Hammers in a “good place” for Watford visit
By CandH’s Allen Cummings
Our trip to Watford on Sunday gives us a wonderful opportunity to round off the season in some style – and in the process take a great deal of satisfaction from the campaign as a whole.
Manuel Pellegrini has clearly stamped his mark on the team and we are definitely in a far better place than we were. Victory would be the icing on the cake – guarantee us a top half finish – and could even be enough to land us 9th place, should Chelsea beat Leicester.
If our previous record against Watford is anything to go by, we’re in a good place. We’ve won exactly twice as many games as we’ve lost against the Hornets – 42 wins to 21 defeats, with 13 games drawn.
It’s probably not a bad time to be travelling to Vicarage Road either. With a cup final appearance just around the corner manager Javi Gracia and his players might just have half an eye on Wembley, in terms of team selection and application.
We need to test their resolve in the same way we tested that of the Spuds – and we all know how that game turned out!
Watford’s last three home games have yielded just a single point, and last week they were soundly beaten 3-0 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
On the other hand we come into the game looking for our third successive victory and our third successive clean sheet. Accusations a few games ago by some so-called ‘experts’ that we were already “on our holidays” have been well and truly kicked into touch by our wins over Tottenham and Southampton.
Pellegrini has insisted that his team will play with purpose to the end of the season. “We must try to fight and be as high up as we can,” he says.
As a visitor to Hertfordshire at the weekend, I’m looking forward to that promise being realised.