Town boss Mick McCarthy admits that he doesn’t know quite what to expect from Watford when they visit Portman Road on Saturday. The Hornets appointed Giuseppe Sannino as their new head coach on Wednesday following the resignation of former boss Gianfranco Zola on Monday.
McCarthy says he and assistant Terry Connor were discussing the situation earlier today: "It’s a little bit tricky, TC and myself were talking abut it this morning. We’re thorough in how we prepare for the opposition and we feel like we’ve not quite done everything we should.
"What we have done is prepared for what we think would happen if Gianfranco was still there as they’ve had a good away record.
"I tend to think that if I was going into that club and I looked at their away record, I’d leave that well alone because they’ve done well.
"I'd get that game out of the way and then prepare for the next game. But he might change it completely. I’ve no idea, so we’ll wait and see.”
Why does he feel Watford have had such a difficult time this season having been in the play-offs last year?
"Where does the momentum come from and go to?”, he pondered. "I’m not quite sure. They looked an excellent side. They lost MatÄ›j Vydra, that certainly made a difference to them. I don’t know how many other players they lost, they had a lot of loan players last year.
"They’ve changed their shape, they’ve been playing a flat back four whereas last year it was 3-5-2 and certainly with Vydra and Troy Deeney up front they were a real handful.
"They also had Nathaniel Chalobah on loan, who was a terrific player for them. Maybe it’s losing personnel, I don’t know.
"Sometimes you can be flying along, we’ve got a good record, we’ve won three and drawn one. We could lose three in this league just as easily, even when we’re playing well.
"You come off the pitch thinking that that was as well as you’ve played and you’ve been beaten, as we saw earlier on in the season.
"I don’t know, but I was sad to see Gianfranco go because he’s a really good guy and one of my football pals, who I got on really well with.”
Just over a year ago McCarthy was in new Hornets’ boss Sannino’s current position, inheriting a squad and having to learn about his players before his first game in charge at Birmingham.
He says he found out a lot in those first few days: "I guess I did learn a lot because you pick people’s brains. I was kind of disappointed in the feedback I was getting back about players.
"I came in for one day, I had to go down and sign my contract, and I said to [the staff], ‘Lads, I’m going to sign my contract, before I do I’m just going to let you know that when I get back here tomorrow I want to hear a few more positive vibes about this place because at the moment I’m wondering if I should just drive straight past Portman Road and not bother signing my contract!’.
"That was the first day. I suppose I was only here two days and by the Friday, to be fair, I think somebody had said ‘Listen, it’s not all that bad here with the players’.
"We trained well and by the Saturday I’d learnt a helluva lot because we’d had a really good gutsy performance at Birmingham [and won 1-0]. In three days I’d learnt a helluva lot.”
Given the expectation that Watford will continue the system Zola employed, the Town boss looks likely to revert back to the 4-4-2 formation which he has generally used during his what’s now close to 14 months in charge at Portman Road.
Dean Gerken, man of the match in the last two games, is set to continue in goal with Luke Chambers at right-back, Aaron Cresswell on the left of the defence and with Tommy Smith and Christophe Berra in the centre.
In midfield, Stephen Hunt could be in the running to start on the left, depending on whether he’s over the minor hamstring injury he suffered in training, with Jay Tabb and Ryan Tunnicliffe also in contention for the role.
Tunnicliffe is also amongst the options to play alongside Cole Skuse in the centre, along with Luke Hyam, with Paul Anderson probably returning on the right.
Up front, McCarthy could opt for Frank Nouble to start alongside David McGoldrick with the 22-year-old having put in lively displays in the last two games. If so, Daryl Murphy will be on the bench but new signing Sylvan Ebanks-Blake is unlikely to be involved until after the turn of the year.
For Watford, stalwart full-back Lloyd Doyley is back from a month out with a hamstring problem and Joel Ekstrand returns after a ban, but midfielder Almen Abdi remains sidelined with a foot problem.
Also missing will be one-time Blues loanee Reece Brown (knee), Tommie Hoban (ankle), Essaid Belkalem (ankle) and Davide Faraoni (ankle).
Last time out at Portman Road, in February, a goal in either half from Ikechi Anya and Nathaniel Chalobah saw Watford to a 2-0 victory.
The impressive visitors had already struck the bar via Jonathan Hogg before Anya’s well-worked 18th minute goal.
Town gradually came more into it but the Hornets sealed the victory through Chelsea loanee Chalobah with 18 minutes remaining.
In August last year, Michael Chopra’s 90th-minute goal ended Town