Championship Best Bets

We’ll kick on with the Championship in the hope that the prevalence of undersoil heating and game volunteers with shovels ensure plenty of matches get the morning go-ahead.

Two of the divisions more boring sides meeting in a Lancashire derby his weekend as Preston make the short hop over to Bolton, and it’s hard to imagine the floodgates opening in this one.

Starting with Bolton, the Trotters have seen their last 13 of their last 14 matches go “Under 2.5 Goals”, and they’ve failed to score in three of their last four now. Phil Parkinson was pretty much given a free reign to play the most pragmatic football necessary to get results this season, and he’s certainly done that, closing games down at every opportunity – especially after riding out the tough early months of the season.

Preston fans have seen a relatively similar scenario unfolding, although they have achieved much better results from their safety first approach, keeping an excellent 12 clean sheets already this season – something which has allowed them to build up enough form to loiter just four points outside the play-offs. While it’s hard to see them making that up now over the final third of the season, it’s a much better return than most would have expected from the Lilywhites. 11 of their last 15 have gone Under 2.5 Goals, and it wouldn’t be any surprise to see another fall into that category in this one. Two of the last three meetings between the sides actually ended goalless.

1.5pts Under 2.5 Goals in Bolton v Preston at 4/7

Another game to have escaped the weather is Millwall v Sunderland, and it was an enormous surprise to see the Lions open up at 4/5 in this one. They are into 4/6 now, but that remains too long in our view given their strong home form and clear difference in quality this season.

While the Lions remain a mini-run away from beginning to mount a late run for the play-offs, Sunderland are now just 2/7 shots to be playing in League One next season and have won just three times away from home all season.

Coincidentally, that’s the same number of games that Millwall have lost at home, although the fact that Ipswich, Barnsley and Burton inflicted those defeats might give Sunderland some hope that the lesser sides are capable of upsetting the London side.

More worrying for the Black Cats is form which has seen the hosts lose just once in 11, and they have only lost one league game in 2018 – a new-years days match at Norwich.

1.5pts Millwall to beat Sunderland at 4/6

#Football