Championship betting tip: Middlesbrough- Stoke City
Dec 20, 2019
Championship: Middlesbrough- Stoke City
Two teams that we have discussed a lot this season meet at the Riverside and it is an opportunity to see exactly where both stand at present. I have spoken often of Boro as being in a bad state, the crux of the issues being that the money has run out or been cut off at source , they are in transition and trying to change from a defensive minded team, which they have been for 6-7 years + ,to one playing on the front foot and to do that with an inexperienced head coach, no new players and a tiny squad ! They look to have made some improvement with 9 points (2-3-2) from seven starts, but six of the seven teams they played were struggling for form or with poor ITB numbers, they were outplayed by Swansea last time out, even before the two dismissals and lost very heavily to the only "good team" we know that they faced in that sequence. Today they are without the suspended duo of Marcus Browne and DM Paddy McNair ( 3 goals and 2 assists) , with top scorer Britt Assombalonga ( 6 goals and 2 assists)a major doubt. Browne came on early last week from the bench to replace Adam Reach, I do not know if that was injury related or tactical, I do know that they were poor defensively in that, I watched brief highlights , but also saw some stills from the game which showed multiple players out of position for all three goals and at this stage of the season and we are talking seasoned pros in some cases, that is not good enough, Daniel Ayala was one of the main culprits, for goodness sake he has played well over 200 games at this level and a season in the top flight. He has two youngsters either side of him in the backline and McNair usually directly in front.
City are actually three points behind Boro but we have spoken of them as having a good squad and unbelievably ITB and XP numbers for a team in their position, we have previewed four of their last six starts, so no need to reproduce all those, suffice to say we think they are in a very false position.They have won 3/7 (only 2/15 prior to that) since Michael O'Neill took charge of the team and that trio of wins came versus teams in the bottom five like Boro and City are, so the new head coach has got them up for these "six pointers". The Potters have a massive +84 ITB net advantage and are +11 XP over Boro and should also be another 7 XGD better off. City to win, if Boro are without Assombalonga they will be missing 13 goals total from a team who have only scored 19 this season and just 22 in 25 Championship games as host.
2 units Stoke City -0.25 ball 2.18 asian line/Sportmarket.
Good Luck.
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