Watford travel to the DW stadium in search of their first away win since the start of October 2013. With just ten games left of the season, Watford’s away form needs to improve drastically if their hopes of a top-six finish are to remain plausible.
Vital Quotes:
Latics boss Uwe Rösler:
‘Watford are still in with a chance of reaching the play-offs, I’ve watched them a few times live and they are clearly an opposition we will have to give a lot of respect to.
‘In this league there are no simple games, Yeovil showed us that on Tuesday night.
‘Nobody simply gives up in the Championship and when you don’t kill the game off with a second or third goal then that is when other teams gain the belief that they can still get a result.
‘Split seconds of a delay in awareness can cost you in this division and that happened for us against Yeovil.
‘We’ve got to be able to kill games off properly like we have been doing recently.
‘Tuesday was a difficult result, but we are still unbeaten and we have an excellent position to build on.’
Watford boss Beppe Sannino
‘In the next match, we want to win for the fans, and for us. It is an important match; we will do our best to win the game’
‘When we play away we have had problems, we would like to repay supporters as soon as possible – starting at Wigan. At this moment though, Wigan are excellent.’
‘We want players to be free. Want them to push up. We have to play higher up the pitch by 20 or 30 metres, like when we play at home
‘Perhaps as we don’t have as much pressure away from home it will allow us to play with more freedom and a good mentality.’
(With thanks to Vital Wigan.)
Wigan Athletic Team News:
Shaun Maloney and Gary Caldwell are still not quite ready for their return, whilst James Perch is an injury doubt. Leon Barnett will definitely not feature.
Long-term absentees due to injury: Ben Watson, Chris McCann and Roger Espinoza.
Player to watch: James McClean
James McClean is probably the most in-form of a very in-form side. He could make the difference today.
Watford Team News:
Watford only have one recognised striker available to play today, Troy Deeney. Mathias Ranegie is suspended following his straight red card against Doncaster, Park Chu Young and Fernando Forestieri are unavailable due to injury.
Player to watch: Ikechi Anya
I think the performance of Ikechi Anya will be very important today. If he plays well we will score goals, I’m sure of it.
Vital contributors’ views
Chris Gilder:
With team news pretty much the same as the last game against Barnsley I expect a similar type of team and tactics for tomorrows game against Wigan. Beppe Sannino had pointed out he’s had little time on the training ground to figure out a way of playing and our away form under him perhaps bears that out. Following the poor performance at Bolton, he’s had plenty of time to figure out a way of playing away from home, unfortunately thanks to Mathias Ranegie’s early sending off at Doncaster the team have yet to have an opportunity to put their work into practice. I expect us to perform well tomorrow and show some progression away from home in our performance at least, despite the tough prospect of a Wigan side in excellent form. However the Latics do have a number of injuries to key players and having been held at home by Yeovil on Tuesday there is no reason why we can’t come away with at least a point from the DW tomorrow. I’m going for 1-1.
Colin Cowan:
If we are to hold on to any slim hope we have of making the play offs, this is the type of game we need to be winning. It will be difficult as Wigan seem to have found form at the right time and are unbeaten in their last 9 games in all competitions, including an away win at Manchester City. That along with our poor away form I unfortunately can only see one outcome. Ill go for a 2-1 Wigan win with Deeney getting the Watford goal.
My prediction
Heart says 2-1, head tells heart Wigan will score in the last minute if we are leading going into added time… I’ll go 2-2 then.
