Football Bet of the Day: Sky Blues forward to punish Birmingham’s poor defence

Coventry City host Birmingham City in the Championship on Friday night (20:00) with both sides looking to turn a corner in form and start climbing the league table. 

Things have been very disappointing for Wayne Rooney since he took charge of Birmingham with just one win from his first eight games in charge, while Coventry have struggled to push on from their play-off final journey in the summer. They have, however, been in better form than the visitors in recent weeks, and this is going to be another tough battle for Rooney’s side.

We’ve picked out a particular market in favour of the Sky Blues for this clash that we have selected as our bet of the day.

Coventry striker Haji Wright moved to the Coventry Building Society Arena in the summer for a club-record £7.7 million fee and it’s fair to say he’s had a slow start since joining Mark Robins’ side. The USA international, however, has five Championship goals to his name this term as Coventry have suffered a slower start than many people would have expected after their play-off adventure last term.

His latest goal came two games ago in the 1-0 victory against Plymouth Argyle at home. He will be hoping that the CBS Arena can be a happy hunting ground for him now and will be looking forward to Friday’s Midlands clash against Birmingham.

The Blues are bottom of the form table since Rooney took over from John Eustace in October. In their last eight games, they have conceded 16 goals and that figure could be significantly higher because of how poor they have looked defensively.

On their last away trip, they shipped four goals against Blackburn Rovers with three goals coming in the space of 10 minutes. They are extremely fragile at the back and this will excite Wright ahead of the clash in front of the Sky Sports cameras.

Robins’ men have picked up two wins from their last five games and they will be fancying themselves to beat their former landlords on Friday night given how much they have struggled under their new boss. With 11 Championship goals between them, Robins will be drilling into Wright and Matty Godden to get at the Blues’s defence and benefit from their lack of confidence.

With his club-record status, there is added pressure on Wright’s shoulders to deliver the goods in front of goal and a game like this could help him push on and add consistency to his game. So at 11/8, we feel that there is great value in the American finding the back of the net against Birmingham.

Check out our other Football Bets of the Day.