On Friday night Gianfranco Zola's Watford FC host Ian Holloway's Crystal Palace in this crucial tie for the promotion places in the NPower Championship. The game is live on Sky Sports and is the third time this season Watford have featured on television in the UK. The previous two fixtures saw Watford beat Birmingham City 2-0 at the Vic and Watford also beating Brighton and Hove Albion 3-1 at the Amex. Could it be a third victory in a row for the Hornet's or will they be undone by a strong Palace team? Both teams come into the game on the back of 2-1 wins with the teams winning after going behind. Watford overcame a 1-0 deficit to beat Bolton Wanderers after ex - Hornet Marvin Sordell put the visitors in front from the penalty spot after Daniel Pudil was judged to have fouled Sam Ricketts. Shortly after Watford attacked and thanks to a lovely turn from Matej Vydra he coolly slotted past Adam Bogdan to give the Hornet's an equaliser. Vydra turned provider in the second half when he played in Almen Abdi who slotted the ball through a congested penalty area and scoring the all important goal. The win cemented Watford's place in the top six and condemned Bolton tot he lower echelons of the league. Palace also had to fight back from a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1 thanks to two goals from the League's leading scorer Glenn Murray. It hasn't always been so rosy for Palace of late with them picking up 25 points out of a possible 54 points. In that run of 18 games they have only won six games but they have drawn seven. This run has coincided with the arrival of Ian Holloway as manager after Dougie Freedman left to take over at Bolton Wanderers. Holloway has tried to implement a very attacking style of play to the team which is great going forward but weak going back. Hopefully Zola will be able to exploit this weakness. At one point in the season Palace were eight points clear of Cardiff at the top of the league but now have fallen 12 points behind them. Palace currently sit one place and one point behind Watford in fifth in the table having played the same amount of games as the Hornet's. The corresponding fixture was the first game of the season and saw the Hornet's emerge from Selhurst Park with all three points thanks to a last minute Matej Vydra goal in a thrilling 3-2 win. Of course much has changed for both sides this season only three of the Watford players that started against Palace at the start of the season played in the last game against Bolton. (Abdi, Almunia, Doyley) Wilfred Zaha began to come into his own in that game with him causing our back four serious trouble, winning a penalty and providing an assist. Since then he has put in some immense displays and earned a high profile move to Manchester United for a fee believed to be around the £15 million mark all in all. To think that Palace are a one man team would be foolish, they have some very threatening players in the team such as Yannick Bolasie and Glenn Murray. Our defence will need to be on top form to counter these players. It looks as though Palace will be without Miles Jedinak who suffered a sickening eye injury against Sheffield Wednesday that has had to be operated on. Kagisho Dikgacoi will be back from the ACON and should be available for selection. Apart from Jedinak Holloway looks to have a full strength squad available. Opposition Fans Forum: http://www.cpfc.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=21 http://www.holmesdale.net/page.php?id=105&fid=1 Gianfranco Zola has a selection head ache thanks to seven first team players leaving on international duty. It is not known whether any of the players will play whilst away but it has mucked up Zola's plans. Nyron Nosworthy and Tommie Hoban will almost certainly not play on Friday as it is unlikely that they be able to play two games in two days. Hopefully Matej Vydra and Cristian Battochio only play bit parts midweek in order to play for the Hornet's on Friday night. These two will be a big miss. Daniel Pudil and Joel Ekstrand are facing a race against time to be fit to play after they both were substituted with injuries against Bolton. Apart from these there appears to be no new injury concerns for Zola. Predicted Line Ups: Watford: Almunia Cassetti Doyley Hall Ekstrand/Neuton Forsyth/Pudil Chalobah Battochio Abdi Deeney Vydra Subs: Bond, Murray, Forestieri, Geijo, Eustace, Yeates, Hogg CrystalPalace: Speroni Richards Ramage Delaney Parr Dikgacoi Williams Zaha Dobbie Bolasie Murray Subs: Price, Marrow, Moxey, Phillips, Butterfield, Blake, Wilbraham. Officials: TBA Score Prediction: I can see a fair few goals in this game, if Palace play like a typical Holloway side they will be suspectible to the counter attack of which we thrive at. But in order to counter we need to be strong defensively and I can see us leaking a goal or two. I'm going 3-2 to the Hornet's. I'd settle for a point. Come On You 'Orns!
This game will go a long way to show the motivation of our players and what they want from this season. We'll finally see what they're made of and if they will either take their foot off the gas now they've reached the magical 52 points or decide to leave the deck chairs in the loft for now and kick on from here in a bid to secure a top half finish.
We will absolutely muller them, doesn't matter what team they select. In fact Holloway may as well rest his first 11. We are better than them in every conceivable way possible. I look forward to being called arrogant on their plebian website.
If we play like we did first half on Saturday Watford will romp it. If its the second half Palace that turns up its anyones game
If Neuton plays at the back, god help us! Can't predict a result without knowing what the line-up is.
Ahh I dont think we've done well v 4-5-1 so that makes me happier. The secret to Zola's play is overloading and dominating the middle which he can do v 4-3-3. In all seriousness it will be a very close game, too close to call.
I'd be interested to see how One Size gets on against his former employers. He could be fired up for this. I'm cautiously optimistic about this but the call-ups are a worry
I would say Watford will start as slight favourites, but as someone said earlier it will be a close one I would imagine
Yes if we are serious about automatic promotion then we need to be fired up in every game from now on
y do we hav 3 play place againwe beet them all ready vis seeson we need 2 be playin hull instead i went 2 place and a big fat woman pulld up her bra and show me her fat boob at v bus stop
Looks like a very good team but i cant see that team starting as Zola said he is not scare about making big changes with Vydra chalobah battochio pudil going away i can see Zola not starting then ALMUNIA CASSETTI DOYLEY EKSTRAND/ NEUTON FORSYTH EUSTACE YEATES HOGG DEENY FORESTIERI MURRAY
I hope you are right but i cant see it we have got 7 players away this week and some of them wont be getting back till thurs/fri
Pride of south london - If you could choose between your current ownership set up or have wealthy owners like ours and being fed players through Udinese/Granada for free/loaned. What would you choose?
Will be a tough game, and can see quite a few goals as both sides are more than capable in attack. I'll say 3-2 Watford.
We will have to put together a rag tag collection of reserves and youth. Better ask papa Pozzo if he can send some more players over.
