Nottingham Forest play host to Swansea City on Saturday afternoon knowing that victory will keep automatic promotion from the Championship in their own hands.
At a time when the home side are bidding to stay in the hunt for a return to the Premier League, Swansea are down in 14th position in the standings after four successive draws.
Match preview
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After witnessing his Forest side record a potentially-decisive 1-0 victory over Fulham on Tuesday night, Steve Cooper insisted that he had not been left totally impressed by his team's performance at the long-time leaders.
Whether that is an attempt to keep his players feet on the ground, who knows, but it was a result which keeps Forest's fate in their own hands as they to secure an unlikely second place.
Although the goals have dried up in their last two fixtures, Cooper will be delighted with the show of character, their run of clean sheets now being extended to three matches.
More importantly, eight wins have come from nine fixtures, and another three points at the City Ground will potentially provide Forest with the opportunity to leapfrog Bournemouth when the two teams meet on Tuesday.
The East Midlands outfit have not lost a league game at home since the turn of the year, a period which has lasted nine encounters.
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Next up for Forest is a Swansea side who have alarmingly blown three-goal leads in two of their last three fixtures, undermining their improvements under Russell Martin.
In the grand scheme of things, a nine-match unbeaten streak will ultimately keep Martin in a job, but he has been left with the task of trying to eradicate the reasons behind their recent capitulations.
While the one at Reading on Easter Monday took 29 minutes, they wilted in the concluding 18 minutes against Bournemouth, each of the equalisers coming in added-on time.
Swansea have now conceded 62 goals this season, the seventh-worst in the division, and for all of the attractive possession-based football that Martin likes to play, he requires a stronger sturdiness in the defensive third if his team are to become promotion contenders in 2022-23.
Joel Piroe scored two more goals on Tuesday evening, the Dutchman now having 22 strikes and six assists in his debut campaign in English football.
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Team News
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Cooper will select the same Forest starting lineup from the 1-0 victory at Fulham, providing that a couple of unspecified players overcome knocks.
Tobias Figueiredo has recently lost his place in the back three due to the return of Steve Cook and is unlikely to return for this contest.
Max Lowe, Lewis Grabban and Keinan Davis remain on the sidelines through injury.
With Ben Cabango having suffered an injury in the Bournemouth game, Martin may revert to a back three with Ryan Manning dropping into a more central role.
Korey Smith may be the player to benefit, although Jay Fulton could also feature if Martin wants to opt for a more defensive-minded midfield.
Nottingham Forest possible starting lineup:
Samba; McKenna, Cook, Worrall; Spence; Garner, Yates, Colback; Zinckernagel; Johnson, Surridge
Swansea City possible starting lineup:
Fisher; Latibeaudiere, Naughton, Manning; Christie, Downes, Grimes, Wolf; Piroe, Smith; Obafemi
We say: Nottingham Forest 3-1 Swansea City
While Swansea are playing well enough to push Forest all the way on Saturday, we cannot ignore the manner of some of their recent draws. With that in mind, Forest could take advantage, starting well and doing more than enough during the 90 minutes to claim another three vital points.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Nottingham Forest win with a probability of 58.74%. A draw had a probability of 23% and a win for Swansea City had a probability of 18.3%.
The most likely scoreline for a Nottingham Forest win was 1-0 with a probability of 12.29%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (11.01%) and 2-1 (9.78%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.91%), while for a Swansea City win it was 0-1 (6.09%). The actual scoreline of 5-1 was predicted with a 0.9% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Nottingham Forest would win this match.
