Sports Blog 31/03/2016: Match Preview – Championship, Friday 1st to Saturday 2nd April 2016

It’s a huge weekend at the top of the Championship, with Middlesbrough, Brighton and Burnley all chasing automatic promotion.

With a vital game in hand Middlesbrough kick things off on Friday with a trip to QPR at 7.45pm on Sky Sports 1. Currently sitting in 3rd, 4 points ahead of Hull, 5 behind Burnley and 1 behind Brighton, Boro will be ruing their recent form; March has seen the club pick up only 6 points from 5 games, with away losses to Blackburn, Rotherham and Charlton. That comes hot on the heels of an awful mid-January to mid-February run that saw 2 losses and 3 draws in a row, form that caused Aitor Karanka’s side to vacate the top spot they had held onto over the Christmas period.



Yet with that aforementioned game in hand, and matches against Burnley (in 2 and a half weeks’ time) and Brighton (a potentially dramatic tic on the final day of the season) still to come automatic promotion isn’t beyond Boro. If that is to happen, however, Middlesbrough’s frontline will need to improve; whilst the club has the joint best defence in the Championship their goal tally is the lowest of the top 7 teams, lacking the firepower of their immediate rivals. Jordan Rhodes, bought from Blackburn in January, was meant to alleviate that issue; yet after scoring 10 goals in the first half of the season for the Rovers the 26 year old Scot has only managed 1 in 10 for his new club.

Not that Boro should have too much to worry about against QPR. Managing their first back-to-back Championship wins since mid-December (followed by a draw in Preston) the London club nevertheless find themselves stuck in 11th place, with a play-off place only a distant dream (11 points separating them and 6th place Sheffield Wednesday). Despite their weak away form, then, it is unsurprising that Boro have the advantage, Spreadex offering a Middlesbrough/QPR (h) Goal Supremacy spread of 0.25-0.45 with a Total Goals spread of 2.1-2.3.

Turning to Saturday and all eyes will be on the Falmer Stadium, as 2nd place Brighton host 1st place Burnley at 12.30pm on Sky Sports 1. Capitalising on Boro’s lapse in form (but with the Teeside team still breathing down their neck) Brighton will be looking to close the 5 point gap between them and league leaders Burnley when the sides meet this weekend. The Seagulls are unbeaten in 6 games, including heavy wins over Bristol and Leeds, a run that has been propelled by Tomer Hemed. The Israeli striker has really come into his own in the past few weeks; after managing 8 in his first 30 appearances Hemed has scored 5 of Brighton’s past 11 goals, just shy of a goal a game.



Hemed still has a long way to go, however, to match the Championship’s star striker, Burnley’s Andre Gray. Arriving from Brentford over the summer Gray has managed a league-topping 22 gaols so far this season; add onto that the able assistance provided by Sam Vokes, who has 13 goals of his own, and Burnley have the highest tally of all the teams in the Championship. That form has inspired the Clarets to a 15 match unbeaten run, with 11 wins and 4 draws seeing the club climb from 5th to 1st since the final game of 2015. Yet most recently they were held to a frustrating draw by Wolves, a 68th strike from Vokes cancelled out in the 92nd minute by a Danny Batth; those dropped points may allow both Brighton and Boro to gain an inch on Burnley, a situation Sean Dyche will be keen to avoid on Saturday.

The last meeting between these 2 sides got all the excitement out of the way early on, a 1st minute opener from Bobby Zamora countered by a 4th minute penalty from Andre Gray. This time around, however, and with a lot more at stake, the game should be a bit livelier, Spreadex plumping for a narrow home win, offering a Brighton/Burnley Goal Supremacy spread of 0.15-0.35 with a Total Goals spread of 2.1-2.3.

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