The opening weekend of the 2025/26 Championship season has offered us an exciting clash on Friday night as two of the early promotion contenders, Birmingham City and Ipswich Town, meet at St.Andrews.
The Blues were excellent in their League One campaign, which saw the home side comfortably win the League One title as early as April and this summer, the Blues have once again showed their muscles in the transfer market with multitude of signings as they look to potentially secure a consecutive promotion, similar to their counterparts achievement over the last three years. Birmingham City have signed the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi and a welcome return to Demari Gray to bolster their attacking department and established centre-back Eiran Cashin from Brighton & Hove Albion on loan.
The strength for Birmingham City's success last season was undoubtedly their home form, as the Blues made St.Andrews a fortress last season. Birmingham City remained unbeaten at home last season in League One, having won 19 and drawn four of their 23 league games on home soil. The Blues are coming into this game with three wins from their previous four matches, including a 1-0 victory against Premier League side Nottingham Forest.
Ipswich Town are expected to be one of the frontrunners for automatic promotion, given the solidity of their squad and their previous success in this division under Kieran McKenna. The Tractor Boys suffered the loss of star striker Liam Delap to Chelsea, however, with proven quality in Sammie Szmodics and George Hirst in the division, Ipswich are bound to have enough quality going forward this season.
Kieran McKenna's side are coming into this game with four straight victories from pre-season and with over 2.5 goals scored in each of the last five matches involving the visitors. The Tractor Boys do have a good record against Birmingham City with no losses in four, however, given the nature of the Blues' squad at that point and the home record for the hosts last season, Ipswich Town may be looking at a defeat here.
We are going for a 2-1 win for Birmingham City. Ipswich Town have shown that they can certainly pose a threat, with the visitors having scored first in four of their last five games. However, Birmingham will just have the edge over Ipswich Town in front of a raucous crowd on Friday night.
Birmingham City 2-1 Ipswich Town.
