Sunderland vs Nottingham Forest Prediction and Betting Preview | April 24

Premier League Match Day 34 Betting Preview

With the World Cup heading to North America this summer, GoldSheet will be ramping up its soccer coverage over the next few weeks. WagerTalk handicapper and GoldSheet’s featured writer Bruce Marshall shares his thoughts on how Friday’s Sunderland vs Nottingham Forest clash in the English Premier League will shake out.

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Nottingham Forest’s Current Form

For all of the angst this season, all of the impatience of owner Evangelos Marinakis and the four coaches (Nuno, Ange Postecoglu, Sean Dyche, Vitor Pereira) he has employed, Chris Wood’s ongoing injury issues, and the season-long hide-and-go-seek with the EPL drop zone, Nottingham Forest nonetheless sits on the brink of its most glorious spell in four-plus decades and its first European final since 1984 with an all-English Europa League semifinal vs. Aston Villa on deck next week.

Not since the glory days of Brian Clough have Forest performed like this on the continent, where they won back-to-back European Cups and got to the last four of the UEFA Cup in a five-year period forty-plus years ago.

A most–welcome seven-match unbeaten run in all competitions has changed the mood at the City Ground, and also eased the threat of relegation, with Forest now five points clear of the EPL cut-line. All credit to Pereira, who has finally stabilized the Marinaikis managerial merry-go-round and inherited the top EPL fireman label that Harry Redknapp and Sam Allardyce used to wear, apparently saving Forest as he did in similar work last season with Wolves.

The hottest striker in the EPL at the moment might be Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White, off of a 15-minute hat-trick last week vs. Burnley, prompting Pereira to suggest to Thomas Tuchel that MGW might warrant a place on England’s World Cup squad.

As Forest have been balancing Europe and the EPL quite nicely the past month, we don’t expect the upcoming Europa dayte vs. Villa next Thursday to be a distraction at the Stadium of Light, where Sunderland have been tough to beat all season.

How the Black Cats manage to bounce back from that breathless 4-3 loss last weekend at Villa Park, a result that could have proven quite useful in their own challenge for a European place next season, remains to be seen.

Sunderland’s Current Form

After 18-year-old Chris Rigg scored early, late goals from Trai Hume and Wilson Isidor after the 85th minute had leveled the score at Villa before Tammy Abraham’s last-gasp winner on the weekend and suggests that Sunderland have no shortage of attacking options at the moment.

Sunderland vs Nottingham Forest Prediction

Though these two played a dour match in late September at City ground in a 1-0 Sunderland win, that was in the brief and forgettable Postecoglu era for Forest, which has since overturned a new leaf for Pereira, and the combination of a hot Gibbs-White and the various scoring options for Regis Le Brisp makes us believe over 2.5 goals, offered at +115 or thereabouts, offers very decent value.

Looking for some bigger prices, we might consider Sunderland’s Brian Brobbey (at +210) and Forest’s Gibbs-White (at a very tempting +275) as goal-scorers on Friday.

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