PR: Watford vs Hull City

As I’m writing this before England take on France tonight, there won’t be any mention of football coming home. However, if you’re reading this after the game or the next day, I hope you enjoyed our 2-1 win with Kane scoring the first goal…

Usually, at this point, I’d talk about form. But after a break for the World Cup, and the fact that Watford were on a really good run before play stopped, It’s probably not worth mentioning. I especially don’t want to mention the fact that Watford beat Premier League leaders Arsenal 4-2 in a friendly only a week ago.

To be fair, all signs point to a difficult afternoon, but City can travel down to North London with confidence after a successful trip to Turkiye enjoyed by fans and players alike. There’s certainly been a lot of positivity emerging from that break, with reports that the players are buying into Rosenior’s methods and enjoying their football. Two credible 1-1 friendly draws, including against the reigning champions Trabzonspor, seem to back that up.

The good news for City is that despite being sent home by the magnificent Three Lions last weekend, Ismaila Sarr will probably not be ready to start this one. The bad news is that they didn’t have him against Arsenal either, and still managed to score 4 goals. Arsenal had a decent team out too, the defence consisted of Gabriel, Cedric, Holding and Tierney. Therefore, the Hornet’s scorers on that day are likely to pose the most threat tomorrow, especially Keinan Davis and Joao Pedro. The other scorer in that game, Yaser Asprilla, recently said (thanks to my limited knowledge of Spanish), that he believes he will be better than his namesake, but no relation, Tino Asprilla. You may remember the former Newcastle man scoring a hat trick against Barcelona back in 1997. The young lad certainly doesn’t lack confidence…

As for City, Oscar is still suspended after his dubious red card and it’s likely to be after Christmas when we see Tettey and Allahayar ready to start. Nathan Baxter has returned from Chelsea though and will be hoping to play. Expect to see a very similar team to the one that unluckily lost to Reading almost a month ago, with perhaps a few of the younger lads that impressed in those 1-1 friendly draws given a chance from the bench. I’ll continue with the 1-1 theme for my prediction:

Score Prediction: Watford 1-1 Hull City

Predicted lineup: Baxter; Christie, Figueiredo, Jones, Greaves; Woods, Seri; Docherty, Tufan, Longman; Pelkas.

Jason Harrison previews on behalf of Hull City OSC.