This west-London derby should be pretty spicy, with both sides going for promotion via different avenues.
For Fulham, victory would take them one step closer to the promised land of automatic promotion to the Premier League, while Brentford are in desperate need of a victory to keep their play-off hopes alive.
Rather unusually, Brentford games haven’t been a great source of goals in weeks gone by. In the Bees’ five game unbeaten run, none of the games have seen over 2.5 goals, which makes Coral’s 1/2 for over 2.5 in this one look very short indeed - Especially when Fulham’s last four games have all been under 2.5 as well – so get on the 6/4 shot for the same again here.
A positive result for Cardiff in their 3 o’clock game puts the pressure back on Fulham in the race for second, and they’ve dealt with the heat of the promotion battle so far, going unbeaten in their last 20 Championship games. That’s probably something you can’t say for their local rivals, who have a tendency to fall short when the going gets tough. Away defeats to Leeds and Millwall in the last couple of months have derailed their bid for the top six, and a distinct lack of goals in the run-in will probably count against them here.
Looking in the dugouts, and you’re given another clue into how this game may pan out. Cottagers’ boss Slavisa Jokanovic is a serial winner in this division, and is no stranger to this sort of scenario, having taken Watford to automatic promotion in 2015. In the away camp, Brentford gaffer Dean Smith’s Walsall side fell just short of automatic promotion from League One the following year, before losing to sixth-placed Barnsley in the play-offs. Do Dean Smith teams have the bottle for this sort of game?
We should be in for a tight game, but Fulham to come out on top has to be the bet here. We’re at the stage of the season where games are cagey, but Fulham have the quality that should see them through. The home win with under 2.5 goals looks big at 9/2 with Coral, and is a good shout for quadrupling in your Saturday night drinks fund.
Tip of the Day: A Barnsley win with both teams to score in their game against Bolton at 10/3 looks like a great value bet in the 3 o’clock kick offs.
Championship Treble: £10 on Hull, Derby and Cardiff returns £63 with William Hill.
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