Cardiff City will be aiming for a fourth consecutive league victory when they travel to Millwall in the Championship on Saturday afternoon.
The Bluebirds are currently 20th in the table but have moved away from relegation danger following their recent good run, while Millwall look set for another season of mid-table obscurity and sit 15th.
Match preview
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Cardiff recorded their biggest win of the season in midweek as they completely outplayed struggling Peterborough United in a 4-0 victory.
Joe Ralls, Aden Flint, Jordan Hugill and Uche Ikpeazu all got on the scoresheet as the Bluebirds moved 12 points clear of their opponents and the bottom three.
Manager Steve Morison scored 92 goals in 336 appearances for Millwall as a player, winning promotion from League One twice and being named the club's Player of the Year in 2016-17. This will be his first time returning to The Den as a coach.
Cardiff – who have not won four league matches in a row since February last year – rank in the top half of the Championship's 'away' table, with 19 of their 32 points (59%) coming on the road.
The Welsh outfit's 3-1 win over Millwall in this season's reverse fixture in August ended a run of seven successive draws between the two sides. It means that the Lions have not beaten the Bluebirds since October 2014.
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Gary Rowett's side were beaten 3-0 by Fulham on Tuesday night, although they were certainly not the first side to be played off the park by the runaway league leaders this season.
However, it does mean that Millwall have now taken just one win from their last six games, a run that has left them nine points behind the playoffs.
Only three teams have scored fewer goals in the Championship this season than the Lions, who have found the net 29 times in 29 games.
The Den remains a difficult place for teams to come though, and the South-East London side have only lost three times on home turf in the league in 2021-22.
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Team News
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Scott Malone missed Millwall's defeat to Fulham in midweek due to a hamstring injury and is likely to be absent again.
There could be a return for Arsenal loanee Dan Ballard though – the centre-back has not featured since undergoing knee surgery at the start of December.
Jed Wallace and George Saville will be pushing for starts having returned from the sidelines to make the bench on Tuesday.
Morison could name an unchanged Cardiff team after such an impressive performance against Peterborough on Wednesday.
That will mean that Perry Ng will continue as a makeshift centre-back with Sean Morrison and Curtis Nelson sidelined.
Uche Ikpeazu has two goals in two substitute appearances since signing on loan from Middlesbrough, so may be handed a start.
Millwall possible starting lineup:
Bialkowski; Hutchinson, Cooper, Pearce; McNamara, Kieftenbeld, Saville, M. Wallace; J. Wallace; Afobe, Burke
Cardiff City possible starting lineup:
Smithies; Drameh, Ng, Flint, McGuinness, Bagan; Doyle, Wintle, Ralls; Davies, Hugill
We say: Millwall 1-1 Cardiff City
Cardiff's turnaround in form will give the Bluebirds plenty of reason to be confident as they head to The Den, particularly against a Millwall side struggling to put wins on the board. The Lions are gradually getting key players back from injury, though, and we think that they will hold the Welsh side to a draw.
Top tip
Olly Allen
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 Millwall win with a probability of 47.84%. A draw had a probability of 27.7% and a win for Cardiff City had a probability of 24.42%.
The most likely scoreline for a Millwall win was 1-0 with a probability of 14.4%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (9.79%) and 2-1 (8.67%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (12.75%), while for a Cardiff City win it was 0-1 (9.38%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with an 8.7% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Millwall would win this match.
