Watford v Aston Villa team news & stats
Aston Villa will hope to avoid an 11th successive defeat when they take on Watford in the Premier League at Vicarage Road on Saturday.
Team news
Odion Ighalo is expected to play for Watford despite the death of his father shortly after Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace. The striker has trained this week and is available.
Etienne Capoue, however, will miss the game at Vicarage Road. The French midfielder sustained a knee injury at Wembley and is likely to sit out the remainder of the season.
Aston Villa defender Ciaran Clark is fit after an ankle problem and could replace Micah Richards, who is nursing a knee injury.
Gabby Agbonlahor has had his suspension lifted but will not be involved this weekend.
Opta stats
- Watford will be looking to secure two league wins in a single season against Aston Villa for the first time since 1969-70.
- The Hornets have lost just one of their previous eight league meetings against Aston Villa at Vicarage Road (W4 D3 L1), this coming in August 1999.
- Aston Villa have kept a clean sheet in four of their last five league games against Watford but shipped three goals in their Premier League meeting earlier this season at Villa Park (2-3).
- After Odion Ighalo (14) and Troy Deeney (9), ‘own goals’ is Watford’s third top goalscorer in the Premier League this season (3). One of those OG’s was Alan Hutton’s in the reverse fixture.
- Ighalo has averaged a goal every 1200 mins in the Premier League since New Year (1 in 1200 mins), compared to a goal every 122 mins before January 1 (13 goals in 1591 mins).
- Heurelho Gomes (11 clean sheets) needs one more clean sheet this season in the Premier League to equal his best ever tally in the English top-flight (12 for Spurs in both 2008-09 and 2009-10).
- Watford have won 13 points from their last 17 Premier League matches (W3 D4 L10), compared to a tally of 28 in their first 17 PL games of 2015-16 (W8 D4 L5).
- Troy Deeney has been involved in a league-high 408 aerial duels this season, also winning the most (210).
- Aston Villa have lost 10 successive league matches – their longest sequence of league defeats since May 1963 (11 in a row).
- Villa have lost 25 Premier League games this season – the record tally of defeats in a single Premier League season is 29; set by Derby in 2007-08, Sunderland in 2005-06 and Ipswich in 1994-95.