After a sour midweek loss to Manchester United yet again, Chelsea have a little pick me up by the name of Watford. The odds and the table point to a Blues win, but not a very big one.
Watford on the road are horrible, with a -13 goal differential in all (both) competitions. That stat is a bit skewed with the 8-0 Manchester City thumping, so let’s take that match out. Watford would then still have a -5 goal differential in those five matches.
At home they are a bit better with a goal differential of -1. And unfortunately for Chelsea, they face Watford at Vicarage Road and not Stamford Bridge. Then again, Chelsea at home are +6 in eight matches, which is just below their road record. The Blues are very good on the road, winning six of seven with a goal differential of +7 in all competitions (excluding the Super Cup).
According to The Action Network, Chelsea are -0.75 favorites with an over / under of 3. The three-quarters of a point is a good spread: once it gets to 1 you need Chelsea to win by two, otherwise it’ll be a push.
This match at Vicarage Road is trickier than most may think. Watford have already earned a draw with Tottenham and Arsenal at home.
Other than the game against City, Watford have only twice conceded more than two goals: against Brighton and West Ham in their first two home games. The opening day loss to Brighton is their only other loss by by more than two goals. Since the incident at the Etihad, Watford have allowed three goals in four games, holding Sheffield United and Bournemouth to goalless draws.
For a team with no wins in their first 10 games, they are at least mitigating the damage (with the one notable exception) in the second most important column of the table.
Chelsea are deserving favorites. Before doing any research for this match, my instinct was Chelsea win 3-1 or 3-0. I have backed off that a bit, and brought it down to a one-goal match: a 2-1 victory for the Blues. This covers the spread but is a push on the over / under, which is worth avoiding.
The only concern is the following match, a Champions League clash on a Tuesday versus Ajax. The remaining matches for Champions League group stages are currently must wins-unless the rest of the group’s results shake out in Chelsea’s favor. Across all sports, when a team is coming up on a game that looks easy ahead of a much bigger and more difficult game, the team tends to look past the easy one, at their own risk.
It’s hard to say how much this all plays into the match. Frank Lampard will surely be watching out for signs of his men being distracted or not focused enough on the Hornets.
But it only takes a few moments where a forward is not paying attention to miss the one big chance that could put the game out of reach. Or worse, for a defender to have his head elsewhere and Watford do what most other clubs have done and steal a set piece goal off the Blues.