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Match Preview: Coventry City v Middlesbrough

The Sky Blues hosts Middlesbrough on Monday night at the CBS Arena in a top-of-the-table clash under the lights.

The new league-leaders are looking to make it seven league wins on the bounce following victory at Brammall Lane last Monday.

After dropping more points at home to Oxford last weekend, the Sky Blues slipped to second place and have questions to answer against an in-form Middlesbrough.

Either one of these sides have been top of the Championship since gameweek four, but the Sky Blues led from the start of October until last Monday where Kim Hellberg's side stole top spot.

When the sides met at the end of November at The Riverside, Frank Lampard's side took a convincing 4-2 win against former Sky Blues assistant manager and Boro interim Adi Viveash to go ten points clear.

Following on from this, momentum has changed heavily, as it often does in this competitive league.

Hellberg took over from Rob Edwards and has transformed their style of play and are now scoring goals for fun, whereas Coventry are struggling for goals, clean sheets and ultimately victories.

Last five games
COV: W W L L D
BORO: W W W W W

However, despite Boro's recent form, it is no secret that they have struggled against the Sky Blues in recent years, losing the last six encounters between the sides including the 22/23 Championship Playoff semi-final.

Boro have never managed to beat the Sky Blues at the CBS Arena, and their last win against Coventry was in January 2022; a 1-0 win at the Riverside.

Ipswich will be watching this game knowing they could end up just four points behind Coventry with two games in hand if they suffer defeat again tonight, but could find themselves seven and eight points off the top two if the Sky Blues find three points tonight.

Stat watch
Top scorer: Morgan Whittaker (11)
Top assists: Hayden Hackney (5)
Clean sheets: 9
Most yellows: Luke Ayling (6)
Highest xG: Tommy Conway (9.1)
Shots on target per 90: Morgan Whittaker (1)

Ref watch
The referee for this game is Thomas Bramall. He is a primarily a Premier League referee and has refereed two championship games this season.

He refereed the Sky Blues twice last season, a 0-3 win at tonight's visitors, as well as a 0-1 win at Millwall.



















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