Bristol City v Swansea EFL Championship Tips: Robins appeal at evens | OneFootball

EFL Championship

Bristol City boast a strong home record

Play-off-chasing Bristol City welcome out-of-form Swansea to Ashton Gate on Sunday afternoon. Betfair writer Mark O'Haire is backing the Robins to pick up top honours.

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Bristol City v SwanseaSunday February 9, 12:00

Bristol City reduced to nine men

Mark Sykes' classy finish secured nine-man Bristol City an unlikely point against Oxford last weekend. The Republic of Ireland international curled a first-time shot into the top corner from Max Bird's 65th-minute free-kick to cancel out Oxford's opener just six minutes earlier, with neither team particularly impressing in a scrappy encounter that lacked rhythm.

Post-match, Robins boss Liam Manning hit out at referee Oliver Langford's 'inconsistency' after he sent off two Bristol City players. City went down to 10 men after half an hour when midfielder Joe Williams was shown a straight red card for upending Will Vaulks and defender Ross McCrorie followed late on after receiving his second booking of the contest.

Manning said, "I think the referee had an extremely poor performance. I think he was just inconsistent for both sides, which creates the frustration. However, the second half epitomises what you want culturally, the lads' desire to run, compete and stick together. To defend the box, to respond to going behind - the lads should be proud of themselves."

Williams 'in a world of pain' with Swansea

Swansea chief Luke Williams said he was 'in a world of pain' and described last week as his toughest in football after the Swans began life without skipper Matt Grimes with a home defeat to Coventry. Two first-half goals condemned the Welsh outfit to a fourth successive league loss and means Swansea have taken only one point from a possible 18 in 2025.

Without Grimes, Swansea looked bereft of ideas and have now fallen to within seven points of the drop-zone and were booed off by some sections of their support at half-time and full-time. Williams said. "I am in a world of pain. It's been an incredibly tough week, and a tough month. It's something that is going to define many of us, whether we can come through it."

Swansea did manage to strengthen their squad before the January transfer window closed with highly-rated midfielder Lewis O'Brien arriving on loan from Nottingham Forest. Defender Hannes Delcroix also joined on loan from Burnley this month but moves for Man City's Jacob Wright and Red Bull Salzburg's Bobby Clark failed to materialise.

Robins fair favourites

Matches between Bristol City and Swansea have tended to be competitive affairs with the Robins edging head-to-head supremacy over the past five years (W5-D4-L4). That sample includes a W2-D2-L1 return for City over the last five meetings with the hosts also boasting a W2-D3-L1 record when facing the Swans at Ashton Gate since the beginning of 2018/19.

Bristol City 1.93 start the weekend just two points off the top-six. The Robins are W7-D4-L0 at Ashton Gate when excluding the top-three and ranked seventh for home Expected Points (xP) across the campaign. City are W6-D2-L0 when welcoming bottom-half opposition and have conceded only 11 goals in 14 home league fixtures, keeping six clean sheets.

Swansea 4.40 have W0-D1-L5 in their last six Championship dates, scoring three goals and conceding 17 along the way. The Welsh club also suffered a heavy FA Cup exit to Southampton during their recent lean spell and are W4-D2-L9 on their travels - that includes W1-D1-L6 at top-half teams, failing to score in six of those eight dates.

City to seal low-scoring success

Bristol City have picked up 16 points from a possible 18 at Ashton Gate going back to late November with four of their five league victories in that run seeing the Robins silence their opposition. Liam Manning's men have recorded shutouts in six of their past 11 home league matches and look well capable of repeating the feat on Sunday afternoon.

However, a safer angle of attack is to support Bristol City to win and Under 4.5 Goals at 1/1. The Robins have seen that goal line breached only once in their 30 league games and gives us a range of correct scores onside, such as 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 4-0, 2-1 or 3-1.

Just three of Swansea's Championship contests have broken the Over 4.5 Goals barrier and only one of their previous 20 away days have seen the goal line bust. The visitors are rock-bottom of the four-game Expected Points (xP) rankings and only two sides have conceded a higher Expected Goals (xG) figure over the last eight second-tier showdowns.

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Recommended bets

Back Bristol City to win and Under 4.5 Goals @ 1/1