Birmingham City and Leeds United served up a real treat for their fans on Sunday afternoon when St Andrews witnessed an extraordinary game in a 9-goal bonanza with Leeds United eventually grabbing the points in a 5-4 win in the west midlands.
Despite the entertainment value though, Birmingham City’s run of matches without a win in the Championship has now extended to 5 matches, while also winning just 1 of their last 11 matches in the second tier.
However, Birmingham have a golden opportunity to turn things around and start the new year on a positive note on New Years Day when they entertain bottom club, Wigan Athletic.
No doubt Birmingham will be desperate to halt the recent defeats that they’ve suffered at St Andrews as The Blues have now lost 4 of their last 5 matches at home and this has contributed in their slide down the Championship table with the hosts now occupying 17th place in the table.
Wigan Athletic’s stretch of games without a win in the Championship was also extended on Sunday when The Latics suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat in the east midlands against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground.
There’s a reason that Wigan find themselves bottom of the Championship and this is because the visitors have now failed to win any of their last 13 matches overall in the second tier, a poor run of form which has seen Wigan lose 7 of these 13 matches.
Indeed, Wigan have managed just 1 win out of their last 15 matches overall which came in the shape of a 1-0 home win against Nottingham Forest, while their previous success to that result was a 1-0 win at their DW Stadium against New Years Day’s opponents, Birmingham City.
Results away from home though have been extremely poor as Paul Cook’s side are still without an away win this season, drawing 4 and losing 9 to date this term, while the bigger picture shows that Wigan have won just 1 of their last 34 matches overall on their travels in the Championship, which is, indeed, a woeful record.
Birmingham have struggled to find the magic ingredient in order to grab all three points despite playing reasonably well. However, although they lost to Leeds, The Blues can take the positives from that clash as they scored four past the Yorkshire high-fliers and they could edge this clash against Wigan.
The hosts can be backed with the double chance option here.