The football fixtures are all over the place this weekend with the move to avoid clashing with the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, which means that we have two matches in the Sky Bet Championship on Friday evening.
The end of the season is firmly in sight now so every match is going to matter. On Friday we get to see one of the two matches live on TV while the other one will be able to be followed in all the other usual places.
Reading vs Cardiff City (18.00 – Sky Main Event & Sky Football)
The televised action on Friday night comes from the Madejski Stadium where two sides who threatened to make the top six but have dropped away in recent times collide as Reading host Cardiff City.
After a strong burst into the top six, Cardiff have dropped right off and won’t be contending the play-offs. Reading have followed suit as Barnsley and Bournemouth have got stronger but they aren’t yet without a chance of getting back into the top six, but anything but a win here would make that extremely difficult. The form of both these sides is a little too inconsistent to be able to predict how this one will go with any certainty so I’m happy to sit this one out.
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Blackburn Rovers vs Derby County (18.00)
The match away from the TV cameras on Friday evening comes from Ewood Park where two very out of form sides meet in what might look like a huge match come the end of the season as Blackburn Rovers host Derby County.
Blackburn are too good to go down but if Rotherham United suddenly get a spurt on then they will be right in trouble if they don’t arrest this slump in form. Derby are already in that trouble and go into this match needing a win of their own. Derby have been poor on the road this season. They have only won one of their last eight away games, which was at Wycombe when they scored a winner in the last minute. They have only scored four goals in those eight games too. Blackburn haven’t been much better at home. It is almost three months since their last home win against Luton and they are seven without a win at Ewood although four of those matches have come against teams in the top six.
Blackburn won the reverse fixture 4-0 at Pride Park earlier in the season and they are the better of the two teams. Derby don’t score on the road and are without Martyn Waghorn and Lee Gregory here which isn’t going to help them in that regard very much. Blackburn have a couple of midfielders back and while there is no doubt they are underachieving and are proving expensive to follow I think they can pile more misery on a pretty ordinary Derby side here.
Tips
WON – Back Blackburn Rovers (-0.25AH) to beat Derby County for a 3/10 stake at 1.82 with Bet365
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