Exeter City vs Birmingham City Prediction: Blues to bounce back

Exeter City welcome Birmingham City to St James Park on Tuesday (19:45, Sky Sports+) looking to get back to winning ways at the third attempt. The Grecians were comfortably beaten 3-0 by Wrexham at the weekend, and will be looking for a response here.

The Blues head into this one off the back of losing to 24th-placed side Shrewsbury Town at the weekend, and they are winless in their last three outings. Read on for my Exeter City vs Birmingham City prediction, accompanied by the latest match odds and team news.

Exter City vs Birmingham City Odds

Exeter are 9/2 to win this encounter, which gives them a theoretical chance of 18.2%. Birmingham are valued at 8/13 to take the three points, giving them an implied probability of 61.9%. The draw is available at 3/1 (25%).

Both teams to score is on offer at 5/6 and over 2.5 goals can be backed at the same odds.

Birmingham attacker and former Exeter man Jay Stansfield has scored six goals in League 1 so far, with his latest two coming in back-to-back appearances against Northampton Town and Shrewsbury Town. He is 13/10 to score anytime on his St James Park return.

Football Odds

Team News

Exeter will be able to welcome back former Birmingham midfielder Ryan Woods on Tuesday following his suspension for the red card he picked up against Lincoln City. Manager Gary Caldwell still has Yanic Wildschut and Patrick Jones unavailable due to injury, however.

The Grecians boss could be tempted to freshen up his side after their 3-0 defeat at the weekend, while noting that his side have blanked in three of their last four matches in the third tier.

Veteran midfielder Kevin McDonald could potentially be drafted in on Tuesday to add some more experience in the middle of the park, while the likes of Demetri Mitchell and Jay Bird will be hoping for an opportunity against the Blues.

For Birmingham, there was a lot of frustration after the Shrewsbury defeat, with manager Chris Davies suffering his first piece of criticism since taking over the reins in the summer. The cracks had been showing for the last few games and were completely exploited at the weekend.

The Blues boss is at a crossroads now and what happens next he needs to get right. There has been a decline in the performances since Ethan Laird and captain Krystian Bielik returned to the side in place of Taylor Gardner-Hickman and Ben Davies respectively.

Gardner-Hickman had excelled at right-back in Laird's absence and he was available at the weekend for when the latter came off - except Davies put influential midfielder Paik Seung-ho on the right side of the defence.

After the weekend's poor display, supporters are hoping that a lot of changes could be on the way in Devon, as Blues need to get back on track quickly. Exciting winger Ayumu Yokoyama could be handed his first league start as a result, while there is hope Iceland international Willum Willumsson will be deployed in a more central area because his team are lacking creativity at the moment.

Midfielder Marc Leonard will be hoping to get the nod to start too, and he'd likely come in for one of Paik or Tomoki Iwata.

Davies is limited in wide areas as both Emil Hansson and Scott Wright remain injured, while defender Lee Buchanan is still working his way up to full fitness.

Stansfield will likely continue up top, but fans are wanting him to feature on the right so that Alfie May can return to his early season form - before the £15m man signed on the dotted line on deadline day.

Birmingham City to win to nil @ 13/8

Birmingham and Davies need a convincing result here to ease supporters' minds. They find themselves five points behind leaders Wycombe Wanderers and sit fourth as things stand, but they do have games in hand on those around them.

These matches don't matter though unless their performances turn around. Blues' style of play has been focused on possession football but in the last few weeks it has been possession for possession's sake, as attacking quality in the final third has been lacking.

The visitors have been struggling against teams that play very defensively-minded against them and limiting any space. Davies needs to find a way through because a lot of teams will just do this knowing they can take points off the promotion favourites.

After the frustration of Saturday, the manager and players need to respond, and in style. They've seen Wrexham, a team they comfortably defeat earlier in the campaign, fire three past Tuesday's hosts, so they should be thinking that they can do the same.

Stansfield will be looking to score for the third-straight game, while May has five goals to his name this term. Willumsson and Iwata have scored four apiece, so there are plenty of players who can deliver the goods in front of goal for Birmingham - they just need the energy and performance so that their stars can shine.

It may not be a thrashing, because Blues haven't really done that so far against anyone, but I fancy them to win this encounter to nil, because they are in need of a strong defensive display as much as an attacking one.

Jay Stansfield anytime goalscorer @ 13/10

Birmingham may be in underwhelming form, but this man is doing his bit with goals in his last two matches. Stansfield is on the cusp of scoring in three successive matches for the first time this season, and I fancy him to do just that on Tuesday.

He's facing a defence that will be low on confidence after shipping three goals on Saturday, but with this being a return to his former club, I think we will bear witness to the classic 'old player comes back to haunt former side' narrative.

Offers

Acca Flex: Place a pre-match 5+ leg Football accumulator and get a CASH bonus up to 100% if all of your selections win or your money back as CASH if one leg lets you down

You can read all our latest Football Betting Tips at our dedicated Betfred Insights content hub.