SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY v BRIGHTON
Friday 13th May 2016 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
Football – England – Championship Betting Tips
We’re now at the pointy end of the English second tier season as we enter the dreaded and tense play-off phase – dreaded and tense for the teams, players and fans, but of course great entertainment for the rest of us!
Hillsborough is the venue of tonight’s first leg play-off semi-final between Sheffield Wednesday and Brighton, and the hosts have registered some mixed results towards the end of the regular season as they’ve recorded wins over Blackburn Rovers and Cardiff City (both on home turf) along with defeats to Bristol City and Wolves (both away from home).
However, Sheffield Wednesday possess a solid home record of 13-8-2 42/17 and testimony must be paid to their Portuguese manager Carlos Carvalhal who has managed to get The Owls into the play-offs where many managers before him have failed.
Visitors Brighton narrowly missed out on automatic promotion by a whisker (by a margin of 2 goals actually), losing out to Middlesbrough on goal difference. Chris Hughton now needs to pick his players up ahead of their two-legged semi-final with Sheffield Wednesday as they seek a return to the big time.
Too many draws have perhaps haunted Brighton in their quest for promotion thus far, although they’re unbeaten in their last 14 matches overall in the Championship. The Seagulls’ away record finished up on 9-12-2 32/24 and again, you can see how many stalemates they were involved in (the highest in the Championship).
Brighton are unbeaten in their last seven away from home and another indication of their ‘draw specialists’ tag can be found in their away record at top half teams which reads 3-8-0 11/8.
That said, I daresay Brighton will be keen to keep things level going into the second leg at their AMEX Stadium, so I fancy the draw here tonight.
Pick: Draw @ 3.30 bet365
