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Inform Watford hope to continue good run when Spurs visit Vicarage Road

Photo: Action Images via Reuters

Tottenham travel to a Watford side seeking to resume their surge away from the relegation zone under Nigel Pearson.

Watford have won four and drawn one of Pearson’s five games in charge so far and will hope this unbeaten run continues when Tottenham travel to Vicarage Road.

The meeting earlier in the season between these two sides ended 1-1 with VAR confusion overshadowing one of Watford’s better early-season displays.

A fifth win in six would ensure daylight between Watford and the other relegation candidates in the first match of the weekend. Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham are desperate for a win also as they look to hunt down the nine-point gap that Chelsea have amassed.

Team news

Nigel Pearson’s Watford will have been buoyed by the return of Will Hughes, Kiko Fermenia and Danny Welbeck in training this week although the match may come too soon for them to feature. Christian Kabasele is available again after suspension with Tom Cleverley (Achilles), Sebasitan Prödl (knee) and Daryl Janmaat (knee) all absentees for the Hornets.

Both of these teams made their first signing of the January transfer window this week as Ignacio Pussetto arrived at Watford from Italian affiliate Udinese and Jose Mourinho strengthened his midfielder by acquiring Gedson Fernandes from Benfica on an initial 18-month loan with an option to buy.

The visitors injury list remains the same from their win over Middlesbrough in the FA Cup during the week as Tanguy Ndombele (hip), Hugo Lloris (elbow), Harry Kane (hamstring), Moussa Sissoko (knee) and Ben Davies (ankle) all remain unavailable to the Lilywhites.

Nigel Pearson commented on his new signing when speaking for the club’s website:

“He [Pussetto] has fitted in very well. He’s a very likeable young man. He speaks decent English and I’ve had a good chat with him. He’s settled in very quickly and gives us options in wide areas. We’ve seen during recent games we’ve played with a lot of pace and variance in wide areas and he gives us another option there.”

Jose Mourinho was aware of the challenges Watford pose ahead of tomorrow’s fixture:

“Always tricky. Watford I always felt every time I go to Watford, I always felt difficult matches to play. Great atmosphere, great support. They are very adapted to that style of play.

They have the right players to play the way they want to play. There is no way to run away from that because that’s the style they impose in their game. And of course very good results, lots of people… at a certain moment they were in trouble in the table. And now after a few months they were in a very good position, and getting fantastic results, so very difficult.”