Football – England – Championship Play-Off Semi Final 1st Leg
Friday 9th May 2014 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
Wigan Athletic and QPR meet in the second of the Championship semi final play-offs on Friday night at the DW Stadium with two former Premiership teams looking for a swift return to the big time.
Wigan fended off stiff competition from Reading and Blackburn Rovers to finally secure their play-off berth but their passage wasn’t made easy in the final few weeks of the regular season with just three league wins from their last ten, The Latics limped rather than tore over the line with wins over Leeds United and Reading at home along with a 1-0 win at Birmingham City.
However, manager Uwe Rosler and his players will be more than aware that they were a mite fortunate to sneak into the top six as they’d lost five of these ten matches with defeats at home to Millwall and Blackpool who were fighting against relegation along with away losses against tonight’s opponents QPR 0-1, Burnley 0-2 and Blackburn Rovers 3-4.
At home, Wigan have been pretty solid all season though despite the last-minute hiccups against Millwall and Blackpool, and they finished the season with an overall record of 12-7-4 35/23 keeping nine clean sheets in the process. Against top half opposition at the DW Stadium, they finished with a record of 5-4-2 17/10 and kept five clean sheets.
Visitors QPR made a storming start to their Championship campaign way back in August and September when they went eleven matches unbeaten and indeed they’d lost just once up until the start of December. However, this division eventually catches up with you (and QPR) and the nature of the relentless competition finally overcame their spirited fight for automatic promotion.
Harry Redknapp’s men had to settle for a play-off position and no doubt they will be very keen to keep things tight for as long as possible at the DW Stadium on Friday night, hitting Wigan on the counter and trying to make in-roads from set-pieces. It would be considered a great result if they can go into the second leg of this semi final on level terms particularly given their final away record of 8-5-10 22/26 (the least number of away wins of any team in the top six) – just three away wins from their last ten gives you an idea as to where it all went wrong for The R’s in the final weeks of the regular season.
In addition, their record away at top half opposition was a pretty poor one which reads 2-2-7 8/15 and two of their three wins from their last ten on the road came at strugglers Birmingham City and relegated Barnsley.
Wigan will be looking to take the game to QPR tonight as they’ll be very aware of QPR’s home record at Loftus Road during the regular season where The R’s lost just twice, but as it’s become a very tense situation, I’ll back the hosts with the round ball rather than the straight win to be safer. Wigan might nick it perhaps 1-0, but don’t be surprised if this ends in a stalemate.
Pick: Wigan Athletic AH0 @ 1.60 Bet Victor
