Watford welcome Blackburn Rovers to Vicarage Road in a huge clash in the race for Sky Bet Championship Play-Offs.
Victory would see Watford stay fifth unless results elsewhere swing in their favour, whilst Blackburn can leapfrog the Hornets with a win and go fifth.
Team News
Tom Cleverley could return to Watford’s first-team matchday squad for the first time since August following his recovery from an Achilles injury.
Christian Kabasele and Ken Sema (both hamstring) could also feature but Imran Louza (leg), Craig Cathcart (groin), Edo Kayembe (calf), Dan Gosling (Achilles), Francisco Sierralta (foot) Jeremy Ngakia, Samuel Kalu and Joao Ferreira (all hamstring) are still sidelined.
Blackburn will be without goalkeeper, Thomas Kaminski after he missed their goalless draw against WIgan with a knee injury.
Callum Brittain (knee) could return but
Daniel Ayala (foot), Jake Batty, Dom Hyam, Adam Wharton (all ankle) and Sam Barnes (knee) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Watford host Blackburn at Vicarage Road in a 3pm GMT kick-off on Saturday 11 February, albeit untelevised in UK.
Stat Attack
- Watford have lost just one of their last six meetings against Blackburn (W3, D2, L1).
- Blackburn are winless in their last five visits to Vicarage Road (D1, L4).
- Watford have scored three goals in two of their last three home matches against Blackburn, except for 1-0 win in February 2015.
- Mario Gaspar has been yellow carded in each of Watford’s last two home matches.
- Blackburn have kept just one clean sheet in their last six away matches in the Championship (W1, D1, L4), which came in a 2-0 win at Norwich in mid-December.
Prediction
After rebounding from their defeat at Middlesbrough with a stronger attacking performance and clinical finishing against Reading last weekend, Watford will be disappointed to draw 2-2 after some sloppy second half defending.
Slaven Bilic should therefore hope that his defence is more focused here because they’re clearly on an upward trend, yet needs to just cut out their errors and tighten up to protect their lead more.
Blackburn meanwhile just lacked creativity in their goalless draw against Wigan despite looking positive in their attacking play, yet they were eventually lucky not to concede after the Latics finished the game on top so I do expect a more creative response here.
Vicarage Road though has been a tricky bogey ground for Rovers in recent years but I do expect a close contest, which Watford should edge if they can avoid defensive errors.
Prediction: Watford 1-0 Blackburn
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