Football – England – Championship
Tuesday 6th November 2012 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
Hull City entertain fellow play-off hopefuls Wolverhampton Wanderers at the KC Stadium on Tuesday night as the hosts look to post their fifth win in six matches in the Championship which could lift them into joint-top position.
Hull have won four of their last five with wins over Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich Town, Bristol City and Barnsley although they did lose away at Middlesbrough 0-2 towards the end of last month. The visit of Wolves will be the litmus test for where they stand at the moment – are they true play-off material?
The Tigers’ home form suggests that they’re on their way with a record of 5-0-2 14/9, and new signing from Rangers, striker Sone Aluko (4 goals, 2 assists) is starting to acclimatise to the football league and scoring goals which will please manager Steve Bruce. He also has Jay Simpson (4 goals, 4 assists), Abdoulaye Fyae (3 goals), Stephen Quinn (2 goals, 3 assists) and Ahmed Elmohamady (1 goal, 5 assists) producing the ammunition.
After an indifferent start to the new season in the Championship, Wolves strung together a four match winning streak which lifted them up amongst the early pace-setters in the division with wins over Leicester City, Ipswich Town, Peterborough and Sheffield Wednesday, but since that purple-patch they’ve won just once in their next six matches which was at Blackburn Rovers in early October.
As a result, Stale Solbakken’s side have lost valuable ground on the play-off pack and now sit two points and three places behind Blackburn Rovers in 9th place. Wolves haven’t won a Championship fixture now in four matches with losses against Huddersfield Town and Burnley, and could only muster draws against struggling Bolton Wanderers and Charlton Athletic at Molineux.
The dangermen though are still prevalent with Ebanks-blake (5 goals, 2 assists) and Bakary Sako (4 goals, 5 assists) along with Irish striker Kevin Doyle (3 goals, 3 assists) completing the attacking trio. However, Wolves have lost back-to-back matches on the road and things are beginning to get shaky at the back; just one clean sheet in their last seven matches.
Hull are the form team here in this one, and I’ll back them for another win against an out-of-sorts Wolves at the KC Stadium, but with a bit of insurance if they don’t win; however, could be a 2-1 win for Hull City.
Pick: Hull City AH-0.25 @ 1.85 Pinnacle
