In the 13th round of English Premier League, we will see a match between 2nd placed Liverpool and Watford, who are currently at the 7th place in the league.
Watford, who has ended last years season at a 14th place can be happy with their results thus far. Currently, they are holding a 6-2-4 record, which is the same record as Manchester United. Well… I can’t really say United has been performing well enough this season to be considered a top 5 team in the EPL, but 6-2-4 is not a bad record for a mid-table team. Looking at how Watford performed in the last 5 matches, they have won 2, lost 2 and drew their most recent one against Southampton (1:1). The most recent match against Southampton did not look too bright for Watford, as they were behind for over 60 minutes. After a goal from Southampton in 20′ Watford failed to score with 12 goal attempts, until the dying moments of the 2nd half, when they took the reins in their hand, keeping a 62% ball possession and had 3x as many shots on goal than their opponents. Not surprisingly, Watford managed to equalize in 82′ when Holebas scored his 2nd goal of the season. Final score: 1:1.
The visiting team, Liverpool are chasing Manchester City for the 1st spot in the EPL. With only 2 points separating the teams, Liverpool will be hoping Manchester City makes a mistake and loses the match, but with their next fixture being against West Ham, that is not likely to happen this round. As of now, Liverpool are holding a 9-3-0 record and are one of the 3 teams (Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea) that have not yet tasted a defeat in 2018/19 season. Looking at their last 5 matches, Liverpool won 3 and drew 2 against Arsenal (1:1) and Manchester City (0:0). Their most recent match against Fulham ended in a win for Liverpool, which is not surprising, as they played against the worst team in the EPL this season (1-2-9). We saw Salah and Shaqiri who scored for their club. With his 6th goal of the season, Salah climbed to the 4th spot of the best EPL scorer this season.
These two teams have met each other on 17th of March 18 when it was Liverpool who celebrated a high win (5:0). This time, however, the match will be played at Vicarage Road, the home of Watford. Watford, as mentioned has a 6-2-4 record this season and a 4-0-2 record at home, which puts them among the top 6 best home teams in the league. Out of their 20 points, 12 came from home matches, where they put up a good fight against Manchester United (1:2). Historically Watford performed well against Liverpool at home matches (3:3), (0:1). In addition, Liverpool has not been playing well in away games. They have won 4 and drew 2 away games, but looking closely, they barely won against Leicester (1:2), who are a mediocre home team (2-2-2) and a 0:1 win over Huddersfield was not praiseworthy neither, as Huddersfield are in the bottom 5 worst home teams (1-2-4). Taking all into consideration, this match will most likely be won by Liverpool as they have a much better team, but I do not expect them to completely dominate it, as they did in their last encounter (5:0). Expect a low scoring match with Watford doing their best to get at least a point out of it.
Prediction: Under 2.75 goals
Odds: 2.04 Pinnacle
