12 Sept 2019
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It is a treacherous time in the Watford camp at the minute, with Quique Sanchez Flores replacing Javi Gracia following a dreadful run of three defeats from four winless matches so far. In fact, they suffered a three-goal hammering on the opening weekend hosting poor travellers Brighton, while the Hammers also put three past them in their other fixture at Vicarage Road.
Meanwhile, their opponents here got off to such a promising start, only to be put back in their place at Anfield before rescuing a stalemate with North London rivals Spurs in their final two fixtures before the international break. However, relative to Man Utd and Chelsea – their most likely competitors for fourth place – they can still take confidence from those results and performances.
Can Sanchez Flores Turn The Tide?
The parting of Gracia may have been a tad harsh but not altogether surprising, as the Hornets have now lost six of seven winless matches stretching back into April, which certainly isn’t good enough for a club pushing for a top half spot.
The fans will be hoping the manager bounce can play a role here, but it seems they’re going to need more than that to turn around some truly terrible performances, not to mention the fact they’ve lost 12 of 13 winless games against the ‘Big Six’ over the last 12 months across all competitions.
Arsenal On The Road
Arsenal have endured problems of their own on the road though under both Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery, going W12-D8-L20 from their 40 trips since the start of the 2017/18 season.
However, they’ve vastly improved versus bottom-half teams under Emery, against whom they’ve won eight of 11 road games since his arrival. Moreover, facing that calibre of opposition across all venues, the Gunners have won 22 of their last 27 fixtures dating back into March 2018.
Emery Has Injury Concerns
Emery does have to monitor the fitness of one or two players, but the Gunners should have the resources to cope here. Granit Xhaka was forced off against Gibraltar on Sunday, though the Swiss captain claims his Achilles isn’t too bad and many Arsenal fans would prefer Dani Ceballos to start in any case.
The Spanish international should be fresh having been an unused substitute in Spain’s second game of the break, while prior to that he impressed in Bucharest against Romania by completing 66 of his 69 passes, including a clever outside of the foot pass in the build up to La Roja’s eventual winner.
Lucas Torreira is another slight doubt after leaving the field for Uruguay before half-time against Costa Rica, though if necessary there’s an able replacement in Joe Willock to partner Matteo Guendouzi, while Emery could always use Ceballos in a deeper role and bring back Mesut Ozil into the team.
Better news for Arsenal fans is that Nicolas Pepe stayed with the club instead of representing his country to prepare for this weekend, while fears of a hamstring complaint over Alexandre Lacazette have been alleviated as it turned out to just be cramp, with the Frenchman having had the whole break to recover.
Arsenal To Win
Watford’s injury list may be shorter but more compromising. They’ve tended to struggle in the absence of captain Troy Deeney and since the start of last season, they’re just W3-D4-L5 when he hasn’t started, with two of those victories coming over an abysmal Huddersfield outfit, while each of those stalemates came against either Newcastle or Southampton.
They’ve also scored 14% more goals per game on average in the 30 he’s started during this time and it looks set to be a tough afternoon for Flores on his return to the helm. That’s especially the case seeing as they’ve lost to nil in all three meetings with this North London side since March last year.
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