The 2023/24 Football League season is set to kick off on Friday night with a Championship game when newly promoted Sheffield Wednesday host former Premier League club Southampton in an 8pm BST kick-off at Hillsborough. Every week this season, EFL expert Gab Sutton will be sharing his Championship weekend football tips in an effort to beat the bookies. Check out his opening video of the season along with his picks for this weekend’s action below.
Middlesbrough vs Millwall – 3 pm BST, Saturday, 5th August
“Middlesbrough, although they’ve made some good additions and they’ve signed some good creative, lively players, even in forward areas. But what concerns me is they’ve not added an out-and-out centre forward. And especially, Josh Coburn, I think has been injured in preseason. Matthew Hoppe, is he ready to step up? Morgan Rogers? Is he a centre-forward? There are question marks up top I think for Boro and that’s why I’m not willing to back them to score more than once against the Millwall side that are so defensively resolute under Gary Rowett and will be solid outsiders, I think once again.” – Gab
Total Goals Scored by Middlesbrough Under 1.5 @ 8/11 with Bet365 bonus code
Norwich vs Hull – 3 pm BST, Saturday, 5th August
“I’m very keen to get on board with the Tigers this season. As you’ll know if you’ll have seen my 1 to 24 I think they’re going to finish in the playoffs this season. I think they’re massively underrated and certainly by the bookies by the looks of things because they only lost 6 of their 28 league games under Liam Rosenior [last season] and, for me, I think that 28-game block is a better way of judging Hull City than actually the 46-game block over the course of last season because the other 18 games were played under Shota Arveladze and I think we saw under Liam Rosenior that the quality of management, the quality of communication just massively improved. And as soon as Rosenior took charge, players knew their roles and responsibilities, they looked far more organized.” – Gab
Hull Double Chance @ 11/10 with Unibet
Stoke vs Rotherham – 3 pm BST, Saturday, 5th August
“I’m also going to back Rotherham to avoid defeat at Stoke at odds against quotes. I know Stoke, there’s a lot of optimism around Stoke. Really the concern for me is that the majority of their signings have come in from the 21st of July onwards. And that’s a little bit of a red flag for me because they’re going to be expected to hit the ground running. And they’re facing a side like Rotherham where they’ve got to be very clear on those patterns of play because they’re probably going to be facing a relatively deep block and probably going to have more of the ball. That’s actually a thing that Stoke City struggled with last season and I’m not sure that 14 days is going to be enough time for them to establish those patterns of play that are going to unlock the more defensively-minded opposition. So that’s a bit of the concern that I have with Stoke.” – Gab
Rotherham Double Chance @ 5/4 with William Hill promo code
Don’t forget to check out the Punters Lounge podcast episode that covered the Championship Predictions for the 2023/24 season. Do you agree with Darran and Gab? Head on over to the popular Championship forum to give your thoughts.
All odds are accurate at the time of writing.
