Another busy week in the Sky Bet Championship begins on Friday night where two teams who have their eyes firmly on promotion this term meet at Turf Moor where Burnley welcome Middlesbrough for a tasty looking clash.
Both these teams begin the week in the top five of the table and will be eager for a strong few days to maintain their position in the table. We have a classic case of best defence against top attack here and it will be interesting to see who wins out.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football channels with an extensive build-up beginning at 7pm ahead of the kick off which comes at 8pm.
Burnley
Whenever a team is relegated from the Premier League there is immediate pressure on them to go straight back up. Burnley certainly have that on their shoulders but they have also had to undergo a managerial change ahead of their attempt to go straight back up so it has to be said that for them to be in second place after 18 games and still with plenty of room to improve, things are looking decent enough for the Lancashire outfit as we head towards the halfway point of the campaign.
The obvious statistic which is serving Burnley well is their defence is the best in the Championship. They have conceded just six goals in 18 matches and while they haven’t been particularly fluent at the other end of the pitch, and certainly not as explosive or exciting as Scott Parker would want them to be, the fact that in the main one goal has been enough to win matches has served them well. If that defence can stand up to a significant challenge here then they should be in a very good place.
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough found it tough to get some consistency in their performances earlier in the campaign although not necessarily in their performances. The only thing that was holding them back was their shot conversion. They were putting up ridiculously high numbers in all of the attacking departments but those chances weren’t going into the back of the net. They have sorted that out in recent times though and will make the trip to Turf Moor off the back of four wins in their last five matches.
In those five outings they have scored 18 goals so after going through a period where nothing would go in, suddenly everything is. Michael Carrick has always traded defensive solidity for being a vibrant, expansive side and that probably equates to the 21 goals that they have conceded in their 18 matches. They will probably need their defence to come to the party here because they might struggle to build up the attacking numbers they have been doing recently against Burnley but if they can keep things tight they will fancy their chances of scoring in most games.
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Team News
Scott Parker has provided an update on three of his attacking players who have been out recently. All three of Lyle Foster, Aaron Ramsey and Manuel Benson remain out but Foster and Benson are back in full training but won’t feature here.
Michael Carrick has a number options at his disposal for this game and he has to consider when he needs to rotate his side. Emmanuel Latte Lath, Riley McGree and Jonny Howson will be hoping for recalls. Aidan Morris is out with injury.
Betting
This should be a great game, not just because two genuine promotion challengers will battle it out but also because we have that classic clash in styles as arguably the best attack in the league travels to face the best defence in the Championship and it will be interesting to see who wins. Usually I would side with the defence in that situation but as I saw with my own eyes a few weeks ago this Middlesbrough attack is dynamic and can open any team up.
Even Burnley and their decent defence will struggle to keep Middlesbrough at bay here. They have scored 18 goals in their last five matches which includes being shut out by Blackburn in that time although they dominated that match too. I think if Burnley are going to get anything from this game they will need to score and to be fair to them they have looked much better going forward in recent times. They totalled 2.95 for xG against Stoke last weekend and bagged twice against Coventry in the match before. Middlesbrough haven’t kept a clean sheet in seven so I like both teams to score here.
Tips
Back Both teams to score for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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