Hull vs Sunderland prediction: ENGLAND: Championship betting tips on match 2023-12-25 15:00.
Two sides in the play-off race meet here looking to bounce back from bitterly disappointing setbacks. Hosts Hull City blew the chance to win three successive games at Bristol City as they allowed their opponents to bag two goals in the final 15 minutes to run out the eventual 3-2 victors. Instead, that was now their third defeat from the past five league outings, forcing manager Liam Rosenior to claim post-match that his side needed to “learn on the job really quickly” as they bid to maintain their promotion push.
The Tigers do still come into this clash inside the Championship top-six, and on the back of a run of four wins from their past five matches at the MKM Stadium (L1). However, history is against Hull building on that here, as they’ve failed to win any of their last four home Boxing Day games (D2, L2), failing to score in three of those matches.
Coincidentally, Sunderland also suffered a defeat at Bristol City last week (1-0) and then followed it up with another loss at home to Coventry (3-0). That defeat at the Stadium of Light was a rotten start to new manager Michael Beale's tenure, and he will be desperate to ignite a response here on the road as his team bid to avoid extending their six match winless away run (D2, L4).
The Black Cats do at least come into this fixture with the psychological advantage of having not lost to their hosts within 90 minutes in ten successive meetings, yet it has been a H2H run dominated by draws (W3, D7) in that time. In fact, the last time Sunderland fell to defeat was in the last Boxing Day meeting between the two back in 2014 (3-1) when both were still in the Premier League!
Players to watch: Hull’s Ozan Tufan has scored his side’s final goal of the game in each of his last three outings. Opponent Jack Clarke grabbed two assists and a goal for Sunderland when these two met in the blockbuster 4-4 draw back in April.
Hot stat: Sunderland have trailed ‘to nil’ at the break in four of their last five away matches.