The opening weekend of the Sky Bet Championship continues on Saturday afternoon as another eight matches take place up and down the country with 16 more teams getting their new campaign started in the lunchtime kick offs.
These matches are all live on TV but because of that they have all been moved to a 12.30pm kick off. There is one match on the main channels and then the rest can be viewed on the new Sky Sports + channel.
Saturday’s fixtures are as follows: (All 12.30pm – all Sky Sports + unless stated)
Cardiff City v Sunderland
Hull City v Bristol City
Leeds United v Portsmouth
Middlesbrough v Swansea City
Millwall v Watford
Oxford United v Norwich City (Sky Sports Main Event & Sky Sports Football)
Queens Park Rangers v West Bromwich Albion
Stoke City v Coventry City
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Big Matches
The main televised match on Saturday afternoon comes from the Kassam Stadium as Oxford United return to the second tier after a tour of the divisions when they host a Norwich City side who will have their eyes on promotion at the end of this campaign. Derby County played on Friday night so the other promoted side to get their season underway at League One champions Portsmouth. They have a trip to Elland Road to take on the ante-post favourites for this division in Leeds United who will want to put a marker down for the season to come.
Best of the Rest
Coventry City and Middlesbrough have both been well touted for good seasons and both get their new campaign underway on Saturday afternoon. The Sky Blues make the short trip to Bet365 to take on Stoke City while Middlesbrough welcome Swansea City who make the ridiculously long trek for a lunchtime kick off. Two London sides will look to start their season positively when Millwall host Watford at The New Den while QPR will hope to pick up where they left off last term when they host West Bromwich Albion. The other two matches sees Sunderland and Hull City beginning life under a new manager with the former travelling to Cardiff City and the latter hosting Bristol City.
Betting
I mentioned in my outright preview that I’m pretty keen on Bristol City and I think they are decent value to get off to a winning start away to Hull City who I’m anything but keen on at the minute. I will be interested to see how they go in this match because although I don’t put anything on pre-season results, I do like to see some optimism under a new manager and the Hull results have been pathetic, culminating in a 2-0 loss against Reading last weekend.
That has the alarm bells ringing for me. They have a new manager who doesn’t know the league who have lost a lot of key players and are still a work in progress in terms of replacing them. I expect Bristol City to improve under Liam Manning this season and while they would prefer to be at home to open up their campaign, if they had to be away to play a team who are stuttering isn’t a bad second prize. If you do focus on pre-season results you’ll be keen to know that Bristol City won four of their latest five friendlies and on the draw no bet Asian line they look a great bet for Saturday.
Tips
Back Bristol City (0AH) to beat Hull City for a 3/10 stake at 2.01 with Bet365
