Preview: Watford – Town
By Aston
March 16 2010
Town travel to Vicarage Road tonight, in search of 3 points against Malky Mackay’s Watford side.
Town could be missing Damien Delaney through suspension, Town are appealing the red card but at the time of going to type the result is not known, if Delaney is suspended Pim Balkestein or Tommy Smith will fill in for him.
Town manager Roy Keane: "Watford need results, so it's not necessarily a good time to play them, I always think the games against teams down and around you are the hardest games, like Scunthorpe on Saturday. Everyone's fighting for their lives.
"Watford had a brilliant start to the season, but every team has difficult spells and they're finding that now.
"Watford being at home, the onus will be on them to open up the opposition, so I expect them to play two up front. We'll have to be ready for that.
"The pitch is not great, with them playing rugby on it, but we'll have to deal with that."
Watford could welcome back Will Buckley who is fit again after injury.
Watford manager Malky Mackay: "I think it's only natural that nerves will start to play a part for both the team and supporters.
"But, a goal changes all that as does a result.
"When you are disappointed and frustrated you want to get back into it straight away.
"On Saturday I thought we huffed and puffed and didn't manage to obviously score. We had a lot of pressure, conceded a freak goal and they defended doggedly."
"After a few early results didn't go their way they've had a lot of results recently and a lot of draws.
"Roy has added to his squad in January, so there is some experience in his team so we have to be very careful because it's going to be a tough game."
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I am not sure where Watford's next points will come from as we have not scored for four-and-a-half hours and a lot of our opponents coming up either are in good form and have something to play for.
If we do not start picking up points soon, it is a certainty that we will be in npower League 1 next season, although the positive is that if there are three teams whose plight is worse than ours then we will stay up. It is not like we are not creating chances or are conceding lots of goals. However, losing twice to Peterborough (who, with due respect, should be seen as three easy points, a cakewalk and the team against whom you should pick up form) is not the way to go about Championship survival.
Ipswich appear to be in good from, conceding just two goals in their last five matches, are eighth in the last-eight-matches form table (Watford are 20th) and are pulling away from the danger zone.
Watford really need to win tonight, otherwise the fans will totally lose confidence, although I am certainly not going to take Ipswich lightly and I won't be at all surprised if Ipswich win or draw.
Click here to read why I sensationally sacrificed the big bucks of Chelsea for the adventure of Watford
(image on left not representative of how relative my support of Watford is to my support of Middlesex)
Ipswich Town - the pride of anglia