Derby County supporter Emerson Harris gives his prediction on The Rams opening match of the season against Oxford.
Oxford United come into this game off the back of a very strong pre-season. They played five pre-season games and came out victorious in them all with the standout result being a 5-1 win away to National League side, Eastleigh.
Over the course of pre-season, Oxford averaged a huge 3.4 goals a game, which will surely boost confidence going into their season opener against Derby at Pride Park stadium on Saturday. The standout performers for Oxford throughout pre-season were Marcus Browne, scoring four goals over the five games including a brace against Eastleigh, and Cameron Brannagan, also scoring four goals over the five games, including a brace against Oxford City. One of the things to take from the U’s pre-season is that all opposition that they came up against were from the non-league pyramid. In addition to this, questions could be asked as to whether Oxford are fully up to speed due to not having played any challenging opposition and this could come back to haunt them throughout the opening stages of the season because they haven’t been tested as such.
With regards to Derby County, they come into this game off the back of a mixed pre-season in terms of the results, however a rather successful pre-season when it comes to recruiting players after coming out of administration and only having five contracted players.
Derby’s stand out fixture in pre-season came with a 1-0 victory on home soil against a strong Bundesliga opposition in Hertha Berlin. The standout performers for the Rams over the course of the season were new recruits Tom Barkhuizen and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and they will both be hoping to continue their strong performances from pre-season into the League One campaign.
One thing that the Rams fans will know is that this is a brand-new squad that will take time to gel and so it will be interesting to see how they perform come 3pm on Saturday.
These two sides have only met on ten previous occasions. Both teams have been victorious four times, with two of the meetings ending in draws.
My prediction coming into the season opener is that it will be a very open contest with both teams looking to get three points on the board to start the season. It is quite clear that Derby have the more quality out of the two sides and that for me is what will win the game over the 90 minutes.
I think Derby will win the game 1-0, with James Collins scoring his first goal for his new club.
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