Birmingham v Fulham

Birmingham City and Fulham will fight it out on Tuesday evening to secure a spot in Round Three of the League Cup. Both head into this encounter following weekend victories in league action, both by a score of 2-1.

The Blues would emerge with three points from their Saturday away assignment at Leyton Orient, where all three goals were scored inside an action-packed first 20 minutes. Summer signing Alfie May had a hand in each goal by scoring and assisting respectively, meaning he has scored in all three League One contests played this season.

Marco Silva’s Whites were also made to work to get the better of newly-promoted Leicester City at Craven Cottage a few days ago. They too would find the back of the net in the opening 20 minutes of the match; this coming from club-record signing Emile Smith Rowe firing in his first in Fulham colours.

League matters, however, are now put to one side, for Tuesday at least, as this League Cup tie becomes the main focus. This is one of only two League One v Premier League matches in the Second Round, meaning the stage is set for Birmingham to try and cause a substantial shock in this televised fixture.

The EFL Cup gets underway for another season, and like every other footie competition, our expert football betting predictions have got you covered. While you’re here, make sure to check out our Championship acca tips and EFL betting tips before the return of our Premier League coverage this weekend.

Also, we will be keeping you busy with a constant supply of expertly researched selections including our both teams to score tips, as well as predictions for all of you bet builder lovers out there, including card betting tips, player shots on target tips, and fouls betting predictions once the Premier League season kicks off.

Birmingham v Fulham Best Bets

Birmingham v Fulham

Tuesday 20:00

Tom Cairney to score

The cup is not the priority for Birmingham this season, who are fully focused on winning promotion. As such, Blues boss Chris Davies could significantly rotate his starting XI, just as he did in the previous round. Therefore, they could lose a little momentum and be somewhat more disjointed for a team in good form. Any kind of shortcomings here will be punished by a Premier League opponent, who although will rotate as well, Fulham understandably have terrific strength in depth.

Players such as Harry Wilson, Tom Cairney, Jay Stansfield, Harrison Reed and Ryan Sessegnon, to name but a few, may well be called upon by Marco Silva, who would expect his side to prevail against a team two leagues below that may not be at full strength. Therefore, there is strong appeal on the 1.8 on offer from Paddy Power on a Fulham win and over 1.5 goals. This was a winning selection in 11 of The Cottagers’ 13 league victories last season, as well as in their only triumph in 2024/25 so far. Also, all of the six League Cup ties from their run to the Semi-Final stage in the previous campaign all contained two or more goals.

Another selection worthy of consideration is Fulham playmaker Tom Cairney to be an anytime goalscorer, which is attractively priced at 4.5 with Paddy Power. This is a player that will be desperate to impress given he is mainly a sub in league action these days. Scoring in two of his last three appearances against Birmingham also proves he has good memories in this particular fixture. He only started 18 matches for his club in all competitions last season and averaged 46.5 minutes per game given he only made 18 starts overall, and while a return of two goals isn’t amazing it did include scoring against a lower-league club in the League Cup.

📂 Birmingham v Fulham Cheat Sheet

There are so many ways to use our Cheat Sheets and we encourage you to find your own formula to pick a winning bet builder, however, if you’re unsure of how to use a Cheat Sheet, just click the link for some quick tips to help you make the most of it.

You can find even more match stats for this match on my bet builder stats tool, along with official line-ups one hour before kick-off.

To make sure you’re getting the full value of the betting market, check out our list of the best betting sites for accumulators and the top bet builder sites. You can take advantage of all the latest free bet offers and weekly free bet clubs, while our collated list of the best UK sports betting sites is also worth browsing.

We are committed to helping you become better sports punters, so if you’re unfamiliar with certain betting terminologies, we have plenty of useful resources to keep you clued up with such as our xG in football article, available on-site. It is also worth checking out our guide to betting on corners, as well as our advice on how to bet on the fouls won market.

📊 Birmingham Form and Stats

For the first time since August 2023, Birmingham City are enjoying a three-match winning streak in all competitions. This was at the beginning of last season when they went on to be relegated. They may be confident as a result but they’ll have to be wary of being caught cold early on, which has been a theme so far. In fact, three of the four goals they’ve conceded this season in all competitions were in the first-half of matches.

