Football – England – Championship
Tuesday 8th April 2014 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
Tuesday night brings us a full fixture card in the Championship with some intriguing ties at the top and bottom ends of the table, not least of all Barnsley, sitting third from bottom in the Championship taking on second placed Burnley at their Oakwell ground.
Barnsley have staged a mini revival recently with back-to-back away wins at 6th placed Reading 3-1 and fellow relegation strugglers Yeovil Town 4-1 along with holding play-off hopefuls Brighton to a 0-0 stalemate at home on Saturday. The Tykes are now just two points adrift of Charlton Athletic who occupy that ‘golden’ safety berth of 21st place, and Barnsley will be hoping that Charlton slip up against Yeovil Town on Tuesday night when they face each other.
Back to Barnsley, and their overall home record stands at 5-8-7 20/31 and they’ve produced some mixed results over the last few weeks with draws against Ipswich Town and Brighton, defeats to Leicester City and Bournemouth, while securing victories over Millwall and inconsistent Nottingham Forest.
However, it’s Barnsley’s defence that holds the key here tonight as they’ve managed just five clean sheets at Oakwell all season but they face a very tough test tonight against Burnley’s attacking prowess.
Onto Burnley then, and The Clarets salvaged a point at Watford after going a goal down at manager Sean Dyche’s former club and indeed trailed The Hornets for most of the match before Scott Arfield popped up with an equaliser and thus underlined Burnley’s ‘never say die’ attitude which has served them very well during this campaign.
Even more impressive was that Burnley achieved a point away at Watford without their deadly strike pair of Sam Vokes and Danny Ings who both look unlikely to travel to south Yorkshire for Tuesday night’s match. Nevertheless, Burnley still possess striker Ashley Barnes along with Arfield (7 goals, 3 assists) and the trickery and creativity from winger Kightly.
Burnley have suffered just one defeat from their last eighteen league matches which was a defeat inflicted by Premiership-bound Leicester City but aside from that, Burnley have been a very hard nut to crack both home and away as their overall away record of 9-8-3 31/21 shows.
To sum up, Barnsley have shown fight in their last few matches and still stand a good chance of once again defying the relegation Gods, but they may have to settle for points against the teams around them in the Championship as Burnley have been very consistent all season. I recommend taking the round ball on the hosts who might just edge this one perhaps 2-1 anyway.
Pick: Burnley AH0 @ 1.66 Bet Victor
