Match Preview: Derby County v Port Vale (Saturday, 3pm)

Derby County host Port Vale in Saturday’s match at Pride Park Stadium looking to bounce back from defeat last time out in League One.

The Rams, who sit second in the league after 35 games, fell to a 2-1 home defeat to Charlton Athletic on Tuesday.

They face a Vale side who secured a draw in their last match, a 2-2 tie with Fleetwood Town, and who sit 22nd in the table.

With 60 goals in 35 games so far this season, Derby are the league’s joint-second-highest scorers with 1.7 goals per game. And they are conceding fewer than average, letting in 33 goals at a rate of 0.9 per game.

Vale, meanwhile, are below average scorers, with 1.0 goal per game, compared to a league average of 1.3. They have conceded 1.6 goals per game.

County are in mixed form in League One, with three wins and a draw from their last six games.

With no wins and two draws over that period, the Valiants’s form is much worse – they have taken two points from 18, compared to the Rams’ 10.

With Joe Wildsmith between the sticks, the home team can rely on one of the league’s safest pair of hands. He has kept 12 clean sheets in his 29 appearances this season, and only two other ‘keepers – Portsmouth‘s Will Norris and Lincoln City’s Lukas Jensen – have been able to prevent the opposition scoring on more occasions in League One.

In the visitors’ net, Connor Ripley has seven clean sheets in 33 games. He has conceded a goal every 63 minutes, 80% more often than the 112 minutes between goals for Wildsmith.

In the last three years, Derby and Vale have played each other on three occasions. Derby won two of them and Vale one.

Their last meeting was on November 28, when Derby won 1-0 away.

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Derby County v Port Vale
League One | Pride Park Stadium
Saturday, 2 March 2024 @ 3.00pm

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