Birmingham City meet Middlesbrough at St Andrew’s in a rearranged Sky Bet Championship clash.
Victory would see Birmingham City climb up to 17th in the table, whilst Middlesbrough can go ninth with a win and within five points of the final play-off spot.
Team News
Jay Stansfield and Ivan Sunjic are doubts for Birmingham with both players at risk of a two-match ban if they’re booked in this game, which is the last game where anyone can pick up a two-match suspension if collect 10 bookings in total up to and including this match.
Dion Sanderson (suspension), Krystian Bielik (stomach) and Alfie Chang (knee) remain absent.
Middlesbrough have no fresh injury concerns to report following their win at QPR last weekend.
Darragh Lenihan, Tommy Smith (both Achilles), Hayden Hackney (knee), Dael Fry, Josh Coburn (both groin) and Alex Bangura (leg) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Birmingham City face Middlesbrough at St Andrew’s on Tuesday 12 March at 7:45pm GMT, untelevised live in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Birmingham City have won three of their last nine meetings against Middlesbrough (W3, D1, L5).
- Middlesbrough have lost one of their last nine visits to Birmingham City at St Andrew’s (W5, D3, L1).
- Each of Boro’s last seven goals against Birmingham have been scored by five different goalscorers who no longer play for the club (Chuba Akpom, Matt Crooks x 2, Morgan Rodgers, Aaron Connolly and Folarin Balogun x1).
- Koji Miyoshi has scored in each of Birmingham City’s last two home matches (W1, L1).
- Marcus Forss and Emmanuel Latte Lath have scored in each of Boro’s last two matches (W2).
Prediction
Currently one point above the relegation zone, Birmingham really need to start picking up wins especially with this game in hand yet they were wasteful at Millwall so a more clinical display is needed because we saw what they can do at home against Southampton yet their defensive mistakes just keep costing them results.
Boro meanwhile seem to have ended their rut with some small tactical changes which have paid dividends with clinical victories over Norwich and QPR, but they know that victory here is imperative if they want to mount a late charge for the play-offs in the season’s run-in.
Neither team though does look defensively strong but with their solid away record in this fixture and momentum behind them now, Middlesbrough really should take the win otherwise they can realistically kiss any play-off ambitions au revoir for this season,
Prediction: Birmingham City 1-2 Middlesbrough
Result: Birmingham City 0-1 Middlesbrough
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