Football – England – League One
Saturday 13th December 2014 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Preston North End welcome MK Dons to Deepdale on Saturday afternoon for the pick of the League One fixtures this weekend.
Preston overcame a potential banana-skin in last Saturday’s FA Cup second round tie with League Two side Shrewsbury Town, but the Lilywhites did just enough to scrape a 1-0 win at home to go into the third round and earned themselves a home tie against Championship side Norwich City.
The win over Shrewsbury became Preston’s fourth win on the trot in all competitions, and their third since their leading goalscorer Joe Garner (11 goals) suffered a long-term injury. Garner will be out for around four months, but recent wins over Oldham Athletic (Football Trophy) along with wins over Yeovil Town (away) and Shrewsbury in the FA Cup show they can still grind out results.
Preston’s home record stands at 5-3-1 18/11 with their only loss to date coming in their last home match against Bradford City in a 2-1 defeat. Prior to that, Preston had strung together four wins on the bounce.
MK Dons make the trip up north on the back of crashing out of the FA Cup to Chesterfield on the weekend, but they will now focus on League One and push for automatic promotion. The Dons are in great shape right now as they’ve put together a nine match unbeaten run going into today’s clash.
Recent wins over Swindon Town, Port Vale, Colchester United and Sheffield United have lifted them up into play-off reckoning and are only two points adrift of League One leaders Bristol City. However, three of the four aforementioned wins were at their stadium:mk ground and the jury is still out as to whether they can transfer this sort of form away at the top teams in the division.
MK Dons’ away record stands at 4-2-2 13/9 overall but is at a won 2 lost 2 away at top half teams so far, so it’ll be interesting to see how they go at Deepdale today.
If Garner had been fit I’d have backed Preston for the straight win but I’ll now amend to backing the hosts with the round ball. This should be a good game but I fancy Preston to get at least a point today on home turf.
Pick: Preston North End AH0 @ 1.65 bet365
