Two old Leeds United pals, Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate, will go head-to-head with their respective teams, Charlton Athletic and Middlesbrough at The Valley on Saturday afternoon with both teams (and managers) looking for some respite in their respective battles against possible relegation.
Charlton have been handed recent back-to-back defeats against Sheffield Wednesday and 1-0 and Huddersfield Town 4-0 but both losses were incurred away from home and Charlton will no doubt be keen to get back to the Valley for this upcoming clash with Middlesbrough as recent results on home turf have been promising.
The Addicks have suffered just 1 defeat out of their last 7 matches at The Valley which was a 2-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers, but otherwise, Bowyer’s men have produced some encouraging displays which have yielded wins against Bristol City 3-2, Barnsley 2-1 and Luton Town 3-1.
In addition, Charlton have picked up points in draws with Hull City 2-2, Championship league leaders West Brom 2-2 and 3rd placed Fulham 0-0, so the hosts have been hard to beat at home in recent times as the London club look to avoid the drop.
Onto Middlesbrough, and manager Jonathan Woodgate appears to be on borrowed time at the Riverside Stadium despite the ‘spin’ that Boro owner, Steve Gibson, has produced in the media recently where he has backed Woodgate with his “full support”.
There’s a general feeling that one more defeat for the visitors would signal the end of Woodgate’s tenure at Middlesbrough and they face a tough trip down to the nation’s capital this Saturday to take on an improved Charlton outfit at The Valley.
Middlesbrough earned a point in a 2-2 draw at home with Nottingham Forest on Monday night but this wasn’t enough to lift Bopro out of the bottom three in the Championship and only served to extend Middlesbrough’s winless run in the second tier to a worrying 10 matches.
This poor sequence of results consist of 5 draws and 5 defeats while results away from home have also produced miserable displays as Boro have lost 3 of their last 4 matches on their travels, falling to defeats at Fulham, Brentford and most disappointing of all, Barnsley.
Charlton therefore stand a decent chance of picking up at least a point here and the hosts can be backed with the double-chance or asian handicap AH+0.5.