Match Preview: Watford v Brighton
The summer of 2019 has proven to be one of the most exciting in recent times for the Albion. A young manager with fresh ideas has taken over from Chris Hughton and Tony Bloom has invested approaching £50m on three new players to improve the squad.
Pre-season results have been encouraging too with an eye catching 2-1 win over Valencia and a 4-0 hammering dished out away at Birmingham City delivered via some thoroughly entertaining attacking football.
Yes, that was only against managerless Championship opposition, but a year ago the Albion had gone there and been lucky to draw 1-1 with a dire, defensive performance. The contrast couldn’t be more marked – one was Katie Hopkins, the other Ariana Grande.
Of course, all of that counts for nothing if the Albion don’t back it up where it really matters – in the Premier League. For the second season running, we’re off to Vicarage Road on the opening day.
A tough place to go and one we have a pretty awful recent record at, but hopes will still be high of a much improved showing on last year’s dire 2-0 defeat.
A brief history of Watford
Watford were founded in 1881 and, just like the Albion, spent much of their early existence in the Southern League before joining the Football League in 1920. In that time, they used to be known as the Brewers due to the number of breweries in the town. That seems remarkable given that these days you’ll find better pubs in downtown Damascus than you do in Watford.
Their heyday came in the late 1970s and early 1980s when under the chairmanship of Elton John and the management of Graham Taylor, the Hornets rose from the bottom tier in 1977 all the way to the top division, finishing as runners up to Liverpool in the 1982-83 season.
They reached the FA Cup Final in 1984 where they again suffered heartbreak against a team from Merseyside, this time losing to Everton before relegation from Division One in 1988. There were a couple of brief returns to the top table and plenty of financial problems with a spell in administration during the 2002-03 season as Watford were one of the hardest hit clubs by the collapse of ITV Digital.
Their fortunes changed though when the Pozzo Family took control in the summer of 201. Originally, this wasn’t without controversy as they stuffed Watford’s team full of players signed from their other clubs, Udinese and Granada. They’ve also rattled through more managers than David Stockdale’s had hot dinners.
But despite that, the Pozzo’s have actually turned out to be fantastic owners. They’ve transformed Watford from a team treading water in the Championship into a solid Premier League club with designs on the top 10. Essentially, the Hornets are exactly what Bloom wants us to be.
Watford last season
It was a record breaking 2018-19 season for Watford. They achieved their biggest top flight points tally since Sky Sports invented football in 1992 and looked well on course for a seventh or eighth place finish until a late season collapse.
That came about in part because of the distraction of reaching the FA Cup Final, a fine way to round off one of their best campaigns in years, even if the day at Wembley did end with a hammering at the hands of a Manchester City side who completed the first ever domestic treble in English football as a result.
As a result, Javi Gracia is the first Watford manager to keep his job for more than a year since the Norman Conquest in 1066. They’ve had a quiet summer, adding only Craig Dawson from West Bromwich Albion before breaking their transfer record to bring in Ismaila Sarr on deadline day. It’s a case of evolution, not revolution at Vicarage Road.
Head-to-head
Watford have been Brighton’s most frequent opponents in competitive football, with 153 meetings across 10 competitions stretching back 115 years. Brighton just about shade the head-to-head with 59 wins to the Hornets’ 52. Draws account for the other 42 clashes.
There have been six previous meetings in the top flight with Brighton winning just one of those. That came two seasons ago at the Amex, Pascal Gross scoring the only goal of the game to give Seagulls supporters an early Christmas present 48 hours before the big day.
Brighton and Hove Albion’s head-to-head record with Watford
Last six meetings
• Brighton 0-0 Watford (Premier League, 02/02/19)
• Watford 2-0 Brighton (Premier League, 11/08/18)
• Brighton 1-0 Watford (Premier League, 23/12/17)
• Watford 0-0 Brighton (Premier League, 26/08/17)
• Brighton 0-2 Watford (Championship, 25/04/15)
• Watford 1-1 Brighton (Championship, 04/10/14)
Brighton have only defeated Watford once in the last six meetings, that aforementioned game in which Gross got the winner. And for all those who are travelling to Vicarage Road in the expectation of attacking football and lots of goals, you could end up sorely disappointed – one side has failed to score in the past five fixtures – and you have to back nine games to find the last time there were over 2.5 goals, a 3-1 Amex win for Gianfranco Zola’s Hornets in 2012.
Team news
Even Mystic Meg would struggle to predict what Potter is going to do in his first game in charge. A lot of Albion fans seem certain that he’ll use 3-4-3, but it’s one thing to play with three attackers at the Amex or in a friendly against Birmingham and quite another to do it away from home in the Premier League.
So, what do we know? It’s pretty unlikely that Neal Maupay will start given that he hasn’t played a game since Brentford’s opening pre-season friendly over a month ago. In fact, the only nailed on starters look to be Maty Ryan, Lewis Dunk, Shane Duffy and Glenn Murray.
48 hours ago and you could have Dale Stephens and Davy Propper on that list, but Aaron Mooy’s deadline day signing from Huddersfield Town suddenly throws the cat among the pigeons in the middle of the park. Basically, nobody other than Potter and his management team know what is going to happen. It’s all rather exciting, isn’t it?
Watford’s key players
Sarr has just cost the Hornets around £30m so they’ll be hoping he’s quite good. Given that he only arrived from Rennes on Thursday, there must be some doubt about whether Gracia would throw him straight into the starting lineup.
Andre Gray always seems to score against us while if the Albion are to give Potter the perfect start to life in the hot seat, they’ll need to find a way past Ben Foster. The veteran goalkeeper was in outrageous form last time we met at the Amex and is on a run of three consecutive clean sheets against us, having recorded two last season to go with the shutout he achieved when we lost 2-0 away at West Bromwich Albion 18 months ago.
A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Watford away
Victories at Vicarage Road are rarer than rocking horse shit. One of the very few times we’ve won there came in the fourth round of the FA Cup under Gus Poyet in January 2011. Watford were a Championship club at the time with Brighton in League One and so this was very much a cup upset, although we don’t remember much of it having put away a considerable amount of Jaegerbombs in Watford’s best pub before the game. That it is a Wetherspoons tells you everything about the town.
A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Watford away
Those Jaegerbombs caused untold issues several hours after the final whistle as, when combined with the decision to eat a packet of uncooked hotdog sausages before the train home, one member of the WeAreBrighton.com team was violently sick over the edge of the platform at West Brompton Station.
Our favourite player to play for Brighton and Watford
Has to be Tony Meola, doesn’t it? He may have managed only two appearances in an Albion shirt and one for Watford, but how many other footballers have signed for an NFL team, been drafted for the New York Yankees, appeared in an off-Broadway play, starred in a film alongside an Oscar nominated actor and been a drummer in New Jersey’s hottest cover band?
What do we like about Watford?
It’s home to the Warner Brothers Studios which is where the Harry Potter movies were filmed. We’ve always been big fans of Hermione Granger and her Chamber of Secrets.
Prediction
In all honesty, absolutely no idea. Everyone seems to be expecting something completely different from what we were served up under Hughton, so wouldn’t it just be typical Brighton if we went and lost 2-0 again?
