Watford vs. Everton
Venue: Vicarage Road
Kick off: 3pm
Watford and Everton head into Saturday’s Premier League game at Vicarage Road with both needing to revive recent slumps in the top flight.
Quique Flores’s side have not won any of their last five league games, while Roberto Martinez and his men are 12th in the table, 15 points adrift of a European place.
The Hornets’ objective when they returned to the Premier League from the Championship last summer was to maintain their status in the top flight, and they are close to doing so.
However, Flores and his team have suffered on the pitch of late having recorded one draw and four defeats in their last five top-flight games, which has put them 14th in the table, 10 points above the relegation zone.
Most clubs in the lower echelons of the Premier League tend to secure their safety by reaching the 40-point mark, and Watford are two points away from reaching their target, but have struggled to get there in the past few weeks.
Last Saturday, Flores described his players as “soft” in their game against Arsenal as they were forced to accept a 4-0 defeat at the Emirates, but their lack of goals is not a surprise.
During their five-game barren run, Watford have only managed to find the back of the net once and that was in a 2-1 defeat to Stoke City last month.
It has not been the rosiest of times in the blue half of Merseyside as Everton are way off their objective of finishing in a European spot this season.
They are currently 12th in the Premier League table, 15 points off a European place with eight games left to play and they have struggled in the top flight having lost their last three games on the trot.
The Toffees were dealt a double blow in their clash against West Ham United on March 5 – they lost Kevin Mirallas to a red card and relinquished a 2-1 lead inside 10 minutes to lose 3-2 at Goodison Park.
Since then, they were picked off by Arsenal 2-0 and last weekend, were on the losing end of a 1-0 scoreline against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
The Merseyside club have only managed to win nine of their 30 league games, and five of those victories came away from home, and out of the 51 goals that they have netted in the top flight this season, 22 have been scored on the road.
The one positive of their current situation is that they remain in the FA Cup and will face either Manchester United or West Ham in the semi-finals later this month.