📊 Form Guide

Watford

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Watford will play in this match after a 2-2 Championship drawn result versus West Bromwich Albion.

In that game, Watford had 44% possession and 12 attempts at goal with 7 on target. For Watford, goals were scored by Edo Kayembe (51') and Mileta Rajović (66'). For their opponents, West Bromwich Albion got 10 shots at goal with 4 of them on target. Brandon Thomas-Asante (70') and Darnell Furlong (91') scored for West Bromwich Albion.

It’s been seldom in recent times that Watford have shown defensive steel. It will be a concern for them that Watford have seen their defence breached in 5 of their previous 6 clashes, leaking 8 goals on the way. Having said that, we must now wait to see whether the trend shall continue on in this upcoming game.

Looking at their past form shows that Watford:

• haven't been beaten in the league by Preston North End in their previous 5 games.
• haven’t won at home in the past 10 league matches. They will be so desperate to end this run.

Preston North End

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Since suffering a loss in their previous game against Birmingham City in Championship competition, Preston North End and their travelling supporters will be hoping that they can get a better result in this one.

In that match, Preston North End had 46% possession and 4 attempts at goal with 1 on target. Birmingham City got 11 shots at goal with 4 of them on target. Jay Stansfield (68') was the scorer for Birmingham City.

A run of accomplished showings from the Preston North End defenders has seen the number of goals they’ve conceded amounting to 3 from their last 6 fixtures in total. During the same period, their own forwards have managed to score 8.

Going into this contest, Preston North End have not registered a win against Watford in games played away from home for the previous 6 league matches. Not good.

↔️ Head to head

A review of their most recent head-to-head clashes stretching back to 25/08/2015 shows that Watford have won 3 of these and Preston North End 1, with the tally of draws being 2.

A sum of 13 goals were scored between them during those clashes, with 10 of them from The Hornets and 3 coming from The Lilywhites. This gives an average number of goals per game equal to 2.17.

The last league encounter featuring these clubs was Championship match day 22 on 16/12/2023 which ended up with the score at Preston North End 1-5 Watford.

On that occasion, Preston North End had 52% possession and 20 attempts at goal with 10 of them on target. Their only player on the scoresheet was Will Keane (27').

On the other side, Watford had 15 attempts on goal with 6 on target. Vakoun Issouf Bayo (42', 71'), Matheus Martins (46'), Edo Kayembe (53') and Ismaël Koné (77') scored.

The referee was Sunny Gill.

ℹ️ Team News: Watford

There aren’t many selection issues, with just a single fitness concern for the Watford boss Tom Cleverley to be concerned with thanks to an otherwise robust group. Kwadwo Baah (Hamstring injury) misses out.

In all likelihood, The Hornets may well line up in a 3-4-1-2 system and select Daniel Bachmann, Ryan Porteous, Francisco Sierralta, Wesley Hoedt, Ryan Andrews, Edo Kayembe, Tom Dele-Bashiru, Jamal Lewis, Yaser Asprilla, Mileta Rajovic and Emmanuel Dennis.

📋 Team News: Preston North End

We believe The Lilywhites seem likely to utilise a 3-4-1-2 system, choosing Freddie Woodman, Jack Whatmough, Liam Lindsay, Andrew Hughes, Liam Millar, Alistair McCann, Alan Browne, Robert Brady, M. Frøkjær-Jensen, Milutin Osmajic and Emil Riis Jakobsen.

✨ Prediction

Our feeling is that Preston North End have it within them to put one past this Watford outfit, but it possibly won’t quite be as many as the goals that they could concede.

We’re expecting a narrow 2-1 victory for Watford after the 90. It should be a decent one.

Our expert partners are tipping under 3.5 goals for this match. Check out their VIP predictions here.

Peter Guest, 13:02 06/04/2024