A dramatic weekend in the Championship continues on Sunday afternoon with a match between two sides who are eager for the points for extremely different needs when Nottingham Forest face off against Luton Town at the City Ground.
Nottingham Forest have seen Leeds lose this weekend already and have a great chance to close the gap on them in the race for automatic promotion, while Luton saw everyone around them fail to win on Saturday and they can put a dent into their deficit at the bottom here. The game is live on Sky and nicely set up.
Nottingham Forest
After a really positive start to the season under Sabri Lamouchi, Nottingham Forest had a December to forget, but then Christmas came along and something clicked because they haven’t lost in the league since then and have won three out of the four matches, and would have won a fourth last week had Reading not answered their 97th minute opener immediately. Forest look back in good form at the right time.
One criticism that could always be thrown their way is that they don’t score enough goals. They only have two more this season than their opponents here and they are bottom of the league, but they are a side who set up to do a lot of work on the counter attack so they are not in the modern trend of dominating position and looking to play in the opposition final third. That is reflected in the goals against column where only Leeds United and Brentford have conceded fewer.
Luton Town
It was always going to be a huge jump for Luton Town but I think the leap has been bigger than many ever envisaged and clearly they are struggling as a result. They go into this match without a win in seven matches, picking up just one point in that time, and with an away record that is scary it is so bad. That said though, you could argue they have a free shot at this match given that they’ve lost no further ground at the bottom so far this weekend.
One thing Luton do have on their side is that they score plenty of goals. Only Barnsley in the bottom 10 in the league have scored more goals than Luton. The problem comes in keeping them out, something the Hatters have been atrocious at this term, keeping just one clean sheet in their 27 matches and conceding a whopping 58 goals in the process. They are in desperate need of a positive result but their current form suggests it is unlikely to come here.
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Team News
Nottingham Forest have registered no new injury concerns for this match with defenders Carl Jenkinson and Michael Hefele both available for the game. Lamouchi will be without Tendayi Darikwa once again though.
Danny Hytlon, Dan Potts and Izzy Brown both got minutes in a behind closed doors friendly in midweek and the latter two could return here. Callum McManaman and Martin Cranie are expected to miss out once again.
Betting
Luton are playing here so expect goals in the game. Luton’s away record is dreadful. In their last five games on their travels they have conceded 18 goals and you actually have to go all the way back to Derby in the first week of October for the last time one of their away matches did not contain more than 2.5 goals. That comes as a result of the amount they concede but also because they look to score, possibly a little more than they should do.
Nottingham Forest aren’t quite as open and high scoring but they’ll do well not to score against this opposition. Four of the last eight Forest matches have had over 2.5 goals and Forest won 2-1 when these two sides met at Kenilworth Road earlier in the season. I don’t see Luton keeping out the likes of Lewis Grabban all afternoon but they’ll threaten going the other way so even at 8/11 over 2.5 goals looks good here.
Tips
WON – Back Over 2.5 goals for a 4/10 stake at 1.73 with Betfair
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