🔊 Big Six Fix - Episode #3

In the newly-named 'Big Six Fix', Ali & George pick their favourite fixtures and predict the scorelines from across the weekend's EFL slate.

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Big Six Fix - Episode #3

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Championship Friday picks 01:25 / -27:02

League One Friday picks 09:45 / -19:04

League Two Friday picks 19:03 / -09:47

Championship

Big game pick - Millwall (5th) vs Preston (7th)

George Elek

“To destroy your enemy, you must find him, face him, and then... become him.”

—Ryan Lowe (probably)

It’s time for a Face/Off. Not starring John Travolta, not starring Nicolas Cage. We have two infinitely more thrilling protagonists who, at first sight, appear to share something. Points totals: yes. Wins: yes. Draws: yes. Losses: yes. But performances?

Right now, Millwall are safely secured in Play-Off HQ with Preston camping just outside the perimeter fence. The form is not equal. Millwall appeared Millwally for the longest time. Winning when they could, drawing when they couldn’t, losing not very many at all. But their relentlessness has become that little bit less relentless. Dropped points in four of their last four. Only two wins in six.

PNE’s form is an inverse calculation. Manager Ryan Lowe has faced a bit of criticism over the season. Rewind to the opening seven games, and recall how Preston were unbeaten in seven, somehow conspiring to draw five of those games, and implausibly they all ended 0-0. That record was never going to last. But rather than consistently turning draws into wins, Preston mastered the art of inconsistency. And in mid-season, their copybook was blotted in much inky red, considerable splodges of green and suddenly very little yellow.

However, PNE have taken to their play-off task with renewed zeal over the last ten games. Timing their run? Tom Cannon certainly is, with six well-taken goals in six games. North End have lost one, drawn three, and won the rest. The nil-nils have gone. They are scoring goals, which Millwall aren’t. Or rather, they’re not converting their chances (0 goals from 4.5 xG in 4 games). Maybe that says they aren’t playing as badly as meets the eye.

Will it fizzle out? Will it pop off? Will Preston become Millwall, or will Millwall become Preston?

Prediction: 0-0 or 1-1

Big game pick - Blackpool (23rd) vs Wigan (24th)

Ali Maxwell

Less Face/Off and more facing down. Whoever loses this game is going to be staring down the barrel of a League One-shaped firearm. In fact, after both teams lost both games over Easter, both are approaching the dark side no matter the scoreline. The odds are stacked against them. But… but… never tell me the odds!

The players will take to the battlefield feeling that a win could give them a chance, a pulse. What if one side wins and Huddersfield’s form implodes as they take on three back-to-back away games? Reading play Burnley! What if Cardiff lose? What if QPR keep sliding—A New Hope?

Steven Dobbie takes charge of Blackpool for the second time, his first game in front of the fans at Bloomfield Road. Could that be significant? Blackpool are awful at home. But for the first five games on the road (4W 1D 0L), Wigan are awful away, winless in 15.

With nothing to lose, this could have a bit of a Final Day feel to it, which is always good news for the neutral. The last 20 minutes should be frantic, with one or both teams throwing everything at it.

Prediction: Blackpool 3-1 Wigan

League One

Big game pick - Exeter (12th) vs Plymouth (2nd)

George Elek

Spectacular coastline, cream teas and fish and chips. None of those things will be on the minds of Devonian football fans. Rivalries are like opinions; everyone has them.

For every argument that says the Exeter players will be ‘on Exmouth beach,’ there’s a counterargument screaming ‘no way José’. Or at least, no way, Steven Schumacher. Plymouth won the reverse fixture 4-2 and Exeter will be seeking revenge, to inflict any damage they can on Plymouth’s promotion tilt. This feeling has a name: motivation.

At the same time, Exeter’s season has somewhat fizzled out - winless in three, losing back-to-back games. Either this is the last hurrah of the season, or they’ve already gone. I think it’s more likely to be the former.

For Argyle, their form is more than a bit troubling. Three wins in five - against Morecambe, Accrington and Oxford, three of the league’s worst teams - masks a drop in performance levels. When they played the league’s better teams (most recently Peterborough and Barnsley), Plymouth lost both and conceded eight.

Exeter lie somewhere between worst and best. And what will worry Argyle is that their away from over the whole season has been patchy: they’ve only won two against teams in the top fifteen, and those wins came back in Autumn.

This is undeniably a massive game for Argyle.

Plymouth’s xG data over the season has them running hot. That’s usually a predictor of a fall. They were humbled by Bolton in the Football League Trophy. Their performances are getting worse. They’ve lost their keeper to injury. And whilst all of that tells us that they could drop points in this one, it is still more than conceivable that they bounce back with a win - they’ve done it before.

Huge pressure.

Prediction: Exeter 1-0 Plymouth

Big game pick - Oxford (20th) vs Bolton (6th)

Ali Maxwell

At this late stage in the season, you land on these games where both teams have a huge stake in the result for starkly different reasons. Where a side whose League One status is threatened for all the wrong reasons comes up against a side whose League One status is uncertain for all the right reasons.

Relegations and promotions are not made on a single fixture. But sometimes it feels like it—jeopardy! Every armament in the arsenal of the bottom four is aimed at Oxford.

