Nottingham Forest and Derby County have had contrasting starts to the season, with Forest losing just one of their opening eleven league games to sit in second place in the table, whilst the Rams are 13th having won just three league fixtures.

The Reds are unbeaten in ten Championship matches since a 2-1 defeat at home to West Bromwich Albion on the opening day of the season and head into the international break on the back of winning four out of their last five league fixtures.

Derby have also enjoyed an upturn in form in recent weeks, going five without defeat and winning two of their last three games, which has raised confidence that the Rams could yet enjoy a successful campaign despite a slow start.

Both sides have performed relatively well in front of goal so far this term, with Nottingham Forest scoring 16 league goals and Derby firing in 15 but Forest's defence has been by far the better of the two sides, with the Reds conceding just nine times, six fewer than their bitter rivals.

That made selecting a combined eleven of both teams a difficult challenge, with Forest having an excellent understanding between their defensive unit, but Derby also boast some quality individual defenders to chose from, while both sides have strong midfield and attacking options.

Here, though, we take a look at the combined XI we believe might be the strongest in terms of the individual players selected based on their form this season, and last term as well...

 

Considering both teams have operated with a 4-3-2-1 formation at times this season, we have selected that as the system for the combined eleven. The selection of Brice Samba was a simple decision considering his fine form in Forest's goal since his arrival in the summer, while Michael Dawson and Joe Worrall have formed one of the league's best defensive partnerships so far this term.

There were some difficult choices around the selection of the two full-backs, with Jayden Bogle and Scott Malone being selected ahead of Matty Cash and Yuri Ribeiro.

That was because they possess more Championship experience in those positions, with Bogle and Malone both key performers in the Derby side that reached the play-off final last season.

And considering Cash is more naturally a midfielder and Ribeiro only arrived in the summer, we opted for Derby's full-backs, with Forest's Jack Robinson not having the same attacking threat as Malone either.

The Reds Samba Sow can consider himself unfortunate to have missed out at the base of midfield, but both Ben Watson and Krystian Bielik have been excellent in that role this term, whilst Martyn Waghorn edges Tiago Silva in the number ten position, due to his four league goals scored already this season.

Both Joao Carvalho and Joe Lolley have performed very well for Forest this season, with the Portuguee playmaker a real threat when he comes inside.

Meanwhile, Derby's wide players have been rotated a lot by Cocu so far this term and Lewis Grabban was a pretty straightforward call as the lone forward role having been Forest's main striker and scored five league goals in eleven games.

 

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