Football – England – League One Play-Off Semi Final 2nd Leg
Thursday 15th May 2014 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
In the other play-off semi final second leg, the venue is the New York Stadium where hosts Rotherham United will be looking to make home advantage count when they take on Preston North End to determine who will go through to the play off final at Wembley.
With sides still on level terms at 1-1 on aggregate, the hosts will be expected to up the ante so to speak and venture forward on a more regular basis. Rotherham continued their solid form in the first leg when they came away from London Road with a draw which makes it just 2 defeats from their last 23 matches.
The Millermen’s overall home record finished on 10-10-3 44/30 and they are unbeaten in their last eleven on home turf keeping six clean sheets to date. Possible anytime goalscorers for Rotherham include Frecklington and Revell (9 goals apiece) with Pringle contributing 13 assists. However, leading goalscorer Agard (21 goals) is still rated highly doubtful to figure in the second leg after missing the first tie with a hamstring injury while Frecklington and Pringle are also likely to be missing after sustaining injuries at Deepdale.
Visitors Preston North End face a tough task of overturning their hosts on Thursday night given Rotherham’s solid form on home ground throughout this season but will be encouraged by the possible injury news filtering out from Rotherham’s treatment room.
Nevertheless, manager Simon Grayson has been around long enough to take Steve Evans’ injury reports with a pinch of salt but the tie still remains finely balanced at 1-1 so nerves and tension of what is at stake must also be accounted for. Preston will also be keen to keep a clean sheet for as long as possible to silence the Rotherham fans and to gain some confidence away from home as their last few results of the regular season appeared to dip on the road.
No wins from their last five on their travels including defeats at Swindon Town, Brentford and Crewe Alexandra is not ideal preparation but they finished with a reasonable away record of 11-7-5 28/20 including ten clean sheets on the road which is pretty impressive and they possessed the second best defensive record in League One behind champions Wolves.
Preston’s potential anytime goalscorers include leading goalscorer Garner (19 goals) and Gallagher (6 goals, 8 assists), although Garner has scored only 7 goals away from Deepdale in the league this season.
With the match on a knife-edge going into the second leg, neither team will want to take many risks in throwing men forward early on, and with so much at stake for both teams, I anticipate a low-scoring match again. Could be another 1-1 draw to take us into extra time here.
Pick: Under 2.5 @ 1.88 Pinnacle
