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Middlesbrough will host Swansea City at Riverside on Saturday in the opening round of the 2024-25 English Championship campaign. The home side had mixed results in the league last season, ultimately missing out on the promotion playoffs by four points as they failed to hit the 70-point mark for the first time since the 2020-21 campaign.
However, they performed well during the off-season, beating Heerenveen 1-0 in their final pre-season outing with summer signing Delano Burgzorg coming off the bench to score the game-winner from the spot and will now be looking to kick off their Championship campaign on a high.
Swansea City, meanwhile, failed to impress in the Championship last season, ending the campaign in 14th place, their second-lowest league finish in the last six years.
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They wrapped up their pre-season campaign with a 3-0 win over Portuguese outfit Rio Ave last weekend featuring goals from Jay Fulton, Kyle Naughton and Matt Grimes and will now be looking to carry that momentum into competitive action this weekend.
Middlesbrough vs Swansea City Head-to-Head and Key Numbers
- There have been 56 meetings between Middlesbrough and Swansea. The hosts have won 25 of those games while the visitors have won 19 times. There have been 12 draws between the two teams.
- The hosts have won their last four games in this fixture.
- The visitors are without a clean sheet in their last eight games in this fixture, a run dating back to 2020.
- Boro are without a win in their last eight Championship openers with their last league win on opening weekend coming back in the 2014-15 campaign.
Middlesbrough vs Swansea City Prediction
Middlesbrough have won four of their last five games and have lost just one of their last eight. They have won five of their last six home league games and will head into the weekend clash as favorites.
Swansea's latest result ended a three-game winless streak and they will be looking to build on that this weekend. They have, however, struggled for results in this fixture of late and could see defeat here.
Prediction: Middlesbrough 2-1 Swansea City
Middlesbrough vs Swansea City Betting Tips
Tip 1 - Result: Middlesbrough to win
Tip 2 - Goals - Over/under 2.5 - Over 2.5 goals (Three of the last four matches between the two teams have produced more than 2.5 goals)
Tip 3 - Both teams to score: YES (Both sides have found the back of the net in four of their last five matchups)
