DERBY v HUDDERSFIELD – Pick: 1 – 02 February 2013

Rams to outscore Terriers at Pride Park

Championship Tips

Football – England – Championship

Saturday 2nd February 2013 – Kickoff:  1500hrs

Mid-table Derby County take on Huddersfield Town at Pride Park on Saturday afternoon as the hosts look to continue their solid home form that is gradually building.

Derby have lost just once on home ground in their last ten league matches which was incidentally a 1-2 loss to third placed Hull City, but aside from that understandable loss, they’ve put together some solid results such as wins over Blackpool 4-1, Barnsley 2-0, Birmingham City 3-2, Leeds United 3-1 and Middlesbrough 3-1 along with taking points off Brighton, league leaders Cardiff City and Nottingham Forest in their recent east midlands derby.

Derby County’s home record stands at a much-improved  7-5-2  30/17 with the only other loss being against Burnley back at the end of September. Nigel Clough’s side have become very hard to beat at Pride Park and with the nucleus of Robinson (8 goals), Sammon and Ward (both with 6 goals apiece), Ward with 5 assists, Bryson with 5 assists along with Jacobs (5 assists) and Coutts (7 assists), The Rams are very capable of scoring goals here.

Visitors Huddersfield Town secured a much-needed league win over play-off candidates Crystal Palace on Wednesday night and they will make the trip down to Derby with a welcome boost to their confidence. However, that win halted a run of twelve league matches without a victory and it’ll be interesting to see how they fare against a strong home side like Derby.

Six matches without a win on their travels, Huddersfield Town have picked up just two away points from the last possible 18 on offer thanks to draws at Charlton Athletic and Crystal Palace (in their previous meeting just before Christmas), and The Terriers’ away record stands at an unconvincing  4-3-7  14/29 with only Ipswich Town and Derby County (12 goals each) scoring fewer away goals than them and they have the joint worst defensive record on the road along with Ipswich Town (conceded 29 goals).

In addition, they’ve failed to score on five occasions and this is reflected through their goalscoring attributes as Clayton, Novak and Vaughan (4 goals apiece) are the leading goalscorers for Huddersfield.

Derby County score on average just a touch over 2 goals per game at home and they look likely to continue this trend against Huddersfield who have a weak defensive record away from home – I’ll go for a 2-0 home win here for Derby County at odds close to evens.

Pick:  Derby County straight win @ 1.91 Coral