Luton vs Nottingham Forest tips and predictions: Fired-up Hatters to bounce back

What a week for Luton. After scoring an injury-time equaliser at Selhurst Park to halt their losing run at five, the Hatters thought they were leaving Bournemouth with three points.

Instead, they became the third team in Premier League history to lose a match when leading 3-0 at half-time and the fifth to surrender a three-goal lead.

We won’t know until Saturday afternoon how damaging that is when they could either be above Nottingham Forest or a further point from safety.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side has their poor form to address, but they may smell blood at Kenilworth Road this weekend.

Forest have lost their lost four in all competitions and haven’t won away in 2024 but they’ll have a prime opportunity against an injury-hit Town side who are leaking goals.

The Cherries' four-goal outburst means Rob Edwards’ side have shipped 27 in seven now for an unhealthy average of 3.87 goals per game since the end of January.

On the other hand, the visitors have been keeping things tight. They lost by the odd goal against Liverpool and Brighton and so nearly held the former to a draw.

Town’s resilience at home has evaporated with seven of the previous 10 visitors winning and scoring two or more. Sure, they were mostly top sides, but their momentum is gone.

Despite all of this, we expect a typical defiance around the place on Sunday and the bookies making Nottingham Forest favourites feels like a slight overreaction.

We also want to exploit the fact that both of these sides are physical and Town may be wound up early on, so we’ll take a chance on there being some early bookings.

 

Team news

Tom Lockyer, Amari’i Bell, Dan Potts, Marvellous Nakamba, Joseph Johnson and Jacob Brown are ruled out for the hosts.

Tahith Chong joined the ranks of the walking wounded on Wednesday. Elijah Adebayo, Sambi Lokonga, Gabriel Osho and Mads Andersen will be assessed.

Full-backs Nuno Tavares and Gonzalo Montiel are unavailable for Forest.

Ola Aina and Gio Reyna are also struggling and could miss out.

 

Key stats

- Luton have conceded 27 goals in seven matches
- Luton have scored in all but one Premier League home game
- Forest have won two of 16 away games in all competitions
- Forest have conceded in 10 of their last 11 on the road

 

Suggested bets

Luton Town +0.25 Asian handicap

Over 1.5 first-half cards

Both teams to score