Monday night sees some of us venture up the M1 and M6 and some of us stretch for the remote for a match against Burnley. Who are they? Who's likely to play? What's the score going to be? Will there be hidden gifs in the preview? The answer to all these questions and more is yes. Factfile Full name: Burnley Football Club. 'Burnely' if you can't spell. Nickname: The Clarets Mascot: Bertie Bee, a sort of off-brand, Bojack Horseman-esque version of Harry, although to his credit he did once deal with a nude man like this. Founded: 1882. The same year as: founding of QPR, birth of Pooh-conjuror A.A. Milne, birth of Dublin wanderer James Joyce, birth of accidental Goth instigator Bela Lugosi, death of U.S. school syllabus nuisance Charles Darwin, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Ground (capacity): Turf Moor (21,401, only 37 seats fewer than us. Alternatively, 2.1 Kennels) Chairman: Mike Garlick Manager: Sean Dyche Forums: FootyMad, The Longside Officially speaking: Website, Twitter Rivals: The East Lancashire/Cotton Mills Derby vs Blackburn, and Bolton. Previously Head to head: won 11, drawn 9, lost 15 The last four games have all been draws; our last win was in March 2012. Mariappa started—something he's unlikely to do this time round—and we won 3-2 with goals from Nos, Kačanikli* and Deeney. Nos also scored at the other end. Some forumites might remember the famous 7-4 victory in 2003 when Chopra scored 4. A little-known fact is that this is the last time any Watford player scored a hat-trick. Played for both Chris Iwelumo, Lloyd Dyer, Marvin Sordell, Michael Kightly, Micah Hyde, Clarke Carlisle, Chris Eagles, Gifton Noel-Williams, Nathaniel Chalobah, Jon Harley, Rick Holden, Jack Cork, Alexander Kačanikli*, Craig Armstrong, Paul Atkinson, Charlie Bishop and Lee Grant (both on our books but didn't make an appearance) In terms of staff, they currently have Dyche, Ian Woan and Tony Loughlan. Glenn Roeder was assistant manager there for a spell after managing us. Summer signings and ones to watch Steven Defour from Anderlecht for £7.3m, who's showing me a colossal lack of respect given I brought him to England in my FM11 save and turned him into the world's greatest player Jeff Hendrick for £10m-ish from Derby, leading to this slightly odd collection of words 2014-15 Championship player of the year and future Darth Vader Patrick Bamford, on loan from Chelsea as he tries to do something, anything with his recent career Jon Flanagan, on loan from Liverpool Homophobia's Andre Gray Who's missing for both teams Daryl Janmaat (shoulder, back mid-October) Stefano Okaka (hamstring, back late October) Ashley Barnes (hamstring) Season so far Burnley will be relatively happy with 4 points from 5 games. That leaves them keeping pace in 16th place. You'd expect at least a couple of Stoke, Sunderland, West Ham and Bournemouth to put a run of results together at some point, so Burnley's hope is that they can pick up enough points and hope others drop below them so they stay clear of the relegation spots for as long as possible. The Clarets' run of fixtures in the early part of the season isn't terribly favourable. Having played Liverpool and Chelsea already, they're set to face Arsenal, a resurgent Everton and Man Utd (who surely can't continue being so terrible for much longer) in the next month or so. Some fans are worried that things might get worse before they get better, and the team might not be able to outrun relegation forever. Burnley didn't strengthen very much in the summer, a decision which seems to have some opposing views in the fan base. Some fans are pragmatic; they're comfortable that the existing squad can at least battle for safety and, if they do go down, history should repeat itself and they'll come right back up again in a financially stronger position. Others are looking at the number of mediocre sides in the PL this season and asking why a little more ambition wasn't shown, that this was a great chance for them. Burnley take the fewest shots per match (less than 8) in the division. It's also worth noting that the chances they create aren't particularly good ones. At the other end, only Sunderland and Hull face more shots per match. We know exhaust-huffing Dyche well from his spell in charge of Watford, so we can expect a hardworking, fairly rigid team that hold their shape well, allowing only a couple of players (Defour and Gray) a bit more creative freedom than the rest. They've played 4-4-2 in most games this season. In their last game they dropped striker Sam Vokes for new signing Jeff Hendrick, who sat at the base of the midfield in an otherwise flat 4-5-1. In comparison we've shot out of the blocks. We've had two terrific wins on the bounce and we've picked up more points than most of us would have expected at this point. This match begins a run of fixtures against theoretically lesser teams, and we should aim for at least 10 points from the next 5 games. Before the Utd match, we were the most languidly clinical team in the league, taking around 9.5 shots per match but scoring better than once every 5 shots. Predictions Most questions are around our central defensive line-up. Assuming we start with 3-5-2, I think we'll stay the same at the back as against Utd. Amrabat in for the injured Janmaat at RWB, and otherwise unchanged. Watford (3-5-2): Gomes; Cathcart, Prodl, Britos; Amrabat, Pereyra, Behrami, Capoue, Holebas; Ighalo, Deeney Burnley (4-5-1): Heaton; Lowton, Keane, Mee, Ward; Arfield, Defour, Hendrick, Marney, Boyd; Gray The midfield battle will be interesting, with our wingbacks up against wide midfielders and full backs. Amrabat and Holebas will have to run themselves into the ground. I wonder if we might see a 3-5-2 formation that sort of secretly morphs into 4-4-2 as needed, with Amrabat pushing on into wide midfield, Holebas dropping deeper and the rest of the defence sliding across to put Cathcart at RB. Dangerously, I quite fancy us to do well in this match. A fairly dour 2-0 to us with Deeney and Pereyra to score. Pudil to get booked. We'll be last on MOTD. I await the various video game predictions and architectural delights.
