Bristol City vs Preston prediction: ENGLAND: Championship betting tips on match 2023-08-04 14:00.
After Nigel Pearson’s second full season in charge of Bristol City resulted in a third consecutive Championship bottom-half finish, the 59-year-old believes “real progress was made” in an undefeated pre-season. Pearson will be hoping that can prompt the Robins to open a new Championship campaign with victory for just the second time in six seasons.
He identified player fitness as the most significant area in which Bristol City have improved, but after three of their nine home Championship wins in 2022/23 came within the month of August, Pearson will be the last person to get carried away if his side can give their home faithful some more early season success. Perhaps the visit of one of just two clubs that City defeated twice last Championship season, Preston North End, is exactly what the Robins need to get off to the ideal start.
Since they were promoted to the Championship alongside Bristol City at the end of 2014/15, Preston have remained stagnant, finishing between 11th and 14th in six of their eight Championship seasons since. Head coach Ryan Lowe, who suffers the ignominy of having never defeated Bristol City as a player or manager (D3, L4), couldn’t express the same level of optimism as Pearson after losing friendlies to League Two clubs Barrow and Stockport.
The latter was described by Lowe as “a reality check”, and having already gone through a pre-season without preferred choices such as Emil Riis, Ched Evans and Ben Whiteman, Lowe admitted a week prior to kick-off he’s still unsure of his best lineup. Such a selection headache means a fifth consecutive Championship season without an opening round win could well be on the cards.
Players to watch: Bristol City’s Mark Sykes opened the scoring in three of their last seven league wins, the first of which was the most recent meeting with Preston. For his previous employer Wigan, new Preston signing Will Keane scored in his first clash of 2022/23 with Bristol City.
Hot stat: Just 35% of Championship games involving Preston last season were won by the pre-match favourites of the day – one of the lowest percentages in the league.