Chelsea - Watford preview: Chelsea looks to rebound from a surprise loss to a relegation candidate when it hosts another scrapper on Saturday at Stamford Bridge (start time, 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN and online via NBCSports.com)
The Blues failed to take hold of third place after falling 3-2 at West Ham earlier this week, and will now face an ornery and underachieving Hornets side.
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Watford’s 28 points are enough to be outside the drop zone, but just. Aston Villa and Bournemouth have 27 points each and also face top-four chasing sides this weekend.
Team news
Andre Gray, Domingos Quina and Nathaniel Chalobah are available for Watford after being scratched from the Hornets last start for a reported quarantine infraction.
Christian Pulisic makes his fourth start in 10 days for Chelsea, who deploys Olivier Giroudat center forward.
Here's the Chelsea team to take on Watford this evening. 👊#CHEWAT pic.twitter.com/ACZk7qWtSa
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) July 4, 2020
🚨 TEAM NEWS 🚨
— Watford Football Club (@WatfordFC) July 4, 2020
Three changes from last week...
⬅️ Cathcart, Masina & Pereyra
➡️ Kabasele, Mariappa & Chalobah#CHEWAT pic.twitter.com/6of3KCFVLt
What they’re saying
Chelsea’s Frank Lampard on the loss to West Ham: “Not the story of our season, but we have had many of these moments. Chance to go third but you have to do every part of the game to get them. The players in those moments have to show an extra mentality to get through a game like this. I have seen us play great games, but then I have seen opportunities to jump teams or close points, but we haven’t taken them. It shows the work we have to do.”
Troy Deeney on Watford’s struggles near the bottom three: “We’ve had chats. Everyone was frustrated so we’ve tried to park it as quickly as we can in regard to moving onto the next one, but there’s certainly been a lot of things said. It’s important we are able to do that as it doesn’t help anybody if people are not speaking up and saying what’s on their minds, so we had to get to a point where we understood everyone wants to win, no-one’s playing bad on purpose, but if you don’t get to the required standards you’re going to get called out and that’s ultimately what’s happened.”
Odds and ends
The odds reflect the task at hand for Watford at +750. A Chelsea win is -235.
Christian Pulisic and Tammy Abraham scored in a 2-1 Chelsea win at Vicarage Road earlier this season.
Prediction
The Blues bounce back, though not without warts in another 2-1 win.
