Forest look to start brightly as Watford come to City Ground

Nottingham Forest hope to end poor recent run when they face Watford in the Championship.

The Reds come into this one off the back of three consecutive defeats, the latest of which came on Sunday. Connor Roberts’ towering header on the stroke of half-time secured Swansea City a 1-0 victory at the City Ground.

But it leaves Chris Hughton’s men looking over their shoulder. Following Wycombe’s 1-1 draw at fiercest rivals Derby County on Saturday, Forest are just two points clear of the drop zone, a position they could drop into by the end of the evening.

However, Forest will want to avoid that and a fourth successive defeat. Victory on Wednesday night could see them move as high as 18th place depending on Coventry and Rotherham’s results over the next 24 hours.

There have been plenty of positives for Forest to take from their recent games. Though they have been beaten in their last three by Barnsley, Bournemouth and Swansea, they have all been close encounters and games which the Reds could have taken points from.

But Forest have lacked that cutting edge in this recent run which has seen them go through a mini goal drought. Hughton will be hoping that striker Lyle Taylor can get back to scoring, and no doubt hope the likes of Sammy Ameobi, Joe Lolley and Anthony Knockaert can all find their shooting boots.

Forest’s home match against Watford is the third of six fixtures against teams in and around the top six. The Hornets started Tuesday third in the Championship, a point behind Bournemouth in second, and a further point behind league leaders Norwich City.

Victory in the East Midlands could see them move into the top two depending on how the Cherries and Canaries fare in their matches against Preston and Luton respectively.

The visitors have had a reasonably positive November. Their 4-1 victory against Preston North End on Saturday was their fifth straight game without defeat.

However it should be mentioned Watford’s away form has been below par. They have only recorded one win on the road this season, that was a 1-0 victory at Derby back in October.

The Hornets have also struggled for a goal away from home too, scoring just three goals on their travels, but with the likes of Joao Pedro and Ismaila Sarr among the attacking options for Vladimir Ilic, they’ll be hoping to change that.

Defensively Watford have looked reasonably solid. They have conceded just 11 goals this season, the fourth lowest in the Championship. and have kept five clean sheets. However six of the goals that have been let in have come from the five matches they played last month.

Team News

Nottingham Forest:

Joe Worrall, Taylor Blackett, Samba Sow, Michael Dawson and Lewis Grabban all returned to training last week.

Watford:

Tom Cleverley, Adam Massina and Will Hughes are all back in training and could be considered for the trip to Forest tomorrow night.

Chris Hughton, speaking to Forest’s site before the game, on boosting confidence:

“I don’t think you can ever argue with the league table, but I am around a group of players that feel we should be doing better than we are doing in regards to results. It is only us as a group of staff and a group of players that can put that right.

“I have seen that determination in training, the spirits have been good and that comes because the margins are not too big. There isn’t any game that we have played in where teams have given us a good beating.

“That is where some of the confidence that we can start picking up results comes from.”

Vladimir Ilic on improving game by game:

“This is our target, to play better. To be able to play every game like this and to improve some details during the game.”

“We need to think about ourselves, about every next game,” he said to the official Watford website.

“We don’t need to talk about the other positions, how big the distance is between us and first. This is something I speak about with them.”

Previous meetings

The last time these two met was back in the FA Cup Fourth Round back in January 2016. Odion Ighalo’s 89th-minute winner in the East Midlands sent Watford to round five. The Hertfordshire club went on to reach the semi-finals of the FA Cup that year.

The last league meeting between the two was back in April 2015, once again at the City Ground. Watford also came out on top in this one winning 3-1. Ighalo, Matthew Connolly and Almen Abdi with the goals. A few weeks after the win on Trentside, the Hornets won promotion to the Premier League.