Blackburn Rovers vs Preston North End Prediction, Preview & Betting Tips

Preston North End can enter this game with confidence as they are unbeaten against Blackburn in their last five matches against Blackburn Rovers, having won twice and drawn the other three. Interestingly, both of North End’s victories in this sequence have both come at Ewood Park, having beaten Blackburn 2-1 in November 2023, as well as 4-1 back in December 2022.

John Eustace’s men enter this game without a win in their last thee matches following defeats to Bristol City (2-1), Coventry City (2-0) and Oxford United (1-0), while Preston are unbeaten in their last five games across all competitions, with Paul Heckingbottom’s side’s last two results being 2-1 victories over Watford and Middlesbrough, a scoreline that we’re backing them to repeat against their Lancashire rivals on Friday night.

Prediction: Blackburn Rovers 1-2 Preston North End.

Seventh-place Blackburn Rovers hosts 14th-place Preston North End at Ewood Park in what is expected to be a feisty Lancashire derby.

Date: 31/01/2025

Location: Ewood Park

Time: 8pm

At present, Blackburn sit seventh in the Championship, however, this is largely down to the quick start that they made during the current campaign, as the Ewood Park club managed to win 11 of their first 21 matches, including a six-game winning streak between 9th November and 14th December when they beat Cardiff City (3-1), Middlesbrough (1-0), Leeds United (1-0), Hull City (1-0), Sheffield Wednesday (1-0) and Luton Town (2-0).

Since the aforementioned run of form, Rovers’ promotion push has somewhat stalled, as they’ve picked up just one victory over the course of their last nine league matches. However, some fans of the Lancashire club will perhaps be grateful that they are not stuck in a relegation dog fight like they were last campaign, when they finished just three points above the drop zone in 22nd-place.

Meanwhile, Preston are enjoying a positive spell of form after what was a turbulent start to the season, which saw Ryan Lowe depart after their opening weekend defeat to Sheffield United. There were initial fears that North End could be in a major relegation battle throughout the season following just one win in their first seven matches, however, Paul Heckingbottom has steadied the ship with his side’s record standing at five wins, three draws and two defeats in their last ten outings.

Despite the fact that the Lilywhites have the 17th-best home in the Championship, they can head into this game with a positive mindset against a Rovers side that they have beaten in their last two visits to Ewood Park. The most recent meeting resulted in a 2-1 victory for North End where goals from Alan Browne and Liam Lindsay towards the end of either half gave the Whites all three points after Sammie Szmodics had equalised for the hosts in the 49th-minute.

Blackburn Rovers versus Preston North End will be available to subscribers of Sky Sports Football and Sky Sports Main Event.

Blackburn Rovers

Blackburn will be without the likes of Hayden Carter, Harry Pickering, Arnor Sigurdsson, Sondre Tronstad and Yuki Ohashi due to injury issues.

Preston North End

Paul Heckingbottom’s side have a clean bill of health heading into this match at Ewood Park.

Blackburn Rovers

As previously mentioned, Blackburn enter this game off the back of three defeats in a row, as John Eustace’s side have suffered defeats to Bristol City (2-1), Coventry City (2-0) and Oxford United (1-0).

Prior to those losses, Blackburn had managed an emphatic 3-0 home victory over Portsmouth as Makhtar Gueye, Callum Brittain and Andreas Wiemann all got on the scoresheet within the last half an hour of the game. Rovers also managed to progress to the Fourth Round of the FA Cup on 11th January as they beat Middlesbrough 1-0 at the Riverside as Wiemann fired in the only goal of the game with just 20 minutes to go.

Preston North End

Preston North End have managed to win both of their last two games via 2-1 scorelines against Middlesbrough and Watford, with Montenegro international Milutin Osmajic firing in a brace against the Hornets to take his league tally up to six goals in 21 games.

Before those victories, North End were involved in two 0-0 stalemates away at Luton Town and at home to Oxford United on either side of a 2-1 home win against Charlton Athletic in the FA Cup, where Osmajic once again found himself scoring a brace for the Lilywhites.

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