Watford vs Tottenham – Premier League Match Preview

Dan Tracey December 2, 2017 Leave a comment 2,272 Views

It is fair to say that November bought relative highs and lows for Tottenham. High’s in the shape of a win over Real Madrid in the Champions League. While lows because of a run of three Premier League fixtures without a win, including defeat to Arsenal in the North London derby.

But with a turn of the calendar we now find ourselves in December with the hope that Tottenham can put an end to their dogged run of results with a win over Watford this afternoon and history is on their side as they have never lost to the Hornets in the Premier League.

The eight previous encounters at this level have seen Tottenham win six while there has also been two draws and this is not a streak that Mauricio Pochettino will want to see end when his Spurs make the short journey to Vicarage Road this afternoon.

Watford fans will be relieved that they still have Marco Silva in charge with Everton’s flirting with the Portuguese manager amounting to nothing in the end as the Toffees’ hierarchy eventually settled on the usual winter firefighter Sam Allardyce.

So with those distractions out of the way the aim for Watford today will also be to return to winning ways after they suffered a midweek defeat of their own. In what was an entertaining clash with Manchester United, it would be Jose Mourinho’s men who came out on top thanks to a 4-2 win.

Abdoulaye Doucoure was once again on the scoresheet for Watford on Tuesday, registering his fifth Premier League goal of the season, a tally that currently sees him as the second highest goalscoring midfielder in the division with Leroy Sane just ahead of him on six.

It will be interesting to see who is given the task of keeping Doucoure quiet this afternoon in the middle of the park, it’s the kind of game that is crying out for someone such as Victor Wanyama to take on that particular task but what with the long term injury to the Kenyan that can only be wishful thinking.

Watford are very easy on the eye this season and there is no doubting that they are a marked improvement on 12 months prior but for all their attacking endeavour they do however still have some defensive issue as they are the top half team which has conceded the most goals – with 25 goals against in their first 14 matches.

That is something that Tottenham will look to take advantage of but you have to wonder if any of their supporting cast will step up to the mark. Harry Kane has scored 43% of Spurs league goals this season and that is the biggest contribution of all the top 10 league scorers.

He scored to rescue a point against West Brom a week ago and he also scored on Tuesday against Leicester as the forward’s late goal was all in vain after the Foxes had already got themselves into a first half 2-0 lead and despite a late onslaught they would hold on for the win.

Tottenham are creating chances, they are the second most creative team in terms of shots this season but they are only the 7th highest scorers in the Premier League, so for all their neat work in the final third they are lacking something of a cutting edge.

One that has seen them drop to 7th in the Premier League after taking just one point from a possible nine, life before the North London Derby was pretty rosy but since then there has been an eight point swing between themselves and Arsenal.

Quite simply they can ill afford to drop any more points, the race for the title is now up in smoke it is now making sure that they don’t give away any more ground in the race for the top 4. That said though a trip to Watford is not going to be an easy one this season.

However I think Tottenham will finally end their poor run of results as we now enter the month of festive celebrations, both teams will score but I have a feeling that there will be some early December cheer as Tottenham earn an away win.

Here is what social media thinks will happen – you can still vote on the outcome