Watford v Sunderland Betting Tips

Watford’s back-to-back wins against Arsenal and Burnley earlier this year must feel like a very distant memory to the Vicarage Road faithful: since those victories, Watford have played out four winless games, losing in three, and they must try to rediscover their form for this home game against a struggling Sunderland side. The Black Cats have failed to score in any of their last four games following their 4-0 demolition of Crystal Palace and remain rooted to the bottom of the table.

One of the big problems for Watford has been their defensive slackness at home. Only Bournemouth, Sunderland, West Ham and Swansea have conceded more on home turf, which goes some way towards explaining the fact that Watford have only won one of their last six at home and kept just one clean sheet in their last nine outings at home en route to a W5-D4-L5 record for the season at Vicarage Road. However, they can take comfort from the fact that Sunderland’s defeat of Crystal Palace was their only win on the road in their last seven attempts, and they’ve been down at the half in four of their last five in that run. That being said, the visitors have won five of eight against bottom-half sides, so we think that they should get a few chances here.

Watford have been too inconsistent for us to back them in the match result markets, and Sunderland have come away from games against Watford with something to show for their efforts in five of their last six attempts, so Sunderland Draw No Bet looks like the value option.