Football – England – Championship
Tuesday 6th November 2012 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
My next stop is the Championship again and this time it’s Pride Park where hosts Derby County take on Barnsley who are hovering just above the relegation places.
Apart from a slightly surprising 0-3 defeat at Peterborough United recently, The Rams have been in solid form in their last seven matches with wins over east midlands rivals Nottingham Forest, along with victories over Ipswich Town and a thumping 4-1 win over Blackpool at the weekend. They’ve also taken a point off high-flying Middlesbrough away from home along with points off Brighton and Blackburn Rovers.
Derby’s home record has also been pretty dependable so far with a home record of 3-3-1 16/9, with other wins coming against Watford and Charlton Athletic. Not usually noted for their goalscoring prowess, Derby are second only to Cardiff City (17 goals) in terms of number of home goals scored.
Up front, The Rams have striker Theo Robinson (4 goals), former Wigan forward Conor Sammon, former Nottingham Forest forward Nathan Tyson (2 goals) and midfielder Paul Coutts (4 assists) providing the creativity. They will also have their tails up following their rousing 4-1 win over Blackpool too.
Visitors Barnsley travel to the east midlands on the back of another defeat, this time at Hull City where they went down 0-1 on Saturday and will be looking to stave off a third successive loss at Pride Park.
Recent form suggests that The Tykes will be up against it and it’s a far cry from their remarkable 5-0 win at Birmingham City towards the end of September where they embarrassed The Blues at St Andrews which not many sides have been capable of doing. However, since that win, they’ve won just one more match in their last seven Championship matches which was a 1-0 win at Charlton Athletic, but the South London side are struggling for form themselves at the moment.
Recent losses against Peterborough, Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and Hull City will not have put them in confident mood, nor will their away record of 2-0-5 9/12. Take the 5-0 win at Birmingham out of the equation and Barnsley have kept just one other clean sheet in their seven away matches so far and they have the 6th worst defensive record away from home to date.
A lot depends on striker Craig Davies (7 goals) and the supply from Jacob Mellis (7 assists) and Chris Dagnall (3 assists), however, leading scorer Davies is just returning from injury and didn’t figure against Hull City and even if he does start at Derby (which is unlikely), he’s unlikely to be fully match-fit.
Derby’s great win on Saturday sets them up nicely to record back-to-back wins at Pride Park, and this is exactly what I expect them to do against Barnsley tonight; a 2-0 home win for The Rams.
Pick: Derby County straight win @ 1.90 Bet Victor looks a good price to back
