Two betting picks for the upcoming Championship play-off semi finals

The Championship season only ended on Wednesday, but time is now of the essence and such is the nature of professional football right now the play-offs need to be completed as quickly as possible. 

Last night Swansea overcame Brentford 1-0 at the Liberty Stadium to give themselves an advantage ahead of the return leg on Wednesday, and this evening Fulham make the trip to South Wales to take on Cardiff in the first leg of their semi-final duel. 

We've previewed tonight's game below, and served up a football tip for you to consider based on a number of factors. 

Tonight's match between Cardiff and Fulham is expected to be a very cagey affair. The Bluebirds were floating in and around the play-off places for the most-part of 2020 and ended up finishing fifth ahead of Forest and Swansea with a strong end to their season.

Neil Harris’ side were the fourth-highest scorers in the second-tier this time out, netting 68 goals in 46 games, but interestingly ranked as low as tenth for goals conceded (58), suggesting some defensive frailties. 

With three wins in their last three games, the Welsh outfit are certainly the most in-form side in the play-off semi-finals and will definitely feel as though they stand a great chance of overcoming an inconsistent Fulham side to make it into the final at Wembley next month. 

If they are to do so, however, they’ll need to deal with recently crowned Golden Boot winner Aleksandar Mitrovic, who as we all know can flip a game on its head within a blink of the eye. 

Fulham looked as if they’d be going up via automatic promotion for large parts of this testing campaign but inconsistency has ultimately let them down. Despite hitting form since the restart (unbeaten in seven - five wins, two draws), the Cottagers missed out on a top-two finish by just two points in the end, with a final day draw with relegated Wigan providing a timid end to what has been a successful season by all accounts.

As touched on earlier I am expecting this match to be a very tight affair, where Cardiff will probably adopt a conservative approach so not to concede any goals on home soil. 

With a fired up Mitrovic to contend with, that job suddenly becomes very difficult and looking at their defensive track record against the Londoners in recent meetings (10 goals conceded in five games), I think that they will find the net here. With this in mind, both teams to score and a full-time draw is my play for this one.