Middlesbrough vs Luton prediction: ENGLAND: Championship betting tips on match 2022-12-09 15:00.
Thoughts of returning to the Premier League for the first time since Middlesbrough’s 2016/17 relegation appeared to be dead in the water, yet former England midfielder Michael Carrick has overseen four unbeaten games from his first five as head coach (W3, D1, L1). That run has moved them just four points away from the play-off picture and has fanned the flames of hope once again on Teesside.
The World Cup break may have been useful, as former Boro winger and newly recruited coach Stewart Downing highlighted that Carrick has had a great opportunity to “assess his squad” even further during the break. The team subsequently highlighted their well being with a recent 2-0 friendly win over Hibernian and they’ll now look to continue from where they left off before the break when they claimed a huge 2-1 win at Norwich.
Much like their hosts, it’s all change at Luton Town too, with ex-boss Nathan Jones leaving for a top-flight role at Southampton, which paved the way for Rob Edwards to take his third managerial role in less than a year with the Hatters. These surroundings will be familiar to Edwards as he had applied for the vacant Middlesbrough job and interviewed here in October, albeit unsuccessfully!
Edwards may hope to show Boro what they missed, although he failed to win an away game in his short tenure with Watford earlier in the season (D4, L1). It's not all bad news for the Hatters, as they're unbeaten in six of their last eight away league games (W5, D1) with three of those victories seeing Luton overcome their pre-match outsider status, something which they’ll need to do again if they are to extend their three-point lead over Boro in the Championship table.
Key battle: Middlesbrough's Riley McGree helped Australia to their first World Cup knockout round since 2006 and also scored in Boro’s win over Norwich before the break. He'll now be looking to beat Luton keeper Ethan Horvath, who occupied the bench in USA's World Cup campaign but helped Luton to two clean sheets from his last three appearances.
Hot stat: Only Cardiff have scored in both halves on fewer occasions than Luton's two from 21 league games this season.