Football – England – Championship
Friday 26th December 2014 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Bournemouth dealt out a 6-1 thrashing to Blackpool at Bloomfield road on Saturday to move top of the Championship going into Christmas as Eddie Howe’s side registered a third league win on the trot.
Striker Callum Wilson further added to his goal-tally and is emerging as one of the signings of the season outside the Premiership as The Cherries swooped to buy him from troubled Coventry City. Bournemouth are now unbeaten in their last twelve Championship matches which includes recent wins over Wolves 2-1 away and a 5-3 home win over Cardiff City.
The Cherries’ home record stands at 6-3-2 22/15 and they’re unbeaten in their last seven while the goals have continued to rain at Dean Court with the hosts scoring 18 goals during this period. Manager Howe would probably prefer a few more clean sheets (4 so far), but while the likes of Wilson, Ritchie, Kermorgant and Pitman continue their free-scoring ways, I guess he’ll take the ‘score one more than you’ approach any day!
Visitors Fulham registered a resounding 4-0 win at home over Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday to continue their good form at Craven Cottage – in fact Fulham have now won five of their last seven on home turf with that victory over The Owls.
Fulham have also won their last two on the trot away from home with wins at Brighton and Leeds United, but in my opinion, the jury’s still out as to whether they can replicate these kind of results away at the top sides – this afternoon should tell us more.
The Cottager’s away record stands at 3-2-6 17/27 and their achilles heel has been the lack of clean sheets (just one to date so far), as they’ve conceded in all but one of their away matches – a statistic that will surely be exploited by Bournemouth today?
Bournemouth are in great form at the moment and this will be a good test for Kit Symons’ Fulham side to see where they’ve reached in terms of their away prowess. I’ll back the hosts for a 2-1 win here.
Pick: Bournemouth straight win @ 1.73 Coral
