Championship betting preview .........
Feb 15, 2022
Last three selections involving Sheffield United have produced winners at odds of 2.56 / 2.18 and 2.44.
24 Championship selections in 2022, average stake 1.85 units, ROI +47.84% .
Championship: Sheffield United - Hull City
The home side have featured heavily in my notes since New Year and we are 3/3 in our dealings with them, ahead of a 2-0 win over WBA in their last home start my preview went a lot like this ............
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These two were both in the EPL last season and are keen to return, despite Albion being sixth this morning with 45 points, United in 11th look the more likely. They are just three points adrift with two games in hand and in MUCH better form, picking up 12 points more over the last 12 games, with the visitors sacking head coach Valerien Ismael after seven months in charge. Back in November when they were third and quoted at circa 5.0 to win the title I wrote ...........
Albion have some real issues in the striker position and appear some way behind the top 2 currently.
The Baggies have played three games subsequently, scoring once and taken two points, they have , infact, scored just twice in five and obviously, those issues remain. Only Karlan Grant has scored more than three goals and all of his eight have come when he has played LW and if Matt Philipps is a striker , then I am going to look for my boots as I could probably get a game up top!
After scoring 25 goals in their opening 14 games, they have scored 9 in 15 subsequently ( I thank you !) and tried to address the issue in the transfer window , spending £8m on Daryl Dike from Orlando City , he was a revelation for Barnsley on loan last season under Ismael. Such is the way of these things once nothing is going your way, he suffered an injury in his first start which is likely to keep him sidelined until April ! They then signed Andy Carroll from reading and if he is the answer, I don't even know what the question is !
United have featured heavily in recent weeks and served us well and prior to their 2-1 win at Birmingham last time out I wrote .........
United made the newsletter last weekend when they were very easy winners at Peterborough and my notes included ..........
What a weird season for Sheffield United ! After relegation they were not the first team to struggle with the transition back to the second tier and they started slowly results wise and head coach Slavisa Jokanovic, who was only appointed in the summer, was gone before the end of November. It is "weird" because the Blades have played pretty well all season and are actually 3rd for xP despite having game(s) in hand on everybody. I spoke about some of this ahead of a New Year's Day game with Middlesbrough which was eventually postponed ............
Boro boss Chris Wilder loves United, it is the team he has supported since a boy, he was born less than 20km from the ground and the Blades were his first professional club and no man on earth was prouder than when he led them from League 1 to the Premier League in just three seasons and then to a 9th place finish in the top flight in his fourth campaign, before leaving by "mutual consent" in the 5th, last March. He was out of work for eight months before taking the job at the Riverside early in November and it does feel like that was perfect timing for both parties. Boro are a big, well established second tier club who have finished top 7 in four of their last six seasons at this level (one promotion) and who are coming on strong since the change in head coach and they have picked up 16 points from their last six starts and Wilder has got them well organised at the back, as all his teams are, with four clean sheets in five outings. Wilder himself is very hungry to erase memories of that one poor season from what is a very good CV.
United did not pick up after Wilder's dismissal and were relegated and started slowly this season, winning just one of their first seven starts, but they are now up to 12th, 7 points off the playoff spots and the 5th placed visitors, but with games in hand on almost everyone. They have won their last four (including away to promotion favourites Fulham in their most recent start) the first of those being the last game that Wilder's replacement, Slavisa Jokanovic, was in charge for, former interim boss Paul Heckingbottom ( the most Yorkshire surname around !) has taken charge on a very long term contract. He is a well respected coach, but we are not sure yet if he is a "manager" and four and a half years feels an incredibly long term deal for someone who lasted only four months at Leeds United and less than nine months at Hibernian, in his last two tries at the top job. He worked under Wilder, in charge of the U23 team, for his first eight months with the Blades, so the two bosses will know each other well. However, no one knows this group of United players , or how the club is run, better than CW who will also get a hero's welcome from the home supporters, who consider him "one of their own", with most fans against his "sacking".
The Blades are still 12th, 9 points adrift of top 6, but with 2-3 games in hand on most, so very much in the mix, especially as, after today, they will have played 4 more games away than at home, so a good opportunity for them to make up ground on the teams above them, but it has to always be three points from fixtures like this if they are going to make the postseason.
The scoreline said they won 2-0, but the ITB numbers of 15-1 give a better reflection of their superiority and their travelling support of 2,900, who believe that a big promotion push is on the cards, went home happy.
Now they travel to Birmingham City who also made the notes recently when they hosted that same Peterborough side ...........
