Preston North End v Wigan Athletic Betting Tips

Friday night’s Championship weekend opener sees a relegation clash between two North West teams. With both of them finding themselves towards the bottom of the table. Wigan are in the relegation zone and there is huge pressure on them to get a positive result from this match in order to put that pressure back onto their relegation rivals playing later on in the weekend.

Preston do not actually look too bad at the moment and their lowly 19th position is mainly down to just their first three matches of the season – three matches that they lost.

Results have picked up a bit recently and they recorded an impressive 3-0 win over Cardiff City ten days ago, however, consistency is the main problem for Simon Grayson’s side as they then failed to back up their victory by succumbing to a heavy 5-0 defeat at the hands of Brentford.

The lack of consistency is summed up by the fact that Preston are still yet to draw this season – they either pull off a great victory or a poor loss.

Having said that they managed to overcome Premier League side Bournemouth in the EFL League Cup thanks to a Simon Makienok hat-trick on Tuesday so confidence will be growing.

The Lilywhites had a pretty good first season back in the Championship last term and they were even in with a shout of the play-offs before falling away at the end of the season. I imagine there will still be belief in the side, particularly at home, and they should be safe from relegation come May.

2013 FA Cup winners Wigan Athletic have had a pretty torrid start to their first season back in the Championship following their glowing League One promotion campaign last year, they have failed to win since 13th August, and even that was against 23rd placed Blackburn Rovers, whilst they have also lost four of their last five matches.

Going forward the Lactics look like they could be dangerous with Northern Ireland international Will Grigg still on fire from last season having notched four goals this season which places him among the division’s top goalscorers. Former Manchester United play-maker Nick Powell is also a very good player on his day.

The problem for Gary Caldwell’s side, as has generally been the problem with Wigan sides over the last few seasons, has been at the back. They got away with it last season as their attacking strengths meant they routed the league, however, going up to the Championship is a completely new level as teams are generally smarter and able to take advantage of opportunities presented to them – unlike what Wigan faced in League One last season.

Most Championship sides end up near the bottom of the league or even relegated, not because of goal-scoring problems, but because of trouble in defence and so Wigan should be very wary of this.

The Lactics’ away record is also terrible and they have lost all their matches on the road this season – including against League One Oldham Athletic in the EFL League Cup. Additionally, they have conceded no fewer than two goals in all of their away matches this season. Their prospects for this Friday night all look pretty grim if you go by those statistics.

With all of the above in mind, particularly in regards to Wigan, there really is only one result on the cards here and that is a win for Preston.  The fact you can make a decent profit on a Preston home win, against a side that have lost all of their away matches this season, is a no-brainer at 6/4.

I would also expect them to win by a margin of two or more which is also available at a nice price. As previously mentioned, I imagine confidence and belief is actually relatively good in the Preston camp despite a mixed start to the season and, going against a team that concede a ridiculous amount of goals away from home, this should be a comfortable victory at Deepdale for Grayson’s men.

Wigan have conceded no fewer than two goals in all of their away games this season in both league and cup and I imagine that this trend will continue on Friday night. You can get ‘Preston to Score Over 1.5 goals’ at 6/4 – a bet that is certainly worth going for.

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