Date: Saturday 2nd November 2019
Venue: Vicarage Road
Kick-off: 17:30 GMT
Our run of 7 wins came to a disappointing end against United midweek. Fortunately, it was only the Carabao Cup but still an irritation to lose after so many inspiring performances, and to lose to a pretty poor United side as well. Still, Frank rang the changes – as he’s perfectly entitled to do in cup games – but I would expect to see us back to a more recognisable starting XI in today’s late game, or as close to recognisable as we can get with injuries ongoing.
Today’s late game sees us face a Watford side who haven’t had a win in the league, so you can bank on them looking for a scalp. Whilst they had a pretty torrid time defensively in the early part of the season though, they’ve conceded just one goal in their last three games, so we’ll have our work cut out breaking them down this evening – and we’ll need to perform a lot better than we did in Wednesday’s cup game as well.
MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into today’s game, Watford head coach Quique Sanchez Flores says, “We need to talk about the solutions. The players who are not really ready right now, they’re not the solutions. I love Troy Deeney, all of you know how is my relationship with Deeney, he helps the team when he’s on the pitch, but right now he’s not here, so it’s not a solution for me.”
Chelsea boss Frank Lampard meanwhile, says “We saw what they (Watford) did last year, getting big results and regularly being a very strong team and making the FA Cup final. We cannot underestimate the team; they will be hurting because they haven’t won for a while, and will have every ambition to try and win this game, so I certainly have even more focus on what we need to do.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Watford, Troy Deeney (knee), Etienne Capoue (back), Danny Welbeck, Ismaila Sarr, Domingos Quina and Tom Cleverley all miss out but Isaac Success (groin) is available again.
For Chelsea, Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Achilles), van Ginkel (ACL), N’Golo Kante (groin), Ross Barkley (ankle), Andreas Christensen (hamstring) and Antonio Rudiger (groin) all remain out.
TEAMS
WATFORD (Possible line-up): Foster; Kabasele, Dawson, Cathcart; Janmaat, Capoue, Chalobah, Doucoure, Holebas; Deulofeu, Pereyra
CHELSEA (Possible line-up): Kepa; Azpilicueta, Zouma, Tomori, Alonso; Kovacic; Jorginho; Willian, Mount; Pulisic; Abraham.
LAST SEASON
Watford 1-2 Chelsea (26th December 2018)
CURRENT FORM (PL)
WATFORD: DLLDDD
CHELSEA: WLWWWW
OTHER STUFF
- Watford have only won two of the 12 Premier League meetings
- Watford have won 2 of the last 21 meetings in all competitions.
- The 12 Premier League meetings have featured 40 goals.
- Watford could fail to win their first 11 games of a league campaign for the first time.
- Watford are winless in nine Premier League home matches.
- Watford have only scored one goal in their past five games in all competitions.
- Chelsea are currently on a club top-flight record of four consecutive away wins while scoring three or more goals in each.
- Chelsea could equal the club record of seven successive away victories in all competitions.
- There have been 27 goals in Chelsea’s five Premier League away matches this season.
PREDICTION
BBC Sport: Watford 1-2 Chelsea
Sky Sports: Watford 2-2 Chelsea
Sportsmole: Watford 1-2 Chelsea