City have taken 5 points from their last six games and faced opposition with an average league placing of 13.4.
Blues have improved xG numbers through their last four starts and have been very unlucky (understatement) to concede 10 goals from an xGA of 4.0 and they were a net + 1.0 xGD and +1 BC, but -4 actual goals and played two top 4 teams.
Posh have taken 4 points from their last six games and faced opposition with an average league placing of 14.8.
They have conceded 10 goals in their last three starts and put up some appalling numbers, they were a net -8.1 xGD and 1-16 for BC's and 7-49 ITB and off the top of my head , I cannot recall three worse set of numbers in the Championship since that awful Blackpool team of 2014-15 ( conceded 91 goals with a -55 goal difference).
The City- Posh game definitely makes the two struggling teams criteria and the visitors did score three in the reverse fixture and the home side have conceded three to fellow strugglers Barnsley (2-1)and Cardiff (2-2)in recent home games.
Posh led for a long while but it ended 2-2 and the Blues also drew by the same scoreline away to Derby last Sunday in their only subsequent outing. In the first they trailed 2-0 with a quarter of the game remaining and in the second led by 2 with just three minutes of regulation time left to play ! City have been a bit unlucky in recent starts and have scored twice in four straight games, but conceded 13 through that sequence and 23 in their last nine which is as bad as it gets and makes winning hard. United should win and will be journeying down the M1 with only three points in mind, they signed CB Charlie Goode on loan from Brentford this week and head coach Paul Heckingbottom said he felt that was the final piece in the defensive jigsaw. Oddly enough he has played more for the Bees this season in the EPL than he did in all of 20-21 in the Championship and the top flight experience will serve him well, but the second tier feels more his level.
Birmingham were busy in the window and got an immediate return from CM Juninho Bacuna (Rangers) and striker Lyle Taylor (Forest) in the draw at derby, with the latter scoring on his debut, two other January signings in Teden Mengi (Man United) and Onel Hernandez (Norwich) also played and this is a much changed City starting 11. It is also noteworthy that Scott Hogan is in form and has 10 goals this season and seems to have refound his mojo, the former Brentford frontman was the best pure goalscorer ( ahead of Watkins/Toney/Maupay/Gray) I have seen in a Bees shirt in recent times and he and Taylor, could be a prolific pairing.
I think we will be looking to bet the Blues in the coming weeks, once all the signings have gelled and probably away from St Andrews, I have spoken of their issues here several times and since November 2019, across 53 league starts, they are 12-14-27 as hosts giving up an average of 1.75 goals pg and with a 51% loss rate. They do pose more offensive threat now, so goals are very likely too, United should edge this, but higher odds on the "over" and on this occasion, I think that offers the best value.
That played out well with United coming from behind to win 2-1 and a 4th straight win is on the cards tonight, versus goal shy Albion.
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The Blades won that 2-0 and we actually discussed how that played out yesterday.
United have played once subsequently, a 0-0 draw away to Yorkshire local rivals and fellow promotion hopefuls, Huddersfield Town, on Saturday, that was a decent enough point and fourth clean sheet in five starts and the visitors won every statistical category that we count, most importantly of which, they were 2-0 for BC's.
They now host Hull City, who have a new head coach in Shota Arveladze, he replaced Grant McCann who was sacked by the Turkish consortium that took over the club at the end of last month. The timing was odd, McCann had taken the club back to the Championship with a League 1 title winning 20-21 season and after a very slow start to this campaign ( 9 points from 16 games), the club had taken 23 points from 12 games , including winning the last three and were 12 points clear of the drop zone, in the week of his dismissal. They had also just turned down a circa £12m bid from a top flight club (Brentford) for one of their players and looked to be heading in the right direction. I appreciate the new owners wanted their own man at the helm, but the timing felt quite poor, unless they felt they were 100% safe and wanted to use the rest of this season to prepare for the next. They have lost their last three starts scoring just once , Brentford striker Marcus Forss is on loan for the rest of the season and played in the last two games, out wide on the right in the first (never going to work in a million years) , through the middle on his own in the second and I wonder how many at the club have actually seen him play !
Big game for United, the three points could take them into the top six for the first time this season, they are already 3rd for xP and an additional 18 ahead of the Tigers on "expected " levels and are looking for a 10th win in 11 starts versus bottom 8 opponents, which included a 3-1 win in the reverse fixture.
1.75 units Sheffield United -1 ball 1.99 asian line.
Good luck !
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