Midweek nPower Championship

Right, back to work after Sunday evening's ridiculous events. I've had to cancel something I was supposed to be doing today, so I can take a more in depth look at tonight's Championship games.

First of all, ignore the following markets:
Nottingham Forest, Norwich and Watford win markets. Forest's price is value but is still lower than 1.5 so it's automatically discounted and Watford's price seems to be aimed specifically at casual punters and/or Hornets fans.

Here are the ones I'm looking at:
Coventry v Swansea -
Under 3.5 goals, although it may be worth having a nibble at both teams to score - only one league game at the Ricoh this season has been over 3.5 goals (2-3 v Leeds in November) whereas Swansea have been involved in five. Last three head to head games at Coventry have been under 3.5

Nottingham Forest v Preston North End
Under 3.5 goals - unlikely Forest's unbeaten home record will go tonight, but I'm leaving them alone until it does.

Portsmouth v Crystal Palace
I was going to look at the over/under numbers to start with with but I think there could be a few goals at Fratton Park tonight - eight of the last ten league meetings there have been over 3.5. Laying Palace to keep a clean sheet and the game generally seems to be the way forward.

Reading v Millwall
Under 3.5 goals, laying 0-0/no goalscorer isn't a bad idea either.


Scunthorpe v Sheffield United
Under 3.5 goals. Games between the current bottom six have been marginally under 2.5 goals but these two have some specific form patterns in that context. Sheffield United have been particularly poor away from home against the other teams in the current bottom six, having lost the three games they've played so far without scoring; two of those games finished 1-0.

Scunthorpe's home record is nothing to write home about either, but two of the three games they've played against bottom six sides at Glanford Park have been under.

A warning comes with this one: three of the last five games between these two at Scunthorpe have been over 2.5 so making the conservative decision to back under 3.5 comes into play.

Totally unscientific, but I'm going to back a 2-1 Leeds win over Barnsley aswell.