Derby will be looking to extend their unbeaten run in the Championship when they visit City Ground to take on Nottingham Forest in an important East Midlands derby on Saturday afternoon with kickoff at 15:30.
Despite being on and off throughout the season, Nottingham Forest have made a fairly impressive campaign with the club recording 10 wins, seven draws and nine defeats out of their 26 league matches, co collect 37 points which have left them sitting in the 10th with five points outside the top six.
Forest appeared to have lost their way after suffering back-to-back defeats to Middlesbrough and Huddersfield at the end of 2021 respectively. However, they head into the match in high spirits following their 1-0 win over Arsenal in the FA Cup on their 2022 opening day, before overcoming Millwall by the same score line in the Championship at away last Saturday.
Steve Cooper’s will therefore come into the match looking to build on their successful start to the year as they aim at getting closer to the playoff berth with only five points keeping them out.
Meanwhile despite continuous distraction of off-pitch issues, Derby County have steadily continued to focus on salvaging their season, with 13 points from possible last 15 available moving them off the bottom of the table by a place higher, though they are level on 14 points with the bottom-placed Barnsley who have played two matches less. They are still some eight points adrift of safety and they need to keep on collecting points to see their target through in this highly pressured half of the season.
Wayne Rooney’s men overcome Sheffield United last weekend in a 2-0 triumph with Tom Lawrence netting the brace to gift his side the vital three points. The victory ended their two-match winless run in all competitions and Rooney will be hoping his side will be confident of keeping their momentum going.
This will be a pretty close fight with both sides going for the three points, but Nottingham will fancy their chances having lost none of their nine encounters against Derby County at City Ground and Derby are in a poor away form.
Nottingham vs Derby County head to head
Both sides have met in 43 encounters since 1993 with Derby County claiming 14 victories and 18 draws while Nottingham have claimed 11 victories.
- Derby County 1-1 Nottingham 28/08/21
- Derby County 1-1 Nottingham 26/02/21
- Nottingham 1-1 Derby County 23/10/20
- Derby County 1-1 Nottingham 04/07/20
- Nottingham 1-0 Derby County 09/11/19
Home
- Millwall 0-1 Nottingham
- Nottingham 1-0 Arsenal
- Nottingham 0-1 Huddersfield
- Middlesbrough 2-0 Nottingham
- Nottingham 2-1 Hull
Away
- Derby County 2-0 Sheffield
- Coventry 1-0 Derby County
- Reading 2-2 Derby County
- Stoke 1-2 Derby County
- Derby County 1-0 West Brom
Nottingham team news
Nottingham will be without Alex Mighten, Max Lowe and Loic Mbe Soh due to injuries.
Derby County team news
Derby County will be without Lee Buchanan and Krystian Bielik through injuries.
Prediction and odds
- Draw
- Double chance
- Goals under 2.5
