There is one match required to get the Sky Bet Championship season levelled up and it takes place on Wednesday evening when Derby County look to escape the bottom three when they host Preston North End.
This is a big night for the Rams as a victory will move them above Cardiff in the table. There is a sense that the Preston season ended with their cup exit at the weekend but they have the chance to show they still have something about them.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports+ channel with the short build-up beginning at 7.35pm ahead of the 7.45pm kick off at Pride Park.
Derby County
It looked like Derby County were going to fall back to League 1 quite tamely at the first time of asking at the beginning of March. They weren’t winning matches and weren’t really looking like doing it and hadn’t had the new manager bounce that they wanted under John Eustace. That all changed in a week leading up to the international break when they put three successive wins together and now all of a sudden they are on the edge of coming out of the bottom three.
Another win here would put them out of the relegation zone with just seven matches left to play. Eustace has suddenly found some goals in this Derby side. They have scored seven goals in those last three matches having only found the net once in the six games prior to that. He will probably want a bit more from an injury ravaged defence but having had over two weeks since their last match, he will be hoping that time on the training ground has yielded results.
Preston North End
This has been a typical Preston North End season it has to be said. They have been hovering in and around the middle of the table once Paul Heckingbottom had come in and made them hard to beat, with the highlight of their campaign coming in the form of the FA Cup. Having exited that competition though and being marooned out of reach of the play-offs and having too many teams between themselves and the relegation zone, if a side are to head to the beach so to speak then it could be Preston.
Preston have been hard to beat this season. They have only lost 11 times, which is three fewer than Coventry City who are in fifth place in the table. The reason why they are not higher is because they have drawn 17 times and if they had just turned five of those into victories they would be eyeing up a spot in the top six. Heckingbottom will have to convince his charges that a win here will have them within seven of the play-off spots and that they can still catch them but that would take a bit of believing to be fair.
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Team News
John Eustace brought the experienced defender Erik Pieters to Pride Park during the international break and the defender could be involved for the first time in this match with Sondre Langas potentially missing the remainder of the season.
Paul Heckingbottom will have some players back who were forced to miss the cup exit at the weekend. Kaine Kesler-Hayden and Ryan Porteous were ineligible for that match and Ryan Ledson suspended and all are available here. Freddie Woodman is out with injury.
Betting
I guess we get the question about the motivation of Preston North End in this match. I don’t think the cup match will be an issue from a fitness and freshness point of view because three or four players are going to come back into the side so this is all about whether the Lancashire outfit can get themselves up for going again. We know motivation isn’t going to be an issue for Derby County, the question for them is whether they can handle the pressure of the situation that they are in.
I’m not really interested in guessing the mentality of Preston here but I’ve mentioned a couple of times recently that goal lines seem to deflate where Preston are concerned but this might be a good time to get on the over. The goal line for this one is 2 and with Derby having issues defensively and Preston without one of the better keepers in the league there is no reason why that line can’t be covered. Derby have found their scoring boots and they have covered in two of their last three and pushed in the other while four of the last six Preston away games have cashed or pushed on this line. Sometimes you have to go against the grain and here feels like an ideal time to do just that.
Tips
Back Over 2 goals for a 3/10 stake at 2.05 with Bet365
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