The final week of action in the Sky Bet Championship prior to the next international break begins with a Lancashire derby on Friday night when Blackburn Rovers play host to relatively local rivals Preston North End at Ewood Park.
These two teams begin the weekend inside the top 10 in the Championship standings with whoever coming out on top having the luxury of ending the night in the top six until the remainder of the weekend matches get played out.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football channels with the build-up at Ewood Park beginning at 7.30pm ahead of an 8pm kick off.
Blackburn Rovers
This has been another one of those up and down campaigns for Blackburn Rovers but they appear to be on the upward curve of the trend at the minute. They suffered four straight defeats at the end of September and moving into October but they now go into this derby clash off the back of a run of four wins in their last five matches, the latest of which coming at Carrow Road on Sunday afternoon where they looked very good against a dismal Norwich City side.
That has moved Blackburn up to tenth in the table and Rovers should be full of confidence for this match but they have lost three of their last four at Ewood Park so there is a code that needs to be cracked in front of their own fans. They looked very good on the counterattack in Norfolk at the weekend but I guess the downside of that victory is the shorter turnaround time and less time to recover from their exertions in that game.
Preston North End
Preston North End won six of their opening seven games this season and were the early pacesetters in the Sky Bet Championship table but as the likes of Leicester City and Ipswich Town were able to maintain their excellent start to the season, Preston have been found wanting. Their only win in their last eight matches came at home to struggling Coventry City last week where they needed a very questionable penalty call to go their way to get that.
Conceding goals has been a bit of an issue for North End in this recent run. They have conceded 23 goals in their 15 matches in total but that includes four at home to West Brom and four more away to Ipswich. In the main they have been able to keep their goalscoring up but they certainly need improvements defensively if they are going to finish in the top six at the end of the season. It would be handy if that can begin here.
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Team News
The lengthy Blackburn Rovers injury list extended itself at Carrow Road on Sunday when Joe Rankin-Costello picked up a hamstring injury which will keep him out with the likes of Aynsley Pears, Ryan Hedges, Hayden Carter, Dominic Hyam and Sam Gallagher. Scott Wharton is available after his red card was overturned.
Preston North End boss Ryan Lowe has suggested that he might be able to call upon the services of Calvin Ramsay and Andrew Hughes for the short trip to Ewood Park after both look to have recovered from injury.
Betting
I think we are in for an entertaining Lancashire derby here. This will definitely be a match both teams will think they can win. Blackburn Rovers are in a decent run of form at the minute which will give them confidence but after the start they made to the season and off the back of a victory last weekend, Preston North End might feel they are the better side and make the short trip to have a good go at this one. That makes me like over 2.5 goals here.
Blackburn look good going forward but they are missing pretty much an entire back four and have a goalkeeper who appears to flap at anything that comes in his direction. Six of the last 10 matches between these two have had more than 2.5 goals in them and another two finished 1-1 so this isn’t a derby where the form goes out of the window and the teams clam up not wanting to lose. Preston haven’t kept a clean sheet in their last 10 in the Championship, while Blackburn only have three of them all season and are strained in terms of personnel at the back. There are goals in these two sides and I like over 2.5 of them here.
Tips
Back Over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
