MATCH OFFICIALS Referee: Paul Tierney Assistants: Wayne Barratt, Daniel Leach Fourth Official: Christopher Kavanagh Watford are back in action on Wednesday night and will be looking to make it three wins on the bounce and keep up their automatic promotion hunt. Following wins for Bournemouth, Norwich City and Middlesbrough, the Hornets are in fourth place - three points outside the top two places and four off the top. Netting the first goal is always seen as key and Watford's record of winning 19, drawing four and losing none when scoring the opener is the second best in the Championship behind Middlesbrough in terms of average points per match. Away from home, Watford have the third-best record in the league and are unbeaten in seven, scoring at least twice in all of them. Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest's season is slowly coming to a halt as the play-offs are now out of their reach. Forest go into the match with Watford having lost back-to-back home matches against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Huddersfield Town, plus Dougie Freedman's side are without a win in four overall. However, Forest had won their previous five home matches prior to this bad run of form and the Hornets will need to at least be near their best to take away all three points. In fact, Forest have the third-best points per match average when facing the top eight teams heading into the midweek set of fixtures. MATCHDAY 42 Nottingham Forest 0-1 Huddersfield Town Millwall 0-2 Watford FC REVERSE FIXTURE Earlier in the season, Nottingham Forest came from behind twice to salvage a draw at Vicarage Road and could possibly have won all three points despite a controlling first hour from Watford. Odion Ighalo put Watford into the lead after Gianni Munari flicked on an Almen Abdi cross, but Michail Antonio equalised two minutes later with a solo effort. Matej Vydra was felled in the box by Kelvin Wilson shortly after half-time and the Watford striker tucked home the penalty to make it 2-1, before Antonio scored his second midway through the second half from a Chris Burke cross. TEAM NEWS Nottingham Forest Gary Gardner is set to go straight back into the Forest side following the completion of a two-man ban, while Dextor Blackstock and Madou Barrow could return from injury after missing Saturday's defeat to Huddersfield Town. Former Watford striker Britt Assombalonga remains absent with a long-term knee injury, which is expected to keep him out for at least another 10 months with Matty Fryatt, Andy Reid and Chris Cohen all still missing through injury, too. Watford FC Craig Cathcart missed the win against Millwall, but Slavisa Jokanovic expects the centre-half to be back for the match with Forest, while Fernando Forestieri has been ruled out. Midfielder Sean Murray remains absent following knee surgery, but could be fully recovered for pre-season, plus Joel Ekstrand is another absentee not expected to return until next year. FINAL THOUGHTS My last match preview was the home fixture with Blackburn Rovers and in this section I earmarked that match to be the start of a push to the top two. Since then, only Norwich City have won more points than Watford with the Hornets recording 10 wins and two draws from 14 matches. We really have kicked on towards the top two and in this period we have grown in confidence and have looked a top two outfit for the majority - not just in style, but character, grit and determination as well. Jokanovic believes we will do it. The players believe we will do it. The fans? I think we are starting to believe it is our time, too. With the no results going our way from Tuesday night, then three points really is needed you feel to keep the automatic promotion dream alive. Of course, a draw would not be the end of that dream, but to keep it in our own hands is obviously much better! Admittedly, very recently I had this match down as a draw but, following this weekend's results, my mind is telling me that we will win in an entertaining match. Seven matches unbeaten away, scoring at least twice in that run - my prediction is 3-1 and we will go back to being only one goal behind Norwich. Let this be the beginning of the end to Watford's successful promotion season. COYH!
Forest 2-3 Watford Another nerve shredding, grey hair inducing, cardiac traumatising, boxer-shorts soiling, evening of agony and eventual elation.
Freedman gave the impression he'd use the remaining games to try out some of their youngsters/squad players ... whatever, they have nothing left to play for but pride but I am a little worried their fans shout for everything and officials have been known to be swayed rather too easily there. However I'm confident if we can keep eleven the pitch we will win comfortably.
lots of talk up here that Forest have run out of steam and are willing the season to be over, I however think it's a trap and they will still be have to be beaten which won't be easy unless we score early. massive game for me as I will get untold abuse should the *******s beat us
"You are going to batter us on Wednesday. We are sh*te" - Levon's Forest-Supporting friend. That said, I think this will be as tough a game as the last few. I'm pretty confident we'll get something out of this, but we need to have the correct attitude and work at it. We also need to cut out the sloppy passing that seemed to pop up yesterday.
Good time to play them, earlier in the season I'd have taken a draw, but we must surely look to win this. Antonio has been their best player this year, but reports are he is pretty much done for this season. With Abdi back and all 3 main strikers firing, we should surely have too much firepower for them? I also think playing a day later is ALWAYS an advantage to us. It gives us more information that our rivals won't have access to. Whatever the rivals do, we can use it as motivation one way or another. Forest 1-2 Watford Burke; Abdi (2)
Playing 24 hours after our rivals could either put added pressure or gift us an opportunity. I'm not so concerned about Bournemouth as they should win, I'm hoping that one or both of Middlesbrough or Norwich fail to win.
Won't be easy, but we need to win this. Having Abdi back will help. Hope Vydra starts again, he loves scoring against Forest.
I hope we win for 2 reasons. 1. Promotion 2. I really don't like Florist. 3. Surprise & fear Damn. 3 reasons.
This is always such a tough game. Last year I went there on my own as I had two days of holiday to take by the end of that week, and it was the Thursday night so I thought I may as well. Ended up being a miserable couple of days. I have a mate in Nottingham that I ended up not actually meeting up with... We lost in a really frustrating manner, it was an absolute capitulation. The train home (to Liverpool at that point) was needlessly long. AND it was rainy most of the time. And also I don't really like Nottingham all that much. The two stadiums do look fantastic though, right on the Trent.
Those were dark days though. The results of last season are barely relevent. This is Slav's Watford and we have a far better team and attitude. I'm thinking about Matej Vydra and his 4 goals in his last two appearances against Forest. Against a Forest team whose season ground to a complete halt due to utter pointlessness, I think he'll add to that.
And so the nerves begin again. Abdi to start in a 3-5-2. Cathcart back with Connoly or Hoban dropping out. Another huge game but reckon this week might be the point where things change. Expect Bournemouth to win as Reading have other things to think about but tough games for us, Boro and Norwich. Gutted I can't make this
FIFA Predicts... Nottingham Forest 1 - 0 Watford 88' - Burke - A shot from the edge of the box deflects off of Motta to wrong foot Gomes Watford substitutions: 45' - Guedioura off/Abdi on 59' - Ighalo off/Vydra on 68' - Watson off/Munari on Man of the match: Karl Darlow Odds: Burke FGS and 1-0 @70/1 --------------------------------- P43 W26 D8 L9 Pts86 GD23 We would be 1st in the table Top scorers: Deeney (12) Vydra (8) Ighalo (7) Most assists: Tozser (8) Abdi (7) Deeney (5)
Well technically, six points would be a win-win situation. Nine points would be a win-win-win situation.
This thread has descended into a farce, just like our season will when Michail Antonio nets his hatrick.
