Bluebirds V Forest: Match Preview

Billy Davies takes his Nottingham Forest side to Cardiff this weekend for their 1st ever visit to the Cardiff City Stadium to take on another of the form teams in the Championship in the hope of protecting his unbeaten away record.

Cardiff score goals for fun, this is either going to be a thriller, or a scrap.

Cardiff are pretty much at full strength with only Kelvin Etuhu (on loan from Manchester City) likely to miss out with ankle ligament damage. Ross McCormack and Gavin Rae will probably only be fit for the bench after both making their returns to the 1st team squad in recent weeks.

After scoring a hat trick in his last outing against the blades his confidence will be sky high, he now has 10 for the season along with 3 assists

Forest will still be without Julian Bennet & while Guy Moussi will be back in contention after serving a 1 match ban for over celebrating the winner against Barnsley, doubts remain over both Robbie Earnshaw & Dexter Blackstock who are both on the way back to the 1st team squad. James Perch made a surprise return to 18 man squad for the last game, but doesn't look likely to progress any further than that in the near future.

The striker scored his 2nd league goal in Forest colours last weekend & will be looking to prove his 1st team credentials to the manager in the continued absence of Earnshaw & Dex, whether he gets a starting place though remains to be seen.

Cardiff hold the historical lead in this fixture having won half ( including the 2 that saw them take all six points last season) of the 36 league games played while forest have won just 10 (8 draws). Cardiff have also out scored this weekends opponents by 57 goals to 41.

Cardiff have conceded just 136 fouls in the league which is the 2nd best disciplinary record in the league (oddly enough, behind only Swansea) yet have had three red cards (the highest in the league) They have also scored 3 goals or more in six of their 14 games so far & have bagged 30 goals so far, Forest, in stark contrast, have scored three goals just once & have 16 goals in total, the lowest in the top 10.

Graham Salisbury (Lancashire) takes charge of this fixture, he last took charge of a Forest game in the League Cup game with Leicester when Forest were awarded the free goal after the original tie was called off when Clive Clarke collapsed. He will be assisted by Brendan Malone (Wiltshire) and Stephen Martin (Staffordshire) while the Fourth Official will be Steve D Cook (Derbyshire)

Forest need to limit Cardiff to a single goal if they hope to take anything from this game, I'll go for a 1 - 1 draw, but Cardiff are on such fine goal scoring form they could once again take all the points.

Saturday, 7 November 15:00
The Football League Championship
Nottm Forest v Bristol City

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