Aiming to keep their faint hopes of cracking the top six in the Championship table alive in the final weeks of the season, Hull City will travel to Vicarage Road to take on Watford on Saturday.
The visitors trail the playoff places by six points with a game in hand on sixth-placed Norwich City and just four left to play, while their hosts have dropped to 15th spot in the midst of a winless streak.
Match preview
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Watford return to Vicarage Road on Saturday with the aim of ending a winless streak in the Championship and ending their campaign on a positive note under the temporary stewardship of Tom Cleverley.
The 34-year-old stepped up to take charge in March following Valerien Ismael's exit, with the Hornets sat on 45 points from 37 matches, and his tenure began in a positive manner with a 1-0 away victory over Birmingham City, being their 11th three-point haul of the campaign.
On the back of that triumph, the Vicarage Road outfit built a five-match unbeaten streak with four straight draws, creditably sharing points in 2-2 draws with promotion-chasers Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion before playing out goalless stalemates with Preston North End and league leaders Ipswich Town.
Despite all being relatively pleasing results against high-flying opposition, those draws have since become the basis of a five-match winless run for the Hornets, as they most recently visited fourth-placed Southampton and fell just short in an eventual 3-2 defeat, despite drawing level at two goals apiece through Ryan Porteous and Ismael Kone, as Flynn Downes swung the contest back in the hosts' favour with a 99th-minute winner.
Now sitting 15th in England's second tier with just three games left to play, but with signs of encouragement to take from their displays against five of the division's top 10, ahead of a meeting with another, Watford will set out to bounce back to winning ways on Saturday and begin to end their campaign on a high with the change to narrow the gap to 13th and 14th spots in the final run-in.
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Their schedule does not get any easier, though, as the visitors arrive with plenty more to play for in the final weeks of the Championship season with their playoff hopes hanging in the balance.
Hull City have certainly enjoyed a strong campaign in large parts in their bid for a top-six finish under the tutelage of Liam Rosenior, although the playoff fight is now out of their hands with the Tigers sat seventh having earned 65 points from their 42 outings thus far.
Indeed, after amassing 54 points from 33 second-tier outings, their promotion hopes were dealt a major blow by a six-game winless run between late February and the beginning of April, culminating in back-to-back defeats at Stoke City and Leeds United, but the Tigers have since bounced back to keep themselves in the fight for sixth spot, adding seven more points to their tally in three more attempts.
Rosenior's men firstly returned to winning ways with a 3-1 triumph away at Cardiff City, and after being held to a 2-2 draw at home to fellow playoff-chasers Middlesbrough, they most recently hosted Queens Park Rangers on Saturday and made no mistake in rebounding and putting three crucial points on the board, dishing out a 3-0 beating as Ozan Tufan and Fabio Carvalho got on the scoresheet in the first 30 minutes and Jaden Philogene added a third early in the second half.
Now sitting six points behind sixth-placed Norwich City with four games left to play, including one in hand on the Canaries against Coventry City next Wednesday, Hull City head into the weekend knowing that only a victory will be sufficient if they are to keep their hopes of breaking into the playoff places alive while hoping the sixth-placed side slip up.
Team News
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Tom Cleverley should field a similar Watford starting XI to their narrow defeat away at Southampton last time out, with defender Jeremy Ngakia and winger Ken Sema remaining sidelined by injuries.
There is competition all over the pitch, though, with Ismael Kone fighting to return to the midfield from the outset after appearing and scoring off the bench at St Mary's, with Tom Dele-Bashiru and Edo Kayembe having been preferred in the centre.
Matheus Martins and Mileta Rajovic will also fight for spots in the attacking areas of their 4-2-3-1 shape, after Yaser Asprilla, Giorgi Chakvetadze and Emmanuel Dennis lined up in support of lone front man Vakoun Issouf Bayo on Saturday, with Rajovic leading their scoring charts on 10 Championship goals for the season.
Hull City likely travel to Vicarage Road at the weekend with a clean bill of health, aside from the loss of defender Lewie Coyle, after attacker Liam Delap returned off the bench last weekend following a long injury layoff.
He may again have to settle for a substitute appearance if Liam Rosenior deploys an unaltered starting XI from their 3-0 beating of QPR, though, with Ozan Tufan and Fabio Carvalho having lined up in attack in a 4-4-2 shape recently, the latter of whom has netted eight goals in 16 Championship appearances since arriving on loan from Liverpool in January.
They will have additional support from wingers Abdulkadir Omur and star man Jaden Philogene, who leads their scoring charts with 11 league goals this term, while Tyler Morton and Jean-Michael Seri should continue in the engine room in front of the established centre-back pairing of Alfie Jones and Jacob Greaves.
Watford possible starting lineup:
Bachmann; Pollock, Porteous, Hoedt, Lewis; Kayembe, Kone; Asprilla, Chakvetadze, Dennis; Rajovic
Hull City possible starting lineup:
Allsop; Slater, Greaves, Jones, Jacob; Omur, Morton, Seri, Philogene; Carvalho, Tufan
We say: Watford 1-2 Hull City
While Watford have been resilient for the most part under Tom Cleverley, they meet a Hull City side knowing only a victory is sufficient for their playoff bid and with renewed confidence from a dominant victory last time out, and given the difference in stakes for both sides, we back the visitors to take all three points from a tight contest.
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Sam Varley
