For the final time this season Gianfranco Zola's Watford FC take on Brian McDermott's Leeds United in one of the most important game in Watford's recent history that happens to be the last game of this NPower Championship season. Whilst the champions elect have been chosen by a benevolent being, the last remaining automatic promotion place is being fought out by both Watford and Steve Bruce's Hull City in a last gasp dash for the finishing line. A single point separates second place Hull City and third place Watford with both Watford needing to better Hull's result. If Hull win no matter what Watford do Hull will be promoted. Luckily Hull are playing Champions Cardiff City who will want to go out in a flourish rather than meekly limping across the line. What a season this has been, Watford have gone from relegation candidates to automatic promotion chasing in the matter of a single season. Most fans and pundits took one look at the revolution that has happened at Vicarage Road and simply said; "Yeah that's not going to work, the same thing happened at Doncaster and they were relegated. They have an untested manager and have recently sacked a manager who worked miracles. No the likes of Wolves, Leicester and Blackburn will win this league." I think it is safe to say that it hasn't gone that way. What an unbelievable season we have had, we have seen some the devastating low's of losing 5-1 at Pride Park after losing Martin Taylor the night before some amazing high's such as the 6-1 victory at Elland Road. Since that crucial victory the team has moved from strength to strength with some amazing display's that saw the team rise from 12th place to 3rd place and at times flirting with 2nd place. We have two players that have scored 39 goals between them in Troy Deeney and Player of the Year Matej Vydra, with 19 and 20 goals respectively, as well as the midfield general that is Almen Abdi. Some have criticised us for not nurturing young English talent and home grown players but we have proved them wrong by signing up several youth players on long term deals as well as nurturing Nathaniel Chalobah, who is on loan from Chelsea, who has earned rave reviews and has been looked at by England boss Roy Hodgson. After all this, we have no choice but to win our game and hope Cardiff will do us a massive favour. Cardiff manager, and ex-Hornet, Malky Mackay has said that his team will carry on fighting to the end with players potentially fighting for their place in the squad in the Premiership. Steve Bruce's side have to win to confirm promotion but have stumbled as of late picking up only one point out of their last three games, which was a 0-0 draw with already relegated Bristol City, without scoring in those three games. The question going through most Watford fans minds is, will they turn this poor form around and beat Cardiff, who hopefully will want to head into the Premiership on the back of a win? I wish I had the answer for that so I wont have to go through the stress of Saturday afternoon but I don't so I'll have to suffer the nerves with the rest of the fans. Right enough faffing about with the other game, we need to concentrate on Leeds. Leeds United: New Leeds boss Brian McDermott is looking to steady the ship after replacing Neil 'Colin' Warnock on the 12th of April, since the four games he has been in charge of Leeds have won two and lost two, with both of those defeats coming in the last two games. They will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing couple of results against a Watford side that will need to attack them. Leeds will be without both El-Hadj Diouf and Rudolph Austin who were both sent off in Leeds 2-1 loss to Brighton at the weekend. They are however trying to appeal Austin's sending off in hope that he will be available for the Watford game. It is likely that tough tackling Michael Brown will come in for Austin and Steve Morrison coming in for El-Hadj Diouf. More team news to follow. Players to watch out for will be Sam Byran, Steve Morrison and Ross McCormack. These three will be very attacking and will pose a fair few threats to our goal, our back three and Pudil will need to keep them quiet. The reverse fixture was the beginning of a very good run in form for the Hornet's with them winning a staggering 6-1 at Elland Road in a comprehensive win that showed the world what Watford can do. It was a memorable day for the Hornet's that saw Matej Vydra grab a brace and Almen Abdi, Troy Deeney, Mark Yeates and Sean Murray each scoring a solitary goal. Michael Tonge grabbed one back from the penalty spot after Joel Ekstrand was adjudged to have fouled Luke Varney in the box. Some will say that the scoreline was misleading as Leeds were down to nine men after Rudolph Austin broke his leg, and they had no more subs to use, and an early sending off Jason Pearce but you have to put away the chances you are given. Hopefully it is a repeat of the score line for the Hornet's! Opposition Fans Forum: http://www.lufctalk.com/forums/ Watford Team News: Gianfranco Zola has another selection dilemma up front in Fernando Forestieri and top scorer Matej Vydra. Poor old Vydra is looking knackered at the moment and looks like he couldn't buy a goal even if he wanted to, Forestieri on the other hand is in scintillating form, just ask Blackburn! For me Forestieri has to start up front with Troy Deeney who will be looking to add more goals to his tally and potentially overtake Matej Vydra as the clubs top scorer. The midfield three are vital to us winning this game and I'd go for the same three that played in the Leicester win, Abdi, Hogg and Chalobah. We will need Hogg's ruggedness to combat someone like Michael Brown who will be looking to take players out of the game with crunching tackles. Almen Abdi had a very good game against Leicester and was unlucky not to grab a goal, which was down to some poor shots on his part and will be looking to put in another convincing display against Leeds. Nathaniel Chalobah, despite not having a fantastic game against Leicester, scored a wonder goal that was eventually the games winner. The back five should remain the same as they had a great game at Leicester, particularly Joel Ekstrand who dealt with Leicester's direct attack in the second half. Injury news to follow. Predicted Line Ups: Watford: Almunia Anya Doyley Ekstrand Cassetti Pudil Hogg Chalobah Abdi Deeney Forestieri Subs: Bond, Briggs, Eustace, Battochio, Vydra, Geijo, Yeates. Leeds United: Kenny Peltier Lees Pearce Warnock Green Varney Brown Hall Morrison McCormack Subs: Cairns, Drury, White, Poleon, Habibou, Bromby, Tonge. Officials: TBA Score Prediction: Leeds are comfortably a mid table side but will be wanting to end the season on a high and come out with a win, we should be able to control the game. I'm plumping for a 3-1 win to the Hornet's and a 1-1 draw with Cardiff and Hull ensuring Watford go up in second place. Come On You 'Orns!
I really want Doyley to score. And John Eustace with an overhead kick after being brought on to protect our lead.
Doyley and Hogg to score some brilliant goals and then I run onto the pitch to celebrate with Hoggy and the rest of the team after he scores his first Watford goal.
Cassetti will score an injury time winner with Hull losing vs Cardiff, sparking this celebration: [video=youtube;uqvU9KukbEI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqvU9KukbEI[/video]
[video=youtube;Zoph_BF7deo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Zoph_BF7deo[/video] Look out for me with my camera copying this guy's antics.
Playoff final against Leeds, I was sitting in a Maths GCSE extra revision class (I needed it) waiting for a text from my dad at the game. Next Saturday, I will be sitting at a bloody family wedding, sneaking off to the toilet every 5 mins to watch it via a stream site on my phone! I cant believe I will miss a possible home pitch invasion and pond swim, promotion mash up for a wedding! What makes it worse are most of my family are saints fans and their season is over. Will it be acceptable to get embarrassingly smashed and sing Watford chants down the mic if all goes our way?
Personally, I feel we are now the favourites for 2nd place, as we hold the advantage in every area except (the potentially most important one, I admit) the fact that it's still out of our hands. We have momentum as we're on a mini run. We're playing a side we've already beaten 6-1 this season, who will be denied the services of their two most combatative midfielders because of their red cards today. Hull, on the other hand, are on a poor run. Their last 3 games have been against the 3 sides currently in the relegation area and they've scored NO goals against them. They play the best team in the division, the 2nd highest scorers and a team managed by a guy with much affection for Watford as well as several of our ex players in their squad. They've had enough chances to be up already, both with their own matches and then watching ours knowing if we lost they'd be up. They also had a chance to all but clinch it when we went to their place. In EVERY other respect than the fact Hull have one more point than us, every card is stacked in our favour. Would you rather we had Cardiff and they Leeds? Don't imagine so! Now we face the longest week of the season to see which way the cards will fall next Saturday. Had we blown 2nd place by a few points, I'd be sad but cautiously optimistic for the play offs and I know I could banish any lingering thoughts of 'what if we hadn't conceeded a late goal and there' etc. I fear it would take far longer to recover from being pipped by a point, or a scenario like the Doncaster game today. So please let us win easily next week and Hull lose heavily..and then let the party begin
Whilst Leeds don't have much to play for at this stage, that scoreline is something they will be very eager to revenge. I think we shouldn't just forget about that, we don't want to get any kind of complacency with our reverse fixture score line.
