Preview: Watford v Yeovil

Article by Christopher Lawton

The visit of Yeovil to Watford on Saturday represents the first ever meeting between the sides. Watford enter the game against the league’s strugglers knowing that anything less than win is simply not acceptable. A shocking run of home form has seen one of the early season favourites slide away from the top six and start to face the reality that the automatic promotion spots may already be beyond reach.

There is much to debate over the cause of the problem: too many new faces, lack of a striker, lack of a midfielder, lack of defender, lack of pace, tactical ineptitude, no plan B, we’ve been found out, wrong formation, and injury list. While some seem more obvious than others, for example Matej Vydra’s pace upfront has not been replaced, it is also true to say that elements of all these have had some bearing on Watford’s recent poor form.

Within this, however, one should not hide certain truths. Watford still has a very technically proficient squad and the players, on paper, are more than capable of holding their own in this division. What we see, however, is a side that is happy to play possession football, playing to individual strengths, but lacks the guile and cunning to open up well organised units that start defending with the centre forward.

In this sense the most obvious change would be to move away from the long favoured 3-5-2 formation. While this has worked well, it losses its edge when your two wide men don’t have the pace to carry an attacking threat. More often this becomes 5-3-2 and eventually this becomes 5-4-1 as a forward drops off to help pick up the ball. Maybe the biggest change Zola could make is to go to a 4-4-2 formation and at least give the opposition something to think about.

Saturday’s visitors Yeovil, while struggling, will be no pushover. Gary Johnson as a former apprentice at the club who later returned as Director of the Youth Academy under Graham Taylor will surely be looking to gain something against an old friend. I suspect Yeovil will be well organised and look to frustrate Watford for long periods. They won’t be concerned if Watford’s possession is limited to the middle of the park.

The longer Yeovil can keep the game goalless the greater the pressure on Watford to make something and the possibility for Yeovil to snatch a goal on the break. Watford fans may hope for something of a rout, similar to the Bournemouth match earlier in the season, but given the goal scoring problems of both teams at the moment a nil-nil draw seems equally likely.

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