Birmingham v Cardiff City

The weekend starts on Friday night, as Neil Warnock’s Cardiff City travel to Birmingham - with the hosts playing their first match under Steve Cotterill who is back in the game after nearly three years away. He’s going to need all his skill and experience to turn things around at St Andrews though, with the Blues absolutely humiliated last time out at Hull where they lost 6-1.

Birmingham have lost seven of their last nine - a run which has dragged them into the relegation zone, and no-one can really say they deserve to be much higher on the basis of what we’ve seen so far.

At the other end of the spectrum, Cardiff sit atop the division, with 24 points from their opening 11 matches - a run which has included wins over Sheffield United, Wolves and Leeds to note but a few. The shot data thus far this season supports the notion that those results have been deserved - they have a 171-108 shot advantage (61%) over their opponents, and that improves to 63-31 when looking at Shots on Target - the best ratio in the division.

Cotterill would have liked to open his reign against easier opposition than this and the 11/8 on offer about the Bluebirds is surely worth a dabble on Friday night.

1pt Cardiff to beat Birmingham at 11/8 (Bet365, VCBet)

#Football