Championship
Friday 13th April 2012 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
The top two teams in the Championship face-off at St Marys Stadium in Friday night’s blockbuster when hosts Southampton entertain Reading to determine top spot.
It promises to be a tightly contested affair with both teams locked on 82 points, and on the face of it, very little to separate them in terms of overall quality. Southampton have won four of their last six with wins at Millwall, Hull City and Crystal Palace along with a home win over doomed Doncaster Rovers, but were held to a point at home by fierce local rivals Portsmouth last weekend. Their one loss in their last fifteen matches was a 0-3 defeat at fifth placed Blackpool.
Saints’ home record stands at 15-4-2 44/15, and are seven matches unbeaten now since a rare loss to Leicester City back in January. Saints also possess a mean defence which has kept ten clean sheets so far, and are second only to Birmingham City (12 goals) in terms of conceding at home.
Southampton’s threats though undoubtedly come from their various attacking outlets such as striker Rickie Lambert (24 goals, 10 assists) who grabbed a brace at Palace in midweek , and has scored 10 goals in his last nine matches. He’s also weighed in with no fewer than four hat-tricks in the Championship this season which surely makes him a hot favourite for Championship player of the season?
Supporting him are the likes of Adam Lallana (10 goals, 8 assists), Guilherme do Prado (6 goals, 7 assists), Richardson and Fox (8 and 9 assists respectively) and striker Billy Sharp (5 goals) who is deadly at this level.
Visitors Reading have quietly gone about their business whilst everyone was raving about West Ham or if Blackpool would bounce back immediately, and The Royals have shown that they are no push-overs recently when they handled an aggressive Leeds side intent on kicking them off the park, by out-playing them on the pitch and deservedly look to be returning back to the Premiership.
Back to the drawing board for Warnock and Leeds, perhaps better off utilising the skill and quality of Snodgrass and McCormack rather than investing time into thinking of ways to maim the opposition?
Anyhow, back to the matter in hand and Reading have won five of their last six with the defeat coming at Peterborough United 1-3 which was a bit of a turn up for the books. Well, this is the Championship after all. Anyhow, wins over Barnsley, Blackpool, West Ham, Leeds and Brighton have maintained their promotion push and are now six points clear of third placed West Ham who look as though they’ll have to settle for the play-offs as their route back into the big time.
Reading have also won seven of their last nine away which is pretty impressive form to bring into this match and they’ll need it too to handle Saints on home ground. The Royals’ away record stands at 12-3-6 30/20, and their defensive record is only surpassed by Hull City (19 goals conceded) on the road.
Reading’s firepower is spread around some key players like strikers Adam Le Fondre (9 goals, 3 assists) and Noel Hunt (8 goals, 6 assists) along with the wide players such as Jimmy Kebe (3 goals, 8 assists) and Jobi McAnuff (5 goals, 11 assists) along with journeyman striker Jason Roberts (5 goals, 5 assists) who yearns for another crack at the big time.
Both teams are strong defensively as well as possessing potent attacks and it’ll be interesting to see which team (if any) come out on top here. The draw suits both sides in a match neither team wants to lose, so I’ll back the value of the draw perhaps 1-1 between two teams who seem very evenly matched.
Pick: Draw @ 3.41 Pinnacle
