📏 Form Guide

Portsmouth

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Portsmouth will be hoping to return to winning ways here after the 1-2 Championship defeat in their last game at the hands of Swansea City.

In that game, Portsmouth had 59% possession and 9 shots at goal with 4 on target. The scorer for Portsmouth was Jacob Brown (64'). Swansea City got 8 attempts on goal with 3 of them on target. Ethan Galbraith (26') and Josh Key (39') scored for Swansea City.

It has been seldom in recent times that Portsmouth have kept a clean sheet. The reality is that Portsmouth have seen their defence breached in 6 of their previous 6 games, leaking 8 goals during that time.

Looking at their past form shows that Portsmouth:

• are unbeaten in the league by Derby County in their previous 2 games.
• have left without a victory over Derby County in their previous 11 league games.
• haven’t won at home in the past 3 league matches.

Derby County

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Following on from a losing effort in their last game against Millwall in Championship competition, Derby County and their travelling supporters will be hoping that they can get a better result in this one.

In that game, Derby County had 49% possession and 14 shots on goal with 1 of them on target. On the other side, Millwall had 15 attempts at goal with 4 on target. Josh Coburn (43') scored for Millwall.

Looking at their form, and Derby County have been scored against in 5 of their last 6 games, seeing their opponents hit 9 goals overall. In defence, Derby County certainly have room for improvement. That aside, we must now wait to see if the trend might be maintained in this upcoming match.

Looking at the pre-match facts, Derby County:

• haven't won against Portsmouth in games played away from home for the previous 3 league games.
• haven't been beaten by Portsmouth in games played away from home for the previous 5 matches in the league. A very decent away record against them.
• haven’t won away from home in the past 3 matches in the league.

👥 Head to head

There have been a high number of draws between the two sides. In their head to head meetings going back to 29/04/2023, fans have seen 5 of these. That’s a comparatively high 83% of games ending up tied.

In all, 18 goals were yielded between them during those clashes, with 7 for Pompey and 11 being from The Rams. That’s an average goals per game of 3.

The last league meeting between the two was Championship match day 22 on 20/12/2025 and the score finished Derby County 1-1 Portsmouth.

In that match, Derby County managed 52% possession and 12 shots on goal with 6 of them on target.

On the other side, Portsmouth got 4 shots at goal with 1 on target. Callum Lang (6') and Hayden Matthews (45' Own goal) scored.

The referee was Farai Hallam.

📋 Team News: Portsmouth

We think that Pompey will probably go for a 4-2-3-1 system for the game, beginning the first half with Nicolas Schmid, Terry Devlin, Madiodio Dia, Connor Ogilvie, Zak Swanson, Marlon Pack, Ebou Adams, Gustavo Caballero, Jacob Brown, Conor Chaplin and Colby Bishop.

📰 Team News: Derby County

We reckon that The Rams seem likely to utilise a 4-2-3-1 system with a starting lineup of Richard O´Donnell, Joe Ward, Dion Sanderson, Matt Clarke, Derry Murkin, David Ozoh, Lewis Travis, Ben Brereton Díaz, Samuel Szmodics, Rhian Brewster and Patrick Agyemang.

⚡ Prediction

We’re inclined to think that Derby County may not find it easy to find the net against this Portsmouth lineup who we think might well get the win and a maybe even keep a clean sheet as well.

We therefore think that it’s going to be a 1-0 winning margin for Portsmouth after 90 minutes.

Expecting it to be tight.

Peter Guest, 08:03 16/03/2026