Watford v Barnsley Preview

Posted on | September 11, 2009 | No Comments

Both of these sides are tipped to struggle this season although it’s Barnsley that are in the most turmoil at the moment. After collecting just the one point from their opening five league games, the club acted quickly and Simon Davey left his post as manager. Earlier this week Rotherham boss Mark Robins was approached and eventually appointed and his first challenge is an away fixture at Vicarage Road.

Many pundits feel that Watford could be a side that are battling at the wrong end of the table come the end of the season. They appointed Malky Mackay as manager in the summer and while the former Scotland international is a firm favourite with Hornets supporters, he has very little experience as a manager. With that, and with Watford’s low budget, keeping them away from the bottom is always going to be a tough task. In fairness though the season has started relatively well and the Vicarage Road outfit have collected six points in their opening five games. That’s put them up to 13^th in the table and having put together a three game unbeaten run in the league together, they’ll be hoping to extend that in this outing.

Barnsley on the other hand have had a miserable season and that has now cost Simon Davey his job. The Tykes’ chairman warned in the summer that drastic improvement was required and having collected just the one point, the Oakwell outfit lost patience and replaced Davey with Mark Robins. While there’s no doubt that Robins worked wonders with Rotherham during his short time there, the step up to the Championship could prove tough and it remains to be seen how he’ll cope. There seems to be clear problems at the back for Barnsley and it looks as though Robins has an almighty job on to keep the club in the division.

There’s very little team news to report on for the home side and Malky Mackay may make no new changes from the side that drew with Swansea a fortnight ago. Barnsley on the other hand have a host of problems and Mark Robins really has got a selection headache. After breaking a finger in training, goalkeeper Luke Steele is definitely out and this means that summer signing David Preece could make his debut. Elsewhere top scorer Daniel Bogdanovic won’t play due to an ankle injury, although there is an outside chance of Bobby Hassell being fit enough to return from an Achilles problem.

Most sides who appoint a new manager seem to go through a “honeymoon” period. However, it’s clear that there are some serious problems at Barnsley and it could take a while for things to change. Still, Watford haven’t yet won at home and with that, we think it could be a draw – 1-1.

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