Football – England – Championship
Saturday 16th February 2013 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Burnley take on lower half club Huddersfield Town at Turf Moor on Saturday afternoon as they look to return to winning ways when the Yorkshire outfit come to town.
Burnley have stuttered a little in the last few matches which has cost them breaking into the play-off pack just when they seemed poised to make a serious challenge. A surprising 1-2 defeat at home to Birmingham City was followed up with a 2-2 draw at bottom club Peterborough United and another defeat at Lancashire rivals Bolton Wanderers 1-2. This hiccup in form prevented their previous good run of just one loss in seven matches, but they have a great chance today of getting back on track.
Burnley’s home form hasn’t been too bad when you consider they’ve beaten the likes of Bolton, Leeds United, Derby County and Crystal Palace so far at Turf Moor with an overall record of 7-4-4 23/16. This sequence includes six clean sheets which hasn’t always been associated with previous Burnley teams but manager Sean Dyche has instilled a greater steel in defence these days.
Burnley’s attack is spearheaded by striker Charlie Austin (20 goals) who is having a prolific season, and he’s well backed by the likes of Paterson (5 goals) and the rich supply of goalscoring opportunities provided by Trippier (8 assists), McCann (3 goals, 6 assists), Wallace and Stanislas (both with 3 goals, 7 assists each) – phew.
Visitors Huddersfield Town have been pretty solid at home recently with a 1-1 draw with Birmingham City, a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace and a point earned against Championship leaders Cardiff City, but these promising results have all come at home.
Away from their home comforts of the John Smiths Stadium (formerly the Galpharm), the Terriers have endured a wretched run of form which is currently on a sequence of seven matches without a win on their travels including five straight losses; 0-3 at Middlesbrough, 0-2 at Hull City, a 1-6 spanking at the hands of Leicester City, 0-4 at Watford and 0-3 at Derby County as they are leaking goals left right and centre at the moment.
Huddersfield’s away record stands at 4-3-8 14/32 and unsurprisingly, they possess the worst defensive record away from home in the division keeping just two clean sheets and in their last five matches they’ve conceded 16 goals and have scored just 2 in reply.
The writing seems to be on the wall here for Huddersfield and I daresay we could be seeing a few goals in this encounter but I’ll take Burnley for the straight win here in perhaps a thrilling 3-2 win.
Pick: Burnley straight win @ 1.95 Stan James
