Wolves v Birmingham: More Blues for Wanderers

Improving Birmingham are great value to take all three points at Molineux, says Andy Tongue...

Saturday 8th December 17:20 GMT

Live on SKY Sports 2

 

Saturday's televised tea-time game has become something of a mini-Midlands tournament this last month with Leicester, Birmingham and Derby facing each other and now the Blues make the short trip up the A4123 to take on Wolverhampton, the two sides separated by just a point in the mid-to-lower reaches of the Championship table.

 

Wolves

 

Last Saturday's 4-1 win at hapless Bristol City brought to end an horrific run of nine games without a win for Stale Solbakken's side which has seen them slip down towards to wrong end of the table, a chastening experience for a side, who don't forget, were in the Premiership last season and would have been expecting to be challenging for an immediate return this year. A growing injury list hasn't helped but a squad featuring the likes of Jermaine Pennant, Sylvain Ebanks-Blake and Kevin Doyle should still be doing much better.

Birmingham

 

Last Friday's comeback win over high-flying Middlesbrough at St Andrew's will have given the Blues bags of confidence and showed that Lee Clark's side are developing a decent team spirit following an indifferent start to the season. After finishing on the wrong end of two 3-2 scorelines in recent weeks, the importance of grabbing that winner over Boro can't be underestimated. Striker Marlon King has been the spark for this revival, scoring nine times in the last nine matches and he'll once again be the main man for the visitors at Molineux.

 

Match Odds

 

The market makes Wolves the 2.24 favourites for this which is too short in my opinion, even with home advantage. One win in 10 (and that at a side who have won just one of their last 14 games) is not the form of a side in a great place. In contrast, Birmingham appear to be on the up slope and know that, such is the nature of the Championship, it will only take four or five good results over the busy Christmas period to lift them right up onto the fringes of the almighty scramble for the play-off places. For that reason we've no hesitation in recommending backing the visitors to win at a juicy 3.35.

 

Under/Over 3.5 Goals

 

This has been a low-scoring affair in recent times - just four goals in the last four matches between the pair - but we are expecting much more entertaining fare this time round. Wolves haven't kept a clean sheet in any of their last ten, while Birmingham have reinvented themselves as one of the league's more exciting sides, with three 3-2 scorelines in their last four matches. Taking that into account we like the look of backing Over 3.5 Goals at 3.2.

 

Recommended Bets

Back Birmingham to win at 3.35

Back Over 3.5 Goals at 3.2

 

Bet HERE !

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