Huddersfield Town welcome Luton Town to John Smith’s Stadium in a huge Monday Night Football showdown in the race for Sky Bet Championship Play-Offs.
With just one point separating both teams in fourth and fifth respectively, victory would see either Huddersfield or Luton climb to third.
Team News
Matty Pearson is ruled out for Huddersfield after suffering a knee injury in training.
Danny Ward and Johnathan Hogg (both illness) are both set to return but Tino Anjorin (knock), Alex Vallejo, Rolando Aarons (both knee) and Ryan Schofield (shoulder) remain ruled out.
Luton could be without Cameron Jerome after he was substituted with a knock in their midweek draw at Peterborough.
Reece Burke (hamstring) is a doubt but Alex Palmer (leg), Jed Steer (Achilles) and Gabriel Osho (hamstring) remain ruled out.
Stat Attack
- Huddersfield are winless in their last five league meetings against Luton (D3, L2).
- Luton are unbeaten in four of their last five visits to Huddersfield (W2, D2, L1).
- The goalless draw at Kenilworth Road in October 2021 marked the first time that neither team scored in 27 meetings between Huddersfield and Luton across all competitions.
- Huddersfield haven’t picked up any bookings in their last two home matches.
- Elijah Adebayo has been involved in 19 goals for Luton this season, having scored 15 goals and provided four assists.
Prediction
With Bournemouth beginning to pull away towards the second automatic promotion spot, this is really a must-win match for both Huddersfield and Luton if either team are to stand any chance at catching the Cherries and avoiding the play-offs.
Huddersfield however endured a frustrating display in their last outing because despite dominating Hull even when had an extra-man advantage, they did struggle to break the Tigers down but can take confidence from snatching the win and preventing counter-attacks.
Luton meanwhile were surprisingly outplayed in their midweek 1-1 draw at Peterborough despite taking the lead, yet that performance might be to their advantage if they don’t dominate in this match because if they score first then they can just sit back and defend hard here.
Goals though seem to be common here with just one goalless draw previously in this fixture so I do expect a competitive battle but if Huddersfield dominate, Luton surely will fancy their chances if they can frustrate the Terriers and hit them on the counter-attack.
A draw though would be a fair outcome for this huge battle in Yorkshire.
Prediction: Huddersfield 1-1 Luton