Watford welcome Wolverhampton Wanderers to Vicarage Road on Saturday afternoon in the Premier League.
Watford return to action after the international break following a narrow 1-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Heung-Min Son scored the only goal just before half-time, with a somewhat fortuitous free-kick found its way past Daniel Bachmann from what looked like a cross. Watford did win their first home league game of the season against Aston Villa at the start of the season but haven't picked up any points in the league since.
Wolves have made a poor start to the Premier League season with three consecutive losses to Leicester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United. The last of those was the last league game Wolves had before the international break.
Views From Both Camps
Watford boss Xisco Munoz had this to say in his pre-match press conference via the official Watford wbsite on the visit of Wolves: "They [Wolves] are the team who have the second most shots in the Premier League,” said Muñoz. “It is an aggressive team in attack, they have played against very good teams but we know we have in front [of us] a strong team.
Wolves defender Nelson Semedo is confident ahead of the trip to Hertfordshire believing that if Wolves contain to play in a similar way then the results will come. He told the official club website that: "The results have been disappointing because we’ve been doing a lot of very good work.
We’re playing very good football and creating a lot of chances, we’ve not scored yet, but if we keep playing like this, the results will come for sure. We’ll try to do everything to score and win this next game because it’s very important.
Team News
Watford could be without Chilean defender Francisco Sierralta if Fifa chooses to impose suspensions on players who didn't report for international duty. In better news for the hornets, Joao Pedro could return from a knee injury sustained back in July. New signing Ozan Tufan could make his debut for Watford.
Raul Jimenez can feature for Wolves after Mexico withdrew their objection to him playing. Jonny Otto, Pedro Neto and Hugo Bueno all remain injured for Wolves.
Predicted Line-ups
Watford (4-5-1) :
Bachmann; Cathcart, Troost-Ekong, Kabasele, Masina; Sarr, Kucka, Etebo, Sissoko, Dennis; King
Wolves (3-4-3):
Sa; Saiss, Coady, Kilman; Semedo, Moutinho, Neves, Marcal; Trincao, Hwang, Traore
Ones to Watch
Watford: Ismaila Sarr
The one man that is constant threat for Watford and a player who is a delight to watch each week is Ismaila Sarr. Since lighting up the Premier League in 19/20, Sarr went from strength to strength last season in the Championship and he has brought that level of performance in the Premier League.
Sarr scored in Watford's opening day defeat of Aston Villa but has failed to score in his last two. That being said, anyone who watched the Hornets' last fixture against Spurs will tell you that Sarr was a thorn in Sergio Reguilon's side all afternoon and was unlucky not to score when his shot was well blocked by Davinson Sanchez. Sarr will attack at left-wing back Marcal and Romain Saiss constantly and will hopefully either score or set up Josh King from a Watford perspective.
Wolves: Adama Traore
As we have already said Wolves have had a poor start to the season and that can be optimised by Adama Traore. Wolves and Traore have looked amazing going forward at times but it is just the end product that is letting them down at the moment. The best example of this was in the game against Tottenham when Ruben Neves was able to split the Spurs defence brilliantly to find Traore but he just could not find the right kind of shot to beat Hugo Lloris.
Traore's pace and strength will be a nightmare for the Watford defence. Even when the ball is played in the air Traore is able to compete with the very best of them, if he his finally able to add that finishing touch it could be a long afternoon for the Hornets.