Coventry have started the season slowly in comparison to how they finished the previous one, they are still undefeated at home. West Brom are ravaged by injuries and only have a freaky looking solitary win on their travels this term. If there is a winner here I fancy the better options of the home side.
Tips
Back Coventry City to beat West Bromwich Albion (DNB) for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with Coral
