Cameron Jerome’s solitary headed strike was enough to give Derby County the slimmest of advantages over Fulham in the first leg of their Championship play-offs semi-final first leg at Pride Park last week.
Gary Rowett’s charges held off a late Fulham charge and now travel to Craven Cottage tonight in an attempt to seal a place across the way, in Wembley, for the play-off final.
Their hosts, despite their failure to score in the last leg, are a potent attacking outfit and Slavisa Jokanovic will be hopeful of his side overturning the deficit.
They’ll need every inch of the flair they showed in their latter-season promotion push to break down their visitors this evening, with young Ryan Sessegnon and Tom Cairney set to bear the brunt of those responsibilities.
There’s a steely streak running through this Rams side, though, and we fancy them to do just about enough to get through to the big one.
It won’t be easy, and we could envisage them needing to grind out a nervy draw and rely on some more penalty box defending late on, as they did in the first leg, if they’re to get it done.
Prices of 3/1 about the draw, therefore, appeal quite a bit and should also give backers the choice to green out for some profit should the game be drawn at halftime.
That’s good enough for us, then, and we’ll make that our sole position tonight and hope things stay tight at the Cottage on a balmy night in London.