Need to up our game. Not playing the kind of disorganised rabble Wet Spam or Manu put out. Burnley will be strongly organised and good. They'll be targeting us as someone to beat. 3 points would be tremendous here.
I think the fact that Dyche will see this as one of the games he can target 3 points, should play into our hands. Our reasonably solid defence will see off their stunted attack and we will score twice . They will only score if we make a defensive error , which has been our achilles so far this season and the cause of most of our goals conceded thus far.
We've practically already won the three points, so the best we can do is avoid injury against these neanderthals. Burnley are a perfect reason why they should get rid of relegation/ promotion to the be-all-and-end-all EPL. I'd settle for 4 or 5 and no broken legs please.
I feel like Burnley are the sort of team that last season we would've really struggled to breakdown but with the attacking quality we have at the moment I think (hope) we should be able to score a few and come out on top. Personally I would like to see Success start ahead of Ighalo. Iggy hasn't been at his best recently and now we finally have what looks like a really dangerous replacement in Success. Aside from that I would like to see the same XI that started vs United. Where did you read that Janmaat was out till mid-October? That's disappointing news but Amrabat is certainly a decent backup
I am confident that we will get a result in this fixture although Burnley will be hard to break down but I am certain that we will have enough creativity in our side to break them down. No chance we should drop Ighalo for this one I think him and Deeney have been a real handful in the last couple of games and have started to find a bit of form.
Alistair Campbell supports Burnley doesn't he? I reckon they'll be extra plucky this week and I've predicted a 3-3 draw as the result.
I'm going to the game, another stadium to add to my list. I think this is a great game to start Success, but would otherwise keep the team that beat Man U. Iggy actually did a pretty good job at holding the ball up in that game, but was a bit naff elsewhere. If Janmaat is out then it either Zuniga or Amrabat to start there.
This is a good read: https://www.premierleague.com/news/106459 Also interestingly we have scored more goals than Burnley have had shots on target.
It's important that us fans don't become arrogant like other premier league fans and believe we have a god given right to beat plucky little teams like Burnley enjoying their moment in the spotlight
"Another alleged reason for the increased hostilities is that Blackburn complained to the Football League about Burnley's illegal number of Scottish players in the 1890s." Illicit Scotsmen is by far the best reason I've ever heard of for a sports rivalry. I can't see Burnley scoring in this one, they've been terrible going forward. As long as our defence holds, which it hopefully will without Janmaat, I think we're almost guaranteed a point if not three. These are the kinds of games we should definitely be winning; against a newly promoted side that is slated to go down. No disrespect to Burnley, credit where credit is due spots in the Prem don't come in Cracker Jacks boxes, but if we're serious about becoming a Europa league level club per Pozzo mandate then we need to be picking up points here.
Ah the irony - good point though. Burnley won't be pushovers it will be a tough game. Can our foreign stars do it on a cold night in the God forsaken northern wastes? If Walt gets them up for it, we should win. 2-1 Ighalo and Amrabat. COYH
I've heard a rumour—also reported here: http://www.wdsport.co.uk/2016/09/daryl-janmaat-faces-spell-out-following-fracture/
Another very enjoyable preview, standards are up this season! Shame that Janmaat's out for so long, particularly as it looked like a clear foul from Pogba. Having said that, I thought Deeney could easily have been sent off when he smashed into Smalling in injury time when already on a booking, so could've been without him too.
It is a shame Janmaats out.The bat was brilliant when he come on against Man Utd and looked like he has been working hard on his defensive side of his game he always gives 110% when he plays can't believe how much he has improved since last year and he is a much bigger threat going forward than janmaat.
I'm fairly confident that we can win this game, but we'll have to earn it just like every other week. Burnley are obviously in the Premier League for a reason and we'll have to match them. I'm interested to see what people think the lineup might be; with Janmaat and potentially Holebas out, I wonder who we would include instead. Amrabat is an obvious choice, but who is the other? Do we have Kenedy involved for this one?
Correct, I think it will be a hard fought match but I think we will prevail. Would Zuñiga work on the left? Although I don't know whether he's any good defensively.
I think you will find that Coldbrain was correct as Chopra was the last Watford player to score a hat trick against Burnley. I don't think he was talking about hat tricks Watford players have scored against other teams. That may of course change on Monday night.
It will be the bat and Kenedy,not bad to bring in Kenedy he is one of Brazil's most talented youngsters coming through,who would of thought Watford would have a player of his quality to bring in ,can't believe Chelsea have loaned him out.