Agreed, but you also need to bear in mind that the last thing the Leeds fans want is to get a result that would see Hull City promoted. I have no idea if that will rub off on the Leeds players, but you have to think they'd be aware of this.
Sure. I just thought it was worth including in a longer list of advantages I feel we have, though it's nowhere near the most important one. It could work either way, I admit. But surely it will give us extra confidence and Leeds have a different manager now anyway. Ron, if we do that, we don't deserve to go up. Simple as that.
I'm fairly confident about Saturday, I'd like to think the 4-0 win vs Blackburn has ended our "beating lower table sides curse". I just have a really bad feeling that Hull will somehow muster up one more decent performance and manage to narrowly win vs Cardiff, I hope I am very wrong. COYH
Watford v Bolton in 1999 was the biggest game in my Watford supporting lifetime - this one is just a bonus.
Possibly, hard to rank it alongside the playoff finals. I think this is bigger for me because it could conclude with us finishing automatically promoted to the top flight, something I've never ever seen us do.
HULL ARE REALLY REALLY POOR AT THE MOMENT - SEE HOW MIDDLESBORO HAVE DROPPED AWAY TO LOWER THAN 12TH - HULL IF THE SEASON CONTINUED WOULD DO THE SAME. THEY COULD NOT AND DID NOT SCORE IN THE LAST THREE GAMES AGAINST THE BOTTOM THREE SIDES - HUDDERS TODAY BEAT BRISTOL CITY WHO COULD HAVE WON AT HULL LAST WEEK. THEY ARE TIRED AND LACK LUSTRE AND HAVE LOST THE PLOT. i WOULD BE VERY SUPRISED INDEED IF HULL BEAT CARDIFF. HOWEVER WATFORDS FORM AT HOME CAN BE SHYTE AND THEY ARE VULNERABLE. fFOR ONCE I HOPE THE WATFORD CROWD REALISE THEY CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE AND EVEN IF GOING ONE DOWN, DO WHAT PALACE FANS DID AT THE VIC AS IT WILL ONLY TAKE A GOAL BY CARDIFF AND AN EQUALISER BY WFC WHICH CAN ALL HAPPEN IN 5TH MINUTE OF INJURY TIME FOR THE LEAGUE POSITIONS TO TURN AROUND. FOR ONCE -ITS THE FANS WHO NEED TO SHOW SOME FU.CKIN BOTTLE AND CALMNESS YOU USELESS BRAINDEAD SCUM CANUTS ( NOT ALL BUT 90% OF YOU) FECKIN GLORY HUNTING WINDOW LICKING WINKERS.
Agreed that automatic promotion is something I've never seen us do to the PL. But when we get there it's nothing new -that's why I rate 1999 higher. That said a Doyley overhead kick from outside the box to win it next Saturday might make me waver!
watford fans are ****s, all dribble and no spit - they need some real fire in their feckin bellies but they think it clever to abuse whom they perceive to be the lessor players who have still helped to get the team to where they are.. Watford fans are feckin useless 90% are scum, 10% are good as u can get.
The days have passed since small boys used jumpers as goal posts and listened to results on your transister radio but pretty sure most will be checking updates on twitter and via smartphones...... it really will be squeaky bum time.
Where the f### we're you glory hunting wa##### away at Boro, Burnley, Huddersfield? Sorry I'm very drunk
Not sure on the percentages but its not a whole lot different from what your suggesting in my opinion. I get frustrated with players and if they've had a poor game when talking to people about it ill point it out, but I'd never boo them, there's no point in it. Baffling. Looks like you were right all along Pads, believe.
I was working abroad and missed the Leeds playoff final. Biggest for me were the Wrexham promotion game to the old div1 and the Bolton playoff final but next weekend's will be up there. I see this game as an unexpected opportunity as we were 7 points behind with 4 games left and have messed up so many times over the last month or so. If we do miss out we can say we've given it a good shot and will be quite confident about going into the playoffs. Over 2 games we can beat anyone as we have goals in the side and a one off on a big wembley pitch would suit us. Happy days.
We need to start booing the lads as soon as they make mistakes, its an important game and we need to let them know that
