Birmingham City vs Middlesbrough - prediction, team news, lineups

Aiming to pick up their first St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park win of the 2026-27 season, Birmingham City welcome promotion-chasing Middlesbrough to the Second City for a Championship match on Saturday afternoon.

Blues showcased their powers of recovery to secure a comeback victory at Derby County last time out, whereas Boro come into this weekend's clash following a four-goal thriller with Millwall on Teesside.

After all of the well-documented away struggles last season during their return to the Championship, Birmingham City recorded their third competitive away win of the campaign last weekend at strugglers Derby.

Blues were not disheartened by an opening goal for Rams star Bobby Clark and were ultimately deserving of the three points, with headed efforts from Carlos Vicente and Paik Seung-Ho completing the comeback.

Providing the killer ball for each of Birmingham's goals in the East Midlands, Liam Millar has bagged three assists in as many appearances since joining on loan from Hull City, suggesting that the failure to re-sign Ibrahim Osman was not a season-defining moment.

Following just the single defeat across their opening seven second-tier battles (W2 D4), Chris Davies's men are currently occupying 10th spot in the Championship standings, a single point behind the top eight.

With their away form markedly improved from last season, Birmingham now need to recreate their St Andrew's results of 2025-26, with Blues winless across four competitive matches (D3 L1) in the Second City so far.

Promotion contenders Middlesbrough were hurtling towards a first home defeat since early April on Tuesday night when Tairyk Arconte and ex-Birmingham striker Lyndon Dykes put Millwall two goals ahead at the Riverside.

However, Boro staged an excellent comeback in the second period to avoid a second league loss of the season, with summer arrivals Will Lankshear and Amario Cozier-Duberry both finding the net in the 2-2 draw.

As a result, Kim Hellberg's boys extended their second-tier unbeaten run to five matches (W3 D2) and kept pace with the early front-runners in the division, with Middlesbrough sitting level on points with first-placed West Ham United on 14 points.

Impressively, Boro have won each of their past five Championship visits to St Andrew's, with the Teessiders' most recent defeat at Birmingham coming in October 2019, when Odin Bailey netted an 89th-minute winner for the hosts.

Taking into account matches in the Second City and at the Riverside, Middlesbrough have won the past seven games between the two sides, scoring 13 goals and conceding just 2 along the way.

Despite netting the winner at Derby, Paik is likely to remain on the bench, with head coach Davies set to prefer the more defensive-minded Tomoki Iwata in middle against one of the Championship's top teams.

Millar has certainly done enough to keep the left-wing spot ahead of Demarai Gray, whilst Carlos Vicente is operating on the right flank following a minor injury to former Sunderland star Patrick Roberts.

Kanya Fujimoto has secured a loan move to Japanese side Tokyo Verdy for the remainder of the campaign, although fellow wantaway Marvin Ducksch remains a frustrated figure on the Birmingham bench.

Middlesbrough have received a major injury boost in the build-up to this weekend, with star centre-back Adilson Malanda likely to recover in time for the trip to the Second City on Saturday.

There is a fitness setback elsewhere in the Boro backline, though, with Alfie Jones picking up a calf issue during the 4-3 victory over Norwich City last weekend.

Birmingham City possible starting lineup:

Beadle; Osayi-Samuel, Neumann, Klarer, Cochrane; Iwata, Solis, Vicente, Stansfield, Millar; Priske

Vitek; Brittain, Malanda, Phillips, Arfsten; Morris, Peart-Harris, Cozier-Duberry, McGree, Joseph; Lankshear

After home draws with Wolverhampton Wanderers and Southampton, Birmingham are back at St Andrew's to face another one of the Championship's promotion favourites.

The big occasions tend to suit Davies's side, and we are envisaging a competitive share of the spoils on Saturday.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.

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