Nottingham Forest head to the steel City on Tuesday evening with the intention of keeping their current 11 match unbeaten run in tact along with what is now a nine month unbeaten away run. Forest’s promotion bid has certainly captured the imagination of the Forest faithful recently with 9 goals in two games while the Blades have won their last three.
Vital Quotes:
Can we?
Sheffield United Team News:
Top scorer Darius Henderson missed the weekend win over Plymouth with a thigh injury (although there are also rumours of a fall out with Kevin Blackwell over a move to Bolton) but may return for this fixture. Jonathan Fortune and Henri Camara are both out but Gary Naysmith returned to the bench at the weekend after a hamstring problem so could be involved.
Player to watch: Jamie Ward
The diminutive 23 year old former Chesterfield striker has scored 4 goals & grabbed a couple of assists in 11 games this season and if top scorer Darius Henderson is missing a lot will rest on his shoulders.
Nottingham Forest Team News:
There are no new injury problems or suspensions for Forest which will give Billy Davies another headache about who to leave out.
Player to watch: Rob Earnshaw
A Hat-Trick at the weekend will have given him no end of confidence, when Earnshaw starts a scoring run it’s often hard to stop him scoring & with so many strikers at the club he knows very well that he needs to keep scoring to stay in the team.
Match Facts & Stats
There have been 98 league encounters between these two teams, Forest leading the way with 39 victories & the blades 34 (25 draws). Sheffield United had the better of things last season taking 4 points from Forest in two games that saw just one goal.
Nobody will be surprised to hear that Sheffield United are the dirtiest team in the league having committed 246 fouls & receiving 37 yellow cards, they are though yet to see a player red carded.
Forest have scored in 11 consecutive games, currently the longest scoring run in the league.
Ref Watch:
Andy Haines of Tyne & Wear takes charge of this fixture
his assistants will be Paul Graham (Manchester) and Adrian Holmes (West Yorkshire)
4th Official William Smallwood of Cheshire
Match Prediction:
The Blades are still playing their usual style of play, hammering the ball up field as hard as they can & hoping the big lad up front can make something of it, so if Darius Henderson is missing, i simply can’t see them scoring.
Forest on the other hand have been scoring plenty of goals lately but just can’t keep a clean sheet. The Blades will make it hard as all physical teams do, so although i can see Forest maintaining their unbeaten run here, it won’t be by the masses of goals we’ve seen recently. Blades 1 – 2 Forest.
Next Fixtures:
Saturday, 12 December 15:00
The Football League Championship
Swansea v Nottm Forest
