The Championship season gets underway on Friday night when for the second time in as many seasons Middlesbrough are sent on a lengthy journey to kick the campaign into life. Having fired up last term away at Luton, they make the trip to Vicarage Road to take on Watford this term.
Watford will be looking to get up and running straight away after their relegation last season while Middlesbrough will be hoping for a fast start to put a dismal campaign behind them and gather a bit of positivity in a dejected fan base.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live on the Sky Main Event and Sky Football channels. The build up to the game begins at 7pm with the match itself kicking off at 7.45pm.
Watford
Another season begins with another manager in the Watford hot seat with the largely unknown Vladimir Ilic the man assigned with leading the charge back to the Premier League for the Hornets. Their demise was quite a speedy one really when you consider it is only 16 months ago that they were competing in the FA Cup final and were on the fringes of qualifying for Europe through their Premier League position for much of that campaign.
It all came apart at the seams though and they paid the ultimate price which was relegation. If there is a positive leading into this season, it is that a huge exodus has yet to take place so at least in terms of this match they should have a decent enough squad to go into battle with. What they lack though may well be confidence and also a competitive hit having not played in the Carabao Cup last week. Both could be considered big negatives.
Middlesbrough
I guess the same sorts of things could be said about Middlesbrough albeit they weren’t quite surfing the same high waves that Watford were. 16 months ago they were narrowly missing out on the fringes of the Championship play-offs and then they spent much of last season fighting relegation, only really getting themselves out of danger in the last week or two of the campaign. They are a side who will be looking for much better this term that is for sure.
With Neil Warnock at the helm there is reason for Boro fans to be optimistic. It isn’t like they lost everyone who failed to get them promoted a couple of seasons ago. Warnock knows how to launch promotion challenges and having had a six week period to work on his side ahead of the season, which he didn’t get when he came in a week after the season restarted, logic would suggest that Boro will be better equipped for the test this term.
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Team News
Watford are said to be without 11 players for this match as the likes of Andre Gray, Troy Deeney, Gerard Deulofeu are missing. Will Hughes, Daryl Janmaat and Isaac Success are all missing for the season opener.
Grant Hall is expected to make his league debut for Middlesbrough after moving to play under Neil Warnock once again. Marcus Bettinelli has signed on loan from Fulham and he may well be straight into the Middlesbrough side here too.
Betting
It might not have been long since the previous season ended in terms of weeks but we saw in the international matches last week that sharpness isn’t necessarily going to be there right away and even if it is I’m not expecting the sort of high scoring classic we saw to begin last season. In saying that it is hard to be too confident of anything here because we don’t know how Watford are going to play under their new manager, even allowing for all the missing players.
Neil Warnock is never one to open his side up and be expansive on the road though so that gives us half a chance of forming a base to bet from. You wouldn’t expect a new boss at Watford to want to be open and leave his team, and the way they get through managers himself, too exposed so I’m anticipating a low scoring match to start the season with. 7/10 might not be the biggest odds going around but the under 2.5 those odds represent does look the best bet to me.
Tips
WON – Back Under 2.5 goals (AH) for a 3/10 stake at 1.70 with BetVictor
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