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Watford Tackle Champions Manchester City

We’ve already seen a string of intriguing and impressive performances throughout the Premier League this weekend, and it’s not over by a long shot with some fascinating Sunday games for us to feast our eyes upon today. In addition to that we’ve also got a rare series of fixtures during the week, meaning it’ll be pretty interesting to see how the sides fare with such a quick turnaround. Some have the squad depth to deal with such a demand, but the majority will likely struggle to get themselves going – although we can think of two teams who will be right up for it.

Those two teams are Watford and Manchester City, both of whom have had pretty successful starts to the season. Watford are considered to be an outside bet in the race for the European spots, and Manchester City already seem to be running away with another Premier League title. It’s really, really interesting to see how teams like this shape up against one another, because they’re both gearing up for an exceptionally busy period. They’ll be favoured in a lot of the games that they’re going to play, but we all know that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Javi Gracia has done a good job of making Watford into a solid unit, which is funny because everyone has been just waiting for them to fall apart given the managerial merry-go-round that they’ve been enduring as of late. While we don’t necessarily think that their method of ‘one in one out’ is particularly good, we do think that they should do whatever works for them – and this certainly seems to be working. There are elements of their game that they could still improve on, but we believe that the sky truly is the limit for them given the infrastructure of the squad.

Pep Guardiola, on the other hand, has long since been viewed as one of the best managers in the world. While that’s certainly open to interpretation, it feels like he has the kind of track record that you’d expect from someone with that kind of reputation. Barcelona and Bayern Munich were both giant clubs already and City had the finances to make things happen, but Guardiola still had to guide them in the right direction. He’s done that fairly efficiently, and now, the big question will be whether or not he can guide them to European glory as well as domestic.

For as much as we’re bigging Watford up, there’s still no getting away from the fact that they’ve struggled over the course of their last six games. They kicked off this stretch with an efficient 2-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers, before dominating Huddersfield 3-0. They then fell 1-0 to Newcastle before registering a 1-1 draw against Southampton, both of which were pretty disappointing results. A 3-0 loss at the hands of Liverpool soon followed, with yesterday’s 2-0 loss against Leicester serving as a reminder that you can never take anyone in this division lightly. They’re definitely in a blip, but all they need is one big result to get them out of it.

Manchester City’s last six games have gone about as well as you’d expect for them. They kicked off with a 6-1 win over Southampton in which they showed ruthless efficiency, before dominating Shakhtar Donetsk 6-0 with frightening ease. A 3-1 derby day win over Manchester United confirmed their presence as the kings of Manchester, and a 4-0 win over West Ham United proved that they are indeed as good as everyone says they are. A 2-2 draw against Lyon reminded City fans that Europe is an entirely different ball game, with a 3-1 win over Bournemouth serving as a welcome return to winning ways.

This is a fairly new fixture when compared to some of the other possible match ups in the Premier League, which should tell you all that you need to know about how far Watford have come as a club. Their first meeting took place back in 1982, and since then Man City have won 15 games in comparison to Watford’s six with five draws to go alongside those results. In their last meeting back in January, City beat Watford 3-1, and the Hornets haven’t actually beaten City since 1989. As they say, though, records are there to be broken.

Etienne Capoue will likely be forced to miss out on this game through suspension, after picking up a red card against Leicester City. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not Watford stick to their guns in terms of their formation and tactics, with Success and Deulofeu being considered their main attacking threats. Ben Foster will be the man attempting to keep the City attack at bay, but as we’ve seen in the past, the Englishman knows how to show up in the big games and he has a track record to prove that.

Sterling, Jesus and Sane is one of the most lethal front threes you could ever see, and when you combine that with the fact that they’ve got insane strength in depth, you can understand why some Watford fans would be worried. Fernandinho will likely dictate the pace in the middle of the park with Gundogan being right alongside him, but Watford are almost certainly going to try and make things physical. City aren’t exactly strangers to being dragged into that sort of game, and we think they’re going to be able to manage it. Otamendi and Laporte will likely start at the back.

Watford vs Manchester City Betting Prediction

The fact that this game is going to be under the lights at Vicarage Road is the best thing that could happen for Watford, because they need to try and create an intimidating atmosphere for City regardless of how difficult that seems. They’ve got a gritty squad and they know how to push teams up against the wall, which City won’t like. Of course, it’s difficult to do that to a team of their quality, but everyone is capable of letting their guard down once in a while.

We can see City slowly growing into the game after the half hour mark, scoring just before the break to really put themselves in the driving seat. Then, early on in the second half they’ll double their advantage, only for Watford to reply almost immediately. That will set up quite the final 20 minutes between the Hornets and the champions, with City having to cling onto a lead for the first time in what feels like forever. We think they’ll hold on to register a 2-1 win and continue their reign of dominance, but it certainly isn’t going to come easy to them.