Watford kick off their 2026-27 Sky Bet Championship campaign against Southampton in a hotly-anticipated clash.
Watford will look to improve on their 16th-placed finish of last season, whilst Southampton begin the campaign on -4 points after they were punished for a spying scandal in May – which also saw them expelled from the play-off final.
Team News
Kwadwo Baah is a doubt for Watford after he suffered a thigh injury during training.
Jeremy Ngakia has resumed training as he continues to recover from a hamstring injury but won’t be rushed back into action unless he passes a late fitness check.
Jack Grieves (knee) and Travis Akomeah (foot) are ruled out.
Southampton have no fresh injury concerns after their 2-0 victory at Colchester United in the first round of this season’s Carabao Cup.
Caspar Jander remains absent due to a muscle injury.
Loan signing, Divin Mubama could make his debut after he joined from Manchester City in midweek.
When is Kick-Off?
Watford host Southampton at Vicarage Road on Sunday 16 August at 1:30pm BST, live on Sky Sports Football in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Watford have won one of their last five league meetings against Southampton (W1, D2, L2).
- Southampton have avoided defeat in their last 10 away matches against Watford at Vicarage Road (W4, D6).
- Watford have lost just one of their last six opening-weekend league fixtures (W5, L1).
- Southampton are unbeaten in their last 21 Championship matches – including last season’s play-off semi-finals (W15, D6).
Prediction
With just six points from their last 11 league matches in which they mustered just one victory (W1, D3, L7) and now under the reins of Alessio Dionisi, Watford surely need to view this as a fresh start and chance to try and push for the play-offs realistically as their best aim.
Their last-gasp win over Crawley in the Carabao Cup despite putting just 11 of 36 shots onto target though shows how wasteful their attack can be which has to be a worry, yet there is the positive in that their defence was rock solid to not be punished as could of easily happened on another day.
Southampton meanwhile were clinically robust in their win at Colchester even if they had to bide their time to break down their League Two oppositional defence, whilst they clearly have developed a siege-like mentality to handle the inevitable volatility from oppositional fans due to their spying scandal.
On that note, I am expecting another difficult test for Tonda Eckert’s Saints but if they show the same patience and composure, I can see them winning this if Watford are again poor in their end product.
Prediction: Watford 1-2 Southampton
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