Huddersfield Town play host to Birmingham City on Wednesday night looking to extend their unbeaten streak in the Championship to four matches.
At a time when the Terriers are in sixth position, Blues are down in 19th place after losing five of their last six fixtures.
Match preview
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Ahead of three fixtures with Blackburn Rovers, Luton Town and Hull City, Carlos Corberan would have acknowledged that his team needed to accumulate a significant number of points to remain satisfied with their start to the season.
Two home victories and an away goalless draw inbetween means that Corberan will be delighted, the Terriers now sitting just three points adrift of third-placed Fulham.
Huddersfield could do with a regular goalscorer, their 18 strikes in the Championship this season remarkably being shared between 12 players.
Nevertheless, after a season of struggle, the Yorkshire outfit are performing well above expectations and there is now genuine hope that they could emerge as the dark horses for promotion.
Huddersfield have also kept consecutive clean sheets for the first time this season, a total of five now coming from their 12 fixtures.
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As far as Birmingham are concerned, Lee Bowyer will be increasingly worried about the lack of progress from his team since the beginning of September.
Comprehensive defeats have been accompanied by a lack of threat in the final third, and the Blues boss will recognise that he is starting to come under pressure.
While the club's next sequence of fixtures are relatively favourable, they will not get back on track without Scott Hogan, Lukas Jutkiewicz and Troy Deeney offering more in attack.
Bowyer is also remaining stubborn with his use of a back three, something which is unlikely to change when faced with an opposite number who deploys the same strategy.
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Team News
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Barring any late fitness issues, Corberan may be prepared to stick with the Huddersfield XI which started against Hull.
With Rolando Aarons and Josh Koroma both fresh after remaining as unused substitutes, Daniel Sinani is most likely to drop out of the team.
Bowyer may use this game to finally hand an opportunity to winger Jordan Graham, potentially in place of Hogan or Jutkiewicz.
At a time when Maxime Colin will likely rest an Achilles injury, either Dion Sanderson or Jeremie Bela could deputise at right wing-back.
Troy Deeney was left on the substitutes' bench against the Baggies, but the summer arrival may get a chance on Wednesday.
Huddersfield Town possible starting lineup:
Nicholls; Pearson, Lees, Colwill; Thomas, Hogg, O'Brien, Toffolo; Sinani, Ward, Holmes
Birmingham City possible starting lineup:
Sarkic; Sanderson, Roberts, Friend; Bela, Gardner, Sunjic, Pedersen; Chong, Jutkiewicz, Graham
We say: Huddersfield Town 2-1 Birmingham City
As Huddersfield have lost a third of their Championship fixtures this season, it would be naive to completely rule out Blues. Nevertheless, the Terriers are beginning to find their stride, leading us to predict another home victory.
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Huddersfield Town win with a probability of 37.87%. A win for Birmingham City had a probability of 34.74% and a draw had a probability of 27.4%.
The most likely scoreline for a Huddersfield Town win was 1-0 with a probability of 10.93%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.11%) and 2-0 (6.84%). The likeliest Birmingham City win was 0-1 (10.36%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.96%). The actual scoreline of 0-0 was predicted with an 8.7% likelihood.
