Promotion chasing Watford welcome West Bromwich Albion to Vicarage Road in Monday Night Football.
Victory would see Watford climb to fifth, whilst West Brom can leapfrog the Hornets into eighth with a win.
Team News
Tom Cleverley is ruled out for Watford after he suffered a thigh injury during warm-up in their 1-1 draw at Burnley last week.
Craig Cathcart (groin), Tom Dele-Bashiru (fitness), Edo Kayembe (calf), Dan Gosling (Achilles), Francisco Sierralta (foot), Jeremy Ngakia, Samuel Kalu and Joao Ferreira (all hamstring) remain absent.
West Brom could be without Tom Rogic after he missed their 1-1 draw against Blackburn in midweek with a hamstring injury.
Nathaniel Chalobah (knock) is also doubtful but Alex Palmer (knee/ankle), Matt Phillips (quad) and Kean Bryan (knee) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Watford host West Brom on Monday 20 February in a 8pm GMT kick-off at Vicarage Road live on Sky Sports,
Stat Attack
- Watford have lost just one of their last eight meetings against West Brom (W3, D4, L1).
- West Brom have won one of their last five visits to Watford (W1, D2, L2)
- Watford have kept clean sheets in their last three home matches against West Brom (W2, D1).
- Each of Watford’s last five league goals at home have been scored after half-time.
- Carlos Corberan’s Baggies have conceded twice in each of their last three league trips away from The Hawthorns (W1, L2).
Prediction
With the gap between automatic promotion and play-off contenders beginning to grow, this game is realistically a must-win for Watford if they want to stay in with a potential prospect of snatching automatic promotion if other teams heavily slip up in the next few months.
Slavan Bilic’s Hornets though can take heart from a positive draw at Burnley in midweek where they really took their attacking game to the Clarets, whilst managing to defensively weather the host’s attacks well until they conceded a scrappy late goal.
West Brom meanwhile endured a similar sort of performance against Blackburn with excellent goalkeeping from Josh Griffiths and defending, yet they too let a lead slip in the closing minutes to settle for an eventual draw.
If both teams come out with another performance here then I do see both teams cancelling each other out but Vicarage Road hasn’t been a solid away ground for West Brom lately, so the visitors probably need to score first otherwise this could be a home win.
Prediction: Watford 1-1 WBA
Result: Watford 3-2 WBA