The International friendlies continue tomorrow night with Wales and Northern Ireland in action and there is a full set of League One and Two fixtures taking place this afternoon. Wales travel to Ukraine and will be without first choice names like Gareth Bale, Aron Ramsey, James Collins and Andy King. They failed to shine without this quartet at home against Northern Ireland last week and will do well to come away with a result tonight.
Northern Ireland welcome Slovenia to Belfast and Michael O’Neill’s men are on an impressive unbeaten run going back to March 2015. They are one of the form teams heading to the Euro 2016 Championships this summer and if they continue to reproduce their qualification form they should prove too good for Slovenia who were flattered by their qualification thanks to a very weak group.
On the domestic front League One leaders Burton are four points clear at the top and within touching distance of automatic promotion. They travel to South London tonight where they will face fifth place Millwall, who are still fighting to maintain their play-off hopes. The Lions have only lost one of their last seven league home games, but will be weakened by the loss of three influential first team players who are all on International duty.
Second place Wigan are on an unbeaten run of 17 league games and are also closing in on automatic promotion. The Latics face a tricky encounter at the DW Stadium this afternoon against in-form Rochdale, who have won six of their last seven in the league and are still in with a fighting chance of reaching the play-off places.
Other League One games that are of interest in terms of promotion this afternoon are sixth place Bradford’s trip to bottom of the table Crewe, seventh place Barnsley’s trip to mid table Port Vale and fourth place Gillingham’s trip to 16th placed Bury. With Crewe almost certainly relegated and Port Vale and Bury having nothing left to play for in the league, all three promotion hopeful’s look good value for wins this afternoon.
If Millwall lose against Burton and Bradford and Gillingham win it will strengthen their play-off hopes considerably, especially Gillingham’s as they have a game in hand. If Barnsley win and Millwall lose, the Lions could find themselves level on points with Barnsley in sixth place.