A big reason Chris Davies’ side have had some early season success is their ability to dominate possession. In all competitions, they have averaged a huge 67.75% of the ball however it won’t be so easy to reach that kind of number against a Premier League team. Nevertheless, The Blues could potentially take their strong defensive resolve into this intimidating clash as they’ve averaged an xGA of 0.76 across all competitions so far, with Charlton Athletic being the only opponent to achieve anything over 1.00, which largely came as a result of a missed penalty in Round One.

Although this is a League One club hosting a Premier League one, there is a case to be made for this clash to be a low-scoring affair. This is based upon the number of goals in recent Birmingham home encounters. Out of the previous seven played here in all competitions, six saw under 2.5 goals, including five with exactly one goal in the match.

This year marks 14 years since City won the League Cup back in 2011 but in recent times it has not been an enjoyable competition for them to be involved in. Since the beginning of 2017, Birmingham have won only four out of 11 ties; six of which contained two goals or less. Another bad omen ahead of their upcoming home cup clash is knowing they’ve lost four of their previous five home League Cup games, which included the 2-0 setback to Fulham three years ago.

📊 Fulham Form and Stats

Just like last season, Fulham have opened the campaign with a win and a defeat after two Premier League games. Losing to an 87th-minute goal away to Manchester United was followed by netting a goal in each half when defeating Leicester City at the weekend. They’ve actually scored a goal in both the first and second-half in each of their previous five league victories; four of which contained over 2.5 goals.

The top-flight club can be expected to rotate their starting XI for this Second Round fixture, which will highly likely open the door for long-serving midfielder Tom Cairney to play from the off. This would be a wise move by manager Marco Silva considering the 33-year-old has scored in two of his last three appearances v Birmingham. He is also going in search of his fourth career League Cup goal and a fourth may not be far away knowing the first three would all come in away ties.

The Craven Cottage club may well enter this battle as favourites to progress against a lower-league opponent, however, they don’t have a strong away record to necessarily approach this too confidently. In the Premier League last season, just Burnley, Luton and Sheffield United, who all went on to be relegated, won fewer away league matches. Three of the four wins they accumulated at least occurred in 2024 but only two away league clean sheets since the start of the year has to be a concern.

Fulham boss Silva has been in the job for over three years now and in that time he has overseen nine League Cup fixtures, which started against Birmingham in 2021, and it was last season where they had the most success. In 2023/24, the 47-year-old guided the club to the Semi-Final stage of the tournament, only to be knocked out by Liverpool. During that cup run, all six matches would feature both teams scoring and 66.67% of Fulham goals scored were either in the first (0-20) and last (70-end) 20-minute segments of games.

⚔️ Birmingham v Fulham Head-to-Head

Between the years of 2003 and 2011, Birmingham v Fulham was a regular Premier League fixture. It was during this period that The Blues secured their one and only League Cup. However, the next lengthy batch of head-to-head encounters would predominantly be Championship affairs, the most recent coming in January 2022, where Fulham were emphatic 6-2 winners. This included current Cottagers players Antonee Robinson and Tom Cairney finding the back of the net.

That big victory extended Birmingham’s recent pain in this renewal as it was Fulham’s fifth consecutive triumph against their West Midlands opponents. Within that sequence, there was a League Cup Second Round tie held at St Andrew’s Stadium in 2021, meaning history will repeat itself three years later. Tuesday’s hosts will be hoping to avoid the 2-0 loss they suffered that time. Striker Jay Stansfield was one of the scorers that night and he enjoyed a very successful loan spell with Birmingham last season; netting 12 league goals in the process.

May 2018 was the last time in which City had any success in this head-to-head battle. Fulham’s Cairney was once again still in the team scoring goals and the same can be said of Blues striker Lukas Jutkiewicz, who bagged the first goal after 15 minutes. The 35-year-old started Birmingham’s Round One success against Charlton earlier this month.

* We recommend waiting for confirmed team line-ups before placing any bets.

* All odds displayed correct at the time of publishing.

18+ please gamble responsibly.