Sunderland vs Swansea prediction: ENGLAND: Championship betting tips on match 2024-02-23 15:00.
Sunderland are managerless yet again after sacking Michael Beale earlier this week after just 63 days in charge. Never a fan favourite throughout his short stint on Wearside, the Black Cats lost five of Beale’s 11 league games at the helm (W4, D2). The most recent four of those were all by a one-goal margin, including the 2-1 defeat at Birmingham last weekend which proved the final nail in his coffin.
Mike Dodds has been handed the caretaker’s job until the end of the season and is tasked with trying to get Sunderland back into the play-off picture. Both games at the Stadium of Light he took charge of in December prior to Beale’s appointment brought victories, each again by one-goal margins, and another on Saturday would be welcomed by the home fans as Sunderland begin the weekend seven points off the pace of the current top six.
Three points against Swansea are rare for the Black Cats though, with the Swans only ever losing once at the Stadium of Light (W3, D3), and having won four of the most recent five H2Hs overall (D1). City have also changed their manager since the reverse fixture back in November, but Luke Williams’ appointment last month hasn’t yielded many positive results so far.
Williams still has just one league win to his name (D1, L5), and his side are far from out of the woods where relegation is concerned, sitting just four points above the drop zone with 13 games left to play. The Welsh outfit aren’t helping their case with a concerning trend of leaking early goals, with every one of those five league losses under Williams seeing them concede at least once by the 20-minute mark!
Players to watch: Sunderland’s Abdoullah Ba has committed just three fouls over the last four games, but has been booked in each of them, taking his total yellow card tally up to eight. Swansea striker Jerry Yates hasn’t faced any other club in his career more often than the Black Cats (7) without scoring at least one goal.
Hot stat: 22 of Swansea’s 33 Championship games this season have seen both teams score, a joint-league high with Huddersfield & Norwich.