Saturday 10th February, West Ham United host Watford in a crucial must win match at the London Stadium. This will arguably be a must win match for the mighty hammers. Watford will be brimming with confidence after humiliating Chelsea 4-1 on Monday night. Although Chelsea were 10 men, they dominated the game and humiliated the premier league champions.
This could be a bad time to play Watford because after they signed a new manager Javi Garcia, they looked strong and resilient on Monday night. Playing a fully fit confident Watford side would be a problem for us, considering our injury pile up. There have been a few rumours which suggested Arnautovic might be back for this game (nothing confirmed yet). We signed Patrice Evra and he could feature by replacing suspended Masuaku in the left-wing back position. But that is only if he is match fit considering he has been out of a club for a couple of months since he was released by Marseille. We played very poorly against Brighton last time out in our 3-1 defeat and hopefully that was a wake-up call for the players.
If we take the lead, that’s an IF, we must be careful to avoid any defensive calamities because Watford are no strangers for scoring goals or coming back from a losing position.
Record against Watford:
Since Watford came back into the Premier League we have struggled to beat them. Since 2015, we have only beaten Watford once out of five attempts. That victory came in our final season at the Boleyn. The last time we played Watford, it was David Moyes first game in charge and it ended 2-0. We were very unlucky that day missing key chances however, Watford came out victorious. With the crowd on the players back, let’s hope they can react and fight like they did after going 1-0 down against Crystal Palace and Bournemouth.
Danger men-
Richarlison– Personally, Richarlison is a strong player we should watch out for especially. He has pace and good finishing ability and he proved it against us the last time we played Watford. He has done well so far in his first season in the Premier League and he is arguably one of Watford’s best players this season.
Abdoulaye Doucoure–
Watford midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure is a strong versatile midfielder that has been scoring a range of goals for Watford this season. The French midfielder is somebody I would take at West Ham. He has scored 7 goals so far this season and somebody West Ham should keep an eye on during the game.
Troy Deeney–
Watford captain Troy Deeney is no stranger to a goal however, most of his goals has come from the penalty spot. Despite that, he offers an aerial threat that can cause our defenders problems. We are no strangers to conceding goals lately and given that he also scored twice against us last season in both games shows that he is a big threat.
Gerard Deulofeu–
On-loan Watford winger Gerard Deulofeu is a winger that West Ham should have signed in the January transfer window. He is a pacey winger that is well known in the Premier League and he can give our full backs a tough time. He could’ve offered us a different option within the team considering we lack wingers. Defensively, against Brighton we were shocking and exposed quite a lot of times. We cannot afford to make mistakes on Saturday, especially against a pacey player like Dealofeu. He was also awarded Man of the Match against Chelsea on Monday, so we must be careful of his threats.
By @Asheth16