Birmingham City vs Preston North End - prediction, team news, lineups

Both looking to extremity their respective campaigns of midtable mediocrity connected a precocious note, Birmingham City and Preston North End fastener horns astatine St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park successful the Championship connected Wednesday.

Blues secured a respectable constituent astatine the location of Hull City implicit the weekend, whilst the Lilywhites were defeated by relegation-threatened West Bromwich Albion successful Lancashire.

Match preview

Ending a wretched four-match losing tally connected the road, Birmingham fought backmost to gain a stock of the spoils astatine the MKM Stadium connected Saturday, erstwhile Tomoki Iwata rifled location an equaliser from extracurricular the container successful the 77th minute.

Collecting 4 points from their past 2 second-tier contests, Blues are connected people to decorativeness a disappointing run connected a tally of affirmative results, fixed that the summertime of 2025 nurtured ambitions of a promotion push.

For 1 crushed oregon another, not adjacent a top-six complaint has transpired for Chris Davies's troops, who are presently occupying 14th spot successful the Championship standings, 12 points down sixth-placed Hull.

As a result, Blues are 1 of the second-tier teams already looking up to adjacent season, with 2025 accomplishment Phil Neumann impressing implicit caller matches, staking his assertion for the centre-back spot alongside skipper Christoph Klarer successful 2026-27.

Birmingham person a brace of St Andrew's matches wrong the abstraction of 4 days to reason their Championship location schedule, with lone Ipswich Town (1) and Premier League-bound Coventry City (2) losing less games successful beforehand of their ain supporters this term.

Preston's promising four-game unbeaten tally (W2 D2) came to a grinding halt connected Saturday day astatine Deepdale, wherever West Brom extended their undefeated streak to an awesome 8 matches.

Lilywhites caput manager Paul Heckingbottom was highly captious of his team's combat and enactment complaint pursuing an uninspiring show against the Baggies, who won the contention courtesy of efforts from Josh Maja and Daryl Dike.

On a ngo to debar back-to-back defeats, Preston are sitting successful 16th spot successful the Championship array up of Wednesday's travel to the Second City, level connected points with hosts Birmingham.

Winning conscionable 2 of their 9 distant matches successful 2026, the Lilywhites person struggled to airs a accordant menace connected the road, nevertheless they managed a standout 2-1 occurrence astatine the basal of Charlton Athletic connected April 11.

Whilst the Preston corporate person thing tangible to combat for during the remaining 3 fixtures, eight-goal attackers Alfie Devine, Lewis Dobbin and Milutin Osmajic are battling for the club's Golden Boot.

Birmingham City Championship form:

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Preston North End Championship form:

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Team News

Birmingham welcomed Alex Cochrane backmost to the transportation astatine Hull aft a troublesome ankle injury, with the left-back playing for the archetypal clip since New Year's Day.

As a result, Kai Wagner yet has contention for a spot connected the near broadside of Blues' defence, with Lee Buchanan (knee) inactive sidelined.

Marvin Ducksch returned to first-team duties implicit the play aft his drinking driving charge, though Jay Stansfield and August Priske are the preferred guardant pairing astatine the moment.

Managing conscionable 5 appearances since his mid-season power from Portsmouth, Callum Lang (shoulder) is presently connected the Preston attraction table.

Last featuring against Blackburn Rovers connected February 20, one-time Championship victor Jamal Lewis (thigh) is retired for the remainder of the term.

Birmingham City imaginable starting lineup:

Beadle; Laird, Neumann, Klarer, Wagner; Solis, Paik, Vicente, Stansfield, Gray; Priske

Preston North End imaginable starting lineup:

Iversen; Storey, Gibson, Hughes; Offiah, Devine, Thompson, Small, Potts; Osmajic, Dobbin

We say: Birmingham City 1-0 Preston North End

On location ungraded and with the unit off, Birmingham are looking to enactment connected a amusement for their supporters against Preston.

The Lilywhites are debased connected assurance pursuing the location decision implicit the weekend, and it could beryllium consecutive losses for the visitors.

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