Championship midweek preview: Barnsley bow for Jose Morais, Aston Villa out to bounce back
Watch goals from eight Championship games as they go in on Soccer Special from 7.30pm
Tuesday 20 February 2018 20:30, UK
Jose Morais takes charge of Barnsley for the first time as part of a busy midweek schedule in the Sky Bet Championship - and midfielder Joe Williams reckons the club's next three games could make or break their season.
The Reds will bid to climb out of the Championship's bottom three in new manager Morais' first game in charge when bottom club Burton visit Oakwell on Tuesday evening.
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Successive trips to relegation rivals Birmingham and Hull follow in the space of eight days and Williams hopes Morais, who coached under Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Chelsea, can spark a revival.
"We've got a big, big three games coming up, but we already knew how big they are," said Williams. "We're all working hard. We know what to do.
"They call them six-pointers because they're obviously against teams around you and you need to be beating them if you want to be finishing above them. We don't want to draw or lose them, we're going out to win all three of them and beyond that we're looking to kick on and finish as high as possible."
At the other end of the table, Aston Villa aim to put Saturday's defeat at Fulham behind them by leapfrogging Cardiff back into the top two with a home win against Preston.
Preston, unbeaten in their last six league games, can climb into a play-off place with victory, while Villa are the only top-six side in action on Tuesday night.
Sheffield United are looking to close to within a point of the play-off places with a home win against QPR and Middlesbrough will also hope to stay in touch by beating Hull at the Riverside.
Hull mustered only their second league win under Nigel Adkins at Nottingham Forest prior to last weekend's FA Cup defeat at Chelsea.
Brentford will keep their outside play-off hopes alive if they inflict a third straight league defeat on struggling Birmingham, while Nottingham Forest are chasing their first league win in five against Reading.
Sheffield Wednesday go in search of back-to-back league victories for the first time under Jos Luhukay at in-form Millwall and relegation battlers Bolton and Sunderland meet at the Macron Stadium.
On Wednesday, Fulham will look to extend their 10-game unbeaten league run with a trip to play-off rivals Bristol City, and Neil Warnock's Cardiff travel to Portman Road to face Ipswich looking to maintain pressure on Wolves.
The league leaders host Norwich and will be hoping to return to winning ways after a hard-fought 1-1 draw with Preston at the weekend, while Derby and Leeds will engage in battle at Pride Park, live on Sky Sports Football.
