Off the back of being dealt a 90th minute hammer-blow from Arsenal in the FA Cup, Preston welcome league leaders Brighton to Deepdale on Saturday afternoon as the focus of both switches back to matters in the Championship.
The hosts haven’t exactly been at their best recently, especially at home. Just win one in their last six on home soil is one of the main reasons as to why Preston have failed to break free from their mid-table shackles.
As for the visitors, Brighton have been in quite scintillating form lately. Five league wins on the bounce has seen the south-coast side rise to the top of the pile where they sit two points clear of nearest challengers Newcastle with a game in hand.
From a betting point of view, in all honesty, it’s difficult to go with any angle that doesn’t favour the visitors. Chris Hughton’s men are fancied to show their class once again in this fixture and the bet to go for, at odds of 5/4, is ‘Brighton to Score Over 1.5 Goals’.
In recent months, Brighton have gone a long way to dispelling any theories that they’re merely an organised defensive team by scoring with great regularity. It’s certainly true that Hughton’s men are one the league’s better defensive units; however, they’ve also developed into a well-oiled attacking machine this season, scoring no less than 40 goals – a total that can only be bettered by three teams in the entire division, while their goal-difference of +25 is the Championship’s second best.
Having scored at least twice in each of their last six matches (all-competitions), The Seagulls have found goals easy to come by for some time now. They’ve also scored two or more in four of their last five on the road. Couple this with the fact that Preston have conceded in each of their last five at home, letting in two or more on three occasions, and it’s not at all hard to envisage Brighton experiencing plenty of joy going forward in this one. The fact that Preston are averaging 13.73 shots against at home this season, one of the league’s highest totals, also bodes well for the visitors.
Chris Hughton has a number of viable attacking options at his disposal which means his side are capable of producing numerous different types of goals from a number of different sources – their last seven goals on the road (which came in their last three away outings) have been scored by six different players. With this in mind, they should have more than enough about them to hurt a Preston side who’re conceding plenty of goals at home right now (ten in their last five).
All in all, when these two teams line-up against each other on Saturday, it is Brighton who look set to enjoy another fruitful afternoon in front of goal.
See more Championship tips here.