Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Watford are in most peoples eyes just one win away from securing a third successful season in the Premier League. Today they will look to get to the 40 point marker with a win over a struggling Swansea side whose form has deserted them at just the wrong time.
Walter Mazzari’s men were well beaten by Tottenham at White Hart Lane last weekend as The Hornets lost their sting in a 4-0 defeat. At 0-0 they were keeping Mauricio Pochettino’s side honest but by the time Dele Alli’s beautifully curled goal broke the deadlock there was simply no looking back from the title challengers.
A capitualtion is probably too harsh a term to use on Watford due to the fact that Tottenham were simply relentless last Saturday but the scoreline has certainly done Walter Mazzari no real favours as he is reportedly under pressure to keep his job beyond the end of the season.
Like many teams in and around Watford it’s not just a matter of staying up this season, but also finishing the season strongly and proving to your respective club owner that you are worth another crack at being charge for the following campaign.
Watford have a propensity to change their manager with some regularity and Vicarage Road is one of the hottest managerial seats in football. Mazzari’s failure to learn English has supposedly not gone down well with the club owned by the Pozzo family.
Is that enough to give a manager the boot, perhaps not but it also seems like he is struggling to win over the dressing room due to training and tactical methods. Then again learning the English language may well have managed to break down some barriers.
But without being xenopohobic and making this a thing about English clubs and English managers let’s now focus on Paul Clement (coincidentally English) and his job to turn around Swansea’s nosedive in form and more importantly get them back out of the bottom three.
The plight of Swansea is not looking great as of now as they have only picked up 1 point from their last five matches. That came in a bore draw with Middlesbrough, which for all intents and purposes should have been a game that they should have won, especially with that being at The Liberty Stadium.
The rot has set in at completely the wrong time, after a fantastic spell of results got them not only out of the bottom three but looking relatively comfortable they are back among the thick of it once again and are now two points behind Hull in 18th.
Last weekend they lost a huge 6 pointer at The London Stadium. Not only could have stopped their barren run of results but it would firstly pulled them out of the relegation zone and also have made life very awkward for West Ham.
But Slaven Bilic managed to mastermind a win to give The Hammers some breathing space and make life worse for the South Wales club. The question now is how do they turn the ship back around and get themselves out of a rut that could really be their undoing between now and the end of the season.
Although they are in terrible form, they will still identify this game as one that is winnable but they are going to have their work cut out if they are to do so. Watford currently sit 10th in the Premier League table and are a strong outfit at home.
These games for Swansea are the make or break ones if they are to beat the drop, quite frankly nothing less than three points will do this afternoon especially if Hull manage to pick up points from their trip to The Bet365 Stadium to face Stoke.
Watford will go into the game as favourites albeit not huge ones. But the bookmakers rarely get the odds wrong and I have a feeling that this one will go to relative form at Walter Mazzari’s eases the pressure on himself but heaps more of it on Swansea. A home win for me.
