Promotion Six-pointer for Derby County and Aston Villa
Pride Park Stadium will host Derby County and Aston Villa’s promotion clash tomorrow. Both teams are in playoff positions, in fourth and fifth place, and the winner could finish the weekend in third place. The battle itself will be fought in the air, where Derby should have supremacy, and on the ground where Villa prevail. Derby have won their last two Championship games whilst Villa have started December with two draws.
Derby’s form of late has been impressive. Only two defeats since a 4-1 hammering by Bristol City have blotted an otherwise excellent set of results. However, both of these defeats came at home and must give Aston Villa confidence. Gary Rowett’s side are currently eighth in the home form table whilst Villa are seventh in the away equivalent. It is to be expected that this will be a tight game. Both games last season were tight affairs with a goalless draw at Pride Park was followed up by a 1-0 win in February.
Derby’s team is littered with experienced players. Ex-Villans Scott Carson, Curtis Davies and Andi Weimann are joined by Joe Ledley and Tom Huddlestone. Ledley and Huddlestone form a tight midfield unit that will make it difficult to play through. Adomah and Snodgrass need to exploit positions out wide to create spaces for attacking players. Davies has been in particularly good form of late which is reflected in his being Derby’s highest point scoring player with WhoScored for the last two weeks.
In his press conference, Derby boss Gary Rowett confirmed that attacking midfielder Tom Lawrence will miss the game. Lawrence has been in good form but picked up an ankle injury in their game against Barnsley. With no further injuries, Rowett is likely to retain the same team as last week.
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Bruce’s press conference brought the news that Chris Samba will miss a month after picking up an injury last weekend against Millwall. Henri Lansbury is unlikely to feature after suffering from soreness after the Millwall game. Also, Alan Hutton picked up an injury in training yesterday and it is likely that he’ll miss the game. John Terry’s rehabilitation continues but he is about two weeks away from returning. The good news is that Mile Jedinak has trained all week and could feature.
Steve Bruce’s dilemma of last week is the same this week. The composition of the midfield is key to the performance against Derby. In his Millwall post-match press conference, Bruce was regretful of his decision to leave out Conor Hourihane. The result was stifled distribution. Also, the problem of where to play Jack Grealish will weight heavily on the manager. It’s pretty safe to assume that Hourihane will start.
WHEN: Saturday, December 16, 2017 @ 3:00pm GMT / 10:00am EST
WHERE: Pride Park Stadium
PREDICTION: 2-1 Aston Villa victory
Despite the injury curse returning, expect Villa to nick the game late on. With Derby’s home form and their propensity to concede late, as per Footystats, so a late goal is a possibility. The last two week’s performances have been underwhelming so “normality” needs to resume. Looking at you, Albert….