23 February 2019, Saturday
Brentford vs Hull City
25 February 2019, Monday
Nottingham Forest vs Derby County
Beat your opponents home – Key of the success
Manager Thomas Frank, debutant in FA cup Brentford did not only surprise _connect when he led his team to the last 16 on debut but he shocked the club supporters, too by winning Aston Villa 1-0.
The Bees is renowned to compete in the cup last two years for having heavily influenced by former manager Dean Smith but the new Dane revolution was ruthless in their battling through the match day.
With an eye towards the quarter-final showdown, it is good to see Thomas Frank’s Londoners “beat a couple of opponents home”, _connect writes.
The Second Division tournament has produced some FA-cup winners in the past with Southampton, Portsmouth and Wigan Athletic recently travelling the Wembley to victory. Unfortunately, they lost to Swansea last week. Bees’ performance is still tenable.
On top of that, Bee’s 7-match unbeaten is a good spell and Hull’s only two defeats in last 14 league matches, Nigel Adkins is comforted by the class that has come out of the current race to the top six with current favourite Hull City push strongly since December last year by beating Leeds United and Brentford with the same scoreline 2-0 win.
Nottingham Forest go into Derby game as underdogs
It may not have been hard to hear Martin O’Neil over the noise of promotion of the Reds fans, but no disrespect to Derby County.
That’s right: the former Rebublic of Ireland national football team boss and two-time League cup champion came back to the Championship with Roy Keane as his assistant.
There has not been a Forest dynasty like the Reds Brian Clough’s era – with assistant manager Peter Taylor leading the team to win the European Cup in 1979.
And yet as they prepare to the visit of Derby County to take on Lampard’s Rams in the championship, _connect is right about one thing: the Reds are four-point underdogs, and that’s an unusual position for them.
“There are lots of points to play for. We are well into the second half of the season and each game that you play, you want to try and pick up something from the matches while every defeat knocks you back. It makes that equation a bit more difficult but we have a number of points to go for and while there is hope that is exactly what we are doing.” Martin O’Neil said in an interview ahead of Brentford game on iFollow.
Derby County go in search of their football talent once again. Rams’ boss Frank Lampard insists that their defence is the area to strengthen, especially the centre-halves. They gave the former Celtic defender – Efe Ambrose a trial to impress in the Championship team. He last played for Hibernian last December and now a free agent. This week, both Ashley Cole and Efe Ambrose fit the bill and available to play against Nottingham Forest.
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