Bristol City v Sheffield United: Typically tight first leg likely as play-offs commence | OneFootball

EFL Championship

Sheffield United accumulated 90 points in the regular season

The Championship play-offs kick-off on Thursday night as Bristol City and Sheffield United go head-to-head at Ashton Gate. Betfair writer Mark O'Haire is backing a low-scoring showdown.

Bristol City v Sheffield UnitedThursday May 8, 20:00Live on Sky Sports

Overachieving Bristol City

Bristol City are considered the outsiders in this season's Championship play-off battle. The Robins finished sixth in the second-tier table, 22 points behind semi-final opponents Sheffield United, spending only 38 days inside the top-six across the campaign as an eight-match unbeaten home run from February propelled them into contention.

Eighth favourites for relegation before a ball was kicked, City's wage bill and transfer spend are decidedly mid-range in the division, yet head coach Liam Manning has managed to push the Robins squad beyond expectations. Last weekend's anxious, come-from-behind 2-2 draw with Preston secured Championship play-off spot for the first time in 17 years.

The hosts are hoping to have wing-back Cameron Pring fit enough to feature in the semi-final first leg on Thursday. Ross McCrorie started at left wing-back in his absence and scored both goals in last weekend's stalemate, though he is naturally a right-sided player, while Yu Hirakawa impressed filling in at right wing-back. There are no other injury concerns.

Wilder proud of Sheffield United efforts

Sheffield United are just the third side in the history of the Championship to win as many as 90 points yet still fail to win promotion automatically. Blades boss Chris Wilder was frustrated to miss out on the top-two but admitted he was immensely proud of his players for their efforts and suggested his squad will be ready and refreshed to go again.

Wilder said: "The overall thing for me is two points per-game. It's an incredible achievement with the challenges we've had to overcome. We deserve to be where we are. So it's a case of slate wiped clean now, and we've got to go and prove we're the best team of the four. We're going to have to do a lot of things right over the next 10 days, but we're up for it."

United are expected to be without right-back Femi Seriki for at least the first leg, after the defender picked up an injury against Blackburn last time out. The visitors are already without both Oliver Arblaster and Harry Souttar, however, Jamie Shackleton, Ben Brereton Diaz, Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, Andre Brooks and Callum O'Hare are fit enough to feature.

Market can't split the sides at Ashton Gate

Bristol City come into this clash without a win in their last seven games against Sheffield United across all competitions since March 2019 (W0-D2-L5). The Robins have also managed just W1-D1-L5 in their past seven Ashton Gate encounters against the Blades, which includes a 2-1 defeat in November when United scored two late goals to pinch the points.

Bristol City (2.94 to win on the Betfair Exchange) are unbeaten across their last eight home Championship games (W6-D2-L0), whilst only the top-three in the division accumulated more home points than the Robins across the season (W13-D7-L3). However, the hosts have tabled a solitary success against fellow top-six teams (W1-D4-L5), scoring just six goals in that 10-game sample.

Sheffield United 2.96 were four points clear at the top of the table as recently as April - the Blades returned W2-D1-L4 in the final seven outings to miss out on automatic promotion. Chris Wilder's troops went W3-D1-L5 against top-six rivals, though United did suffer only six league losses across the season when excluding matches against the top-two.

EFL play-off first leg fixtures are notoriously tight, and recent Championship contests have followed those historic low-scoring trends. The past 18 first legs at this level are avergaing just 1.44 goals per-game with 10 of those tussles producing Under 1.5 Goals 2.60 profit and 13 of those matches paying-out for Both Teams To Score - No 1.79 backers.

Only four of those 18 fixtures featured three strikes or more and 11 were level at half-time and I'm happy to follow the numbers by supporting the aforementioned BTTS No at a reasonable 1.79. The regular season meetings were largely tight and attritional affairs with both clashes involving stoppage-time second-half goals to deny our proposed play.

Bristol City's home dates with top-six teams have also proven to be light on goalmouth action with the Expected Goals (xG) average across those five games coming in at only 1.97 xG. Exclude penalties and Sheffield United's away days at the same standard of opposition averaged 2.10 xG and a similarly close and competitive encounter beckons for Ashton Gate.

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Back Both Teams To Score - No @ 1.79