Watford vs Manchester United

BPL 2018-19 – Watford vs Manchester United Match Preview

One of these teams hold a 100% win record while the other sit mid table and well funnily enough the first fact applies to Watford while the other applies to United. Watford will look to extend their unbelievable start to the season as they hope to make it 5 wins out of 5 while United are trying to get out of a so called early season “crisis” and the most recent win against Burnley might just do the trick in terms of giving them confidence to kick on now and win regularly. This shapes up to be a very interesting encounter!

Key Facts

This fixture normally provides a lot of goals in the Premier League era. In 10 league meetings in BPL era there have been a total of 34 goals scored between these sides. There was a game with 6 goals between these sides last season when they met in Vicarage Road with United winning 2-4.

Watford are one of the only 3 teams to win all 4 games. They have also shown fantastic goal scoring record with 9 goals and they’ve also scored 2 or more in every game.

Ever since Garcia took charge of Watford, no other team have picked up more points at home than Watford. 10 GP 7W 2D 1L.

Watford’s full back Jose Holebas is tied at the top for the most assists with 4. He’s also scored a goal this season. Constant threat

Roberto Pereyra is current Watford top scorer in the league with 3, Deeney is second with 2 goals.

3 of the 4 Watford’s league games have hit an over 2.5 goals mark.

Manchester United have had a surprisingly poor start this season already losing 2 games of the 4 played.

Man Utd have not been good defensively conceding 7 goals already and only keeping one clean sheet against sloppy Burnley. They’ve already managed to conceded 3 in a game twice this season against Brighton and Spurs.

One bit of good news for United is that Romelu Lukaku has hit fantastic form. After scoring a brace against Burnley, he went on to score 3 more goals on international duty. 5 goals in 3 games will do United good.

Man Utd do have an exceptional record against Watford in the Premier League winning 9 of the 10 meetings.

Team News

Watford: Well, Watford have got great news in terms of team news. Other than the injuries that Deulofeu and Cleverley already had, nobody else got hurt during the international break. Watford will be able to field a very strong side. Pereyra, Holebas, Deeney, Hughes etc are all clear to play and we should expect Garcia to field a very similar squad to the one that beat Tottenham just before the break. Tactically, we can definitely expect Watford to have moments where they’re the ones on the front foot and vice versa. We will definitely not see Watford sit back especially given their current form.

Manchester United: Marcus Rashford will begin his 3 match suspension after being sent off against Burnley which is a bit of a blow given how well he performed for England on international duty scoring 2 goals and could be very useful for this game. In his place we’ll either see Alexis or Martial start, most likely Alexis. Herrera and Fellaini are both in doubt which means Fred could potentially get his starting spot back after being left out against Burnley and of course Phil Jones is still a massive doubt and will most likely not feature giving either Bailly or Lindelof a chance to crack a the line-up. Jose preferred Lindelof the previous time so he may stick with him especially after keeping a clean sheet. Also Luke Shaw has picked up a very serious head injury against Spain during international break so we may see Ashley Young slot back in at LB where he played last season. United are definitely a little injury plagued and Jose will have to change the line-up a little bit.

Betting Tips and Predictions

It’s a tough one to call. On one hand you have to say that Watford’s crazy start to the season has to stop but you wouldn’t trust United to stop it given their performances and key players missing especially not at Vicarage Road. Watford to win at 4.15 does hold a lot of value and if they can continue perform like they have this season they can totally take United, its not like United are doing anything special right now, we saw how Brighton put 3 past them or Spurs put 3 past them in one half. A win against Burnley was good for confidence but Burnley are shocking as a whole right now themselves and that win alone won’t sort out United’s problems. This game does have a potential for goals which is unusual when a Mourinho team is involved but a lack of defensive signings and tragic defensive form from United does tell us that Watford will be able to score one or two goals while United themselves have more than enough world class talent to score themselves with Lukaku, Pogba, Alexis, Lingard etc. BTTS at 1.85 is worth a look at. Our thinking is this could really go either way and it will end either 2-1 to either side or 2-2.

Match Odds (TonyBet)

Watford Win – 4.15

Draw – 3.60

Manchester United Win – 1.95

KICK OFF – 15th September 2018 – 5:30pm UK Time