Cardiff vs Birmingham prediction: ENGLAND: Championship betting tips on match 2023-12-12 19:45.
A 1-0 victory over Millwall on Saturday, just a second in six matches (D1, L3), lifted Cardiff into seventh, only outside the play-offs by virtue of goal difference. That ended a two-match losing streak at the Cardiff City Stadium for Erol Bulut’s men, who can now win successive home league matches without conceding for just the second time in 2023.
But home supporters may be well advised to be patient in this fixture as the Bluebirds have not scored a first-half goal in any of their last four games, while 11 of their 16 strikes at home this season have come in the second half of matches. Birmingham may be the perfect opponents to end that run against, as Cardiff scored inside three minutes en route to a 3-1 League Cup H2H victory in August.
They face a Blues outfit in crisis, as a 2-0 defeat to Coventry on Friday continued their spiral since Wayne Rooney replaced John Eustace at the helm. Birmingham have accrued just five points from his nine games as manager, the fewest of any side in the division in that time, and has seen them plummet from the heights of the top-six to their current bottom-half standing, just four points clear of the relegation zone!
Travel sickness plagued Birmingham even before Rooney’s arrival, as they travel to south Wales looking to avoid suffering a ninth successive Championship defeat on the road. That looks an especially tough ask given their recent troubles at Cardiff, last winning an away H2H back in 2008 (D3, L7), while they’ve not beaten the Bluebirds anywhere since 2017!
Players to watch: Joe Ralls registered his fifth assist of the season against Millwall and Cardiff have won each of the last four games he’s assisted in. Siriki Dembélé is the only Birmingham player to have scored twice in a match this season, and he did so for the second time away at Blackburn last month.
Hot stat: Birmingham have conceded 2+ goals in eight of their last nine away games.