At the same time, Wycombe and Derby are training what explosive material they have left on felling the current occupiers of sixth spot: Bolton.

The game in hand that Bolton have over 7th and 8th is a handy shield against the bombardment. But there will be nerves from the Bolton fans after only one win in six. In that time, they lost to Ipswich (3rd) and Portsmouth (9th) - hardly a capitulation. And with four points over the Easter weekend - a good, if not perfect return - I feel like they have the performance levels within their squad to make the cut. But nothing is certain in this league except perhaps Oxford’s observable improvement under Liam Manning.

Since he took over, Oxford have become harder to beat. Four draws in four, and those were points shared with Port Vale, Sheffield Wednesday, Peterborough and Morecambe - a good spread of the league’s bests, next bests, middlings and worst. Still dangerous from set-pieces, they are conceding fewer goals but they aren’t creating all that much. So the edge has to lie with Bolton.

Prediction: Oxford 0-2 Bolton

League Two

Big game pick - Rochdale (24th) vs Bradford (6th)

George Elek

Can they do it? Can Dale do it? Can they?

There is life in Rochdale. It may not be enough life, and it may have come too late, but whilst they are only six points away from securing their Football League status, they will hang their hat on hope.

That wasn’t the feeling a week or so ago when they released a statement all but accepting relegation. But two wins and a draw later, and… well, they can do it.

But will they? Bottom of the league, 41 played, 33 points. It’s dreadful. But if they can beat a side who not only seem secure in the play-off positions but will fancy their chances of automatic promotion too, you have to give them a chance. If they can reduce the arrears, narrow the gap to safety and leave themselves with the possibility of surviving on the final day…. then yes, yes they can.

But no, no they won’t (I don’t think so). They’ve had variance going their way. Scoring goals without creating many chances and I don’t think that’s sustainable. Especially facing off against Bradford. Bradford have conceded the fewest away. They don’t score many on the road either. But playing a team in Rochdale who don’t take many shots, you have to make Bradford favourite. They’ve only lost one in sixteen in the league, and despite a mini Dale revival, this is a game where I think Bradford come away with three points.

Prediction: Rochdale 0-1 Bradford.

Big game pick - Carlisle (4th) vs Northampton (2nd)

Ali Maxwell

The obvious one…

The M6 and M1 might unite Carlisle and Northampton, but it’s three points and a place in the top three that separates them. And scarcely anything separating the rest - it’s all incredibly tight at the top of League Two.

And that’s an exciting picture—a Magic Eye image that changes if you stare at it for too long. And we are staring at it. It’s captivating. There’s a lot of the Grand National about it. Approaching the last, and it’s not fanning out (well, Orient aside).

As Carlisle jockey for position, it’s notable that they’ve only scored in one of their last six games. They haven’t conceded many, so whilst it has cost them a place in the promotion spots, it hasn’t cost them too much in the way of points. They took four points out of six over the Easter weekend, but I don’t think that was the nerve-banishing return that Carlisle fans were hoping for.

As Northampton negotiate the jostling pack, they’ve made ground with four wins in six. And that’s come at the same time as a distressingly ill-timed injury crisis with ten or eleven players out of the squad, with the defence and central midfield suffering the most. But John Brady has seemed able to fortify those players left standing with an incredible constitution. Cobblers posses intangible qualities that helps them meet circumstance with determination—grit!

That overcomeability has little quantifiability. And when these two teams take to the pitch, I don’t see all that much - points aside - separating them. The underlying numbers over the past six show similar levels of performance, and as we hurtle to the final furlong, I think these two, in this game, will be neck and neck.

Prediction: Carlisle 1-1 Northampton

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EFL Fixtures

Championship

• Middlesbrough vs Norwich (Friday 7:45pm)

• Sheffield Utd vs Cardiff (Saturday 12:30pm)

• Blackpool vs Wigan

• Millwall vs Preston

• QPR vs Coventry

• Reading vs Burnley

• Rotherham vs Luton

• Stoke vs West Brom

• Sunderland vs Birmingham

• Swansea vs Huddersfield

• Watford vs Bristol City

• Blackburn vs Hull (Saturday 7:45pm)

League One

• Exeter vs Plymouth (Saturday 12pm)

• Cambridge Utd vs Peterborough (Saturday 12:30pm)

• Accrington Stanley vs Fleetwood Town

• Bristol Rovers vs Derby

• Burton Albion vs Sheff Wed

• Forest Green vs Barnsley

• Ipswich vs Charlton

• Lincoln City vs Port Vale

• MK Dons vs Cheltenham

• Morecambe vs Wycombe

• Oxford Utd vs Bolton

• Shrewsbury vs Portsmouth

League Two

• Carlisle vs Northampton

• Crawley Town vs Tranmere

• Crewe vs Walsall

• Gillingham vs Stockport

• Grimsby vs Mansfield

• Harrogate Town vs Doncaster

• Newport County vs Hartlepool

• Rochdale vs Bradford

• Salford vs Colchester

• Stevenage vs AFC Wimbledon

• Sutton Utd vs Leyton Orient

• Swindon vs Barrow