The famous Claudio Ranieri starts his life back to the Premier League with a baptism of fire when his new side Watford welcome a rampant Liverpool to Vicarage Road on Saturday for the eighth league round with kickoff at 14:30.
Claudio became the 16th permanent manager to take the rankings at Vicarage Road in just ten years following a decision made by the Watford’s board to relieve Xisco Munoz of his managerial duties at the club. The decision received mixed responses as it’s not been a disastrous start to the campaign for the newly-promoted Watford who have won two, drawn one and lost four of their opening seven matches, but the board wasted no time in bringing back Ranieri who is famous for his fairytale story at Leicester.
Xisco tenure ended with a 1-0 defeat to Leeds shortly before the second international break, with Diego Llorente’s 18th minute goal extending the Hornets winless run to three matches across all competition. Now Ranieri takes over Watford who are in the 15th spot with seven points only four points keeping them adrift off the relegation zone.
Indeed, it will be fascinating to see how Watford perform under the charismatic Claudio Ranieri who is relied upon to halt the high-flying Liverpool.
Meanwhile Liverpool have a strong start to the campaign and are the only unbeaten side in the Premier League thus far, recording four wins and three draws in their opening seven matches to collect 15 points that has left them in the second place, with only a point behind league leaders Chelsea.
Liverpool are among the strong favorites to lift the premier League this season and Jurgen Klopp’s side look determined to return to their Premier League glory after losing out last season to Manchester City who held them to a 2-2 draw in their latest league contest at Anfield with Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah giving Liverpool the lead in two occasions but strikes from Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne saw both sides settle for a share of the spoils.
Liverpool head into the match in brilliant form as they boast a 19-match unbeaten run across all competitive tournaments and have scored three goals in each of their last four premier League games away from home and Jurgen will want to see his side keep their momentum going but they meet Ranieri who boats four wins from five home league matches against the Reds.
Watford vs Liverpool head to head
Both sides have met in 16 matches since 1999 with Liverpool claiming 12 wins while Watford have only claimed three wins and there have been one draw.
- Watford 3-0 Liverpool 29/02/20
- Liverpool 2-0 Watford 14/12/19
- Liverpool 5-0 Watford 27/02/19
- Watford 0-3 Liverpool 24/11/18
- Liverpool 5-0 Watford 17/03/18
Home
- Leeds 1-0 Watford
- Watford 1-1 Newcastle
- Watford 1-3 stoke
- Norwich 1-3 Watford
- Watford 0-2 Wolverhampton
Away
- Liverpool 2-2 Man City
- Porto 1-5 Liverpool
- Brentford 3-3 Liverpool
- Norwich 0-3 Liverpool
- Liverpool 3-0 Crystal Palace
Watford team news
Watford will be without Francisco Sierralta, Christian Kabasele and Peter Etebo who are nursing injuries while Josh King will need to be assessed after suffering a jnee injury against Leeds.
Liverpool team news
Liverpool will be without Harvey Elliot and Thiago Alcantara due to injuries while Alisson Becker and Fabinho might miss the match as both might not be deemed fit as they will be straight from their international duties.
Prediction and odds
- Liverpool win
- Both sides to score
- Goals over 2.5
