Newcastle have won their last three games at St James’ Park against Watford and are 6/4 favourites to add to that with William Hill.
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“The first eight fixtures were a bit of a nightmare for us”, McClaren said referring also to upcoming clashes with champions Chelsea and leaders Manchester City.
Watford will be without suspended duo Valon Behrami and Miguel Britos for their trip to Newcastle. “St James’ has to be a fortress and a hard place for Watford to come and play”.
One of the biggest problems for Newcastle this season is that they have not been prolific enough in front of goal.
McClaren has stayed positive because he reckons it was nearly inevitable that his side would have teething trouble – with two sendings off compounding the difficulty of changing players and staff.
Newcastle supporters have not had much to cheer about, with Newcastle winning just three of their 24 matches in the league in 2015, losing 15, but a win against Watford would give Newcastle a much needed lift. If we don’t start doing this we can’t win games.
“The reaction to the first goal was spot on, it was flawless , we recovered”.
“In a transition period we are in you will have this”.
In the four PL meetings between these sides, only once has either side scored more than one goal (2-1 win for the Magpies in December 2006).
McClaren said: “Generally it is early season, we are learning about each other and the Premier League“.
“You get back on the horse and the players are up for a reaction on Saturday”. Not only have the Hornets had to adapt to Premier League football for the first time since 2009, they have a new head coach in Quique Sanchez Flores and they have brought 16 players to Vicarage Road this summer. You just wait for it to happen.
“I’m very pleased for the players that are adapting so quick to the new system and we’re looking forward to more performances like this”.
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Casting our eyes towards the bottom right we can see that the fixture computer has given Claudio Ranieri a helping hand in guiding Leicester to a surprise second place in the table.
