Blackburn Rovers play host to Nottingham Forest on Wednesday evening looking for the victory that they may require to remain in the top two of the Championship standings.
While Forest are down in eighth position and 10 points adrift of the automatic promotion places, the visitors possess a game in hand on their upcoming opponents.
Match preview
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With many of their rivals involved in the FA Cup fourth round at the weekend, Blackburn had an opportunity to strengthen their grip of second spot in the table.
However, Rovers went down by a 1-0 scoreline at Swansea City, a result which represented their second defeat in four, and they are now at risk of being overtaken by multiple teams who possess matches in hand.
All things considered, Tony Mowbray will be satisfied with his team's current position, but they have lost all of the momentum which they had built up throughout December.
Their lack of goals will be of particular concern with just two being scored in 540 minutes of second-tier football, an occurrence which may be perceived to be no coincidence given that leading marksman Ben Brereton Diaz featured for just over half of that period.
Nevertheless, Rovers cannot solely rely on the Chile international to fire them to promotion, and his teammates need to step up to the plate over the coming months if they are to remain in contention for a return to the Premier League.
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Forest's momentum was also ended when they produced a drab performance away at Cardiff City on January 30, but that is certainly no longer the case after Sunday's FA Cup tie against Leicester City.
Steve Cooper's side were magnificent, outclassing and overpowering their East Midlands neighbours and Premier League opponents to prevail by a 4-1 scoreline at the City Ground.
The goals were shared around the side during what was a relentless display, and Forest should earn a top-six place come the end of the campaign if they can replicate that level of performance on a regular basis.
That is far easier said than done but with five wins from six games in all competitions, Cooper will feel that his side have an opportunity to close the gap on their hosts on Wednesday night.
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Team News
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Cooper may decide to freshen him up his Forest XI for this match with Jack Colback in contention to feature at left wing-back or in midfield.
Sam Surridge is also on standby if Cooper wishes to change any of his front three, but Lewis Grabban will be sidelined for a couple of months with an ankle injury.
At least one of Brereton Diaz and Reda Khadra will come into the Blackburn attack, potentially both with several changes expected to be made by Mowbray.
Wolverhampton Wanderers loanee Ryan Giles may also be moved to left wing-back in place of Deyovaisio Zeefuik.
The likes of Harry Pickering, Tayo Edun and Sam Gallagher are all likely to miss this contest through injury.
Blackburn Rovers possible starting lineup:
Kaminski; Van Hecke, Lenihan, Wharton; Nyambe, Travis, Rothwell, Giles; Buckley; Brereton Diaz, Khadra
Nottingham Forest possible starting lineup:
Samba; McKenna, Cook, Worrall; Spence, Garner, Yates, Colback; Zinckernagel; Johnson, Davis
We say: Blackburn Rovers 1-1 Nottingham Forest
With Blackburn having shown signs of faltering of late, Forest will fancy their chances of collecting another important three points. However, Rovers' extra rest may prove key here, and it leads us to predict a competitive draw playing out at Ewood Park.
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Blackburn Rovers win with a probability of 45.95%. A win for Nottingham Forest had a probability of 27.48% and a draw had a probability of 26.6%.
The most likely scoreline for a Blackburn Rovers win was 1-0 with a probability of 12.08%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.99%) and 2-0 (8.64%). The likeliest Nottingham Forest win was 0-1 (8.8%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.58%). The actual scoreline of 0-2 was predicted with a 4.6% likelihood.
