England Premier League
Saturday 21st September 2019
Kick off at 3pm BST
Venue: Etihad Stadium
Match Preview:
It’s fair to say that shock waves were sent down the core of the Premier League when Manchester City lost away to Norwich last weekend. It was completely unexpected and the fact that Norwich pierced City’s defence 3 times reminded us of when Crystal Palace beat Pep Guardiola’s side last season.
Manchester City and Liverpool have changed the landscape of the league title so much that when you drop just a few points you can be considered out of the title. The problem for City is that if they were to lose this game and Liverpool won, the Reds would have an 8 point advantage. In seasons past this would matter little, but when you are talking about teams who achieve 98 and 97 points respectively it means a lot. In short this is a cup final match for City, and talking of cup finals this was the final back in May when City destroyed Watford 6-0, and that could well be on the cards again at the weekend.
City do have a defensive crisis with some key players injured and Guardiola has had to drop Fernandino into the back four. However he will be encouraged by the teams showing in their opening Champions League match, which ended in a 3-0 win away to Shakhtar Donetsk.
Watford have Quique Sanchez Flores back and for his first game the club welcomed the visit of Arsenal. What then happened was certainly a tale of two halves. Arsenal edged the first and went 2-0 up, but Watford played their best 45 minutes of the season in the 2nd and clawed their way back in dominant style to finish the game 2-2. It led Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka to claim that his team were scared. Now that is some half time team talk right there from Flores to get that reaction.
Whilst a draw against Arsenal is very respectable Watford are still bottom of the league. Of course time is on their side and if they were able to win this game they would surely leave the bottom three, but even a loss here and there is time to repair a poor start. Possibly under Flores the team are heading in the right direction, and the result here should not affect that in anyway.
Team News:
Manchester City: Phil Foden missed the Champions League fixture with illness but is expected to be available for this game. John Stones will miss at least a month with a muscle injury. Leroy Sane and Aymeric Laporte are long term injuries
Watford: Craig Cathcart is still out with a thigh injury. Isaac Success is out of this game with a groin injury
Man City vs Watford Head to Head:
The last time the teams met was in the FA Cup final where Manchester City beat Watford 6-0.
Manchester City have won the last 11 meetings in a row.
This fixture last season ended 3-1 to City.
In the last 6 matches between the teams Manchester City have scored 25 goals to Watford’s 3.
Man City vs Watford Prediction:
Last weekend we said Manchester City would beat Norwich with no worries, they lost, this weekend we are saying the same and we don’t expect a repeat result with this match being at home and City being a wounded animal. They are 5 points adrift of Liverpool and know they can’t drop any more points until Liverpool do.
However backing City for the win isn’t really possible as they are massive odds on so we will look into different markets, one of which will be for the champions to come out fast, even if they did have to play in midweek and get an early lead. Guardiola will want to put this game to bed early and move on from it, this match is all about forgetting the Norwich defeat. We will also back Raheem Sterling to score. He is odds on but has scored past Watford 5 times in the last two games. As for Watford they will have their chances, but history doesn’t bode well for them here.
Man City vs Watford Betting Tips:
Manchester City to be leading at 30 minutes at 1.91
Anytime goalscorer: Raheem Sterling at 1.62
Anytime goalscorer: Riyad Mahrez at 2.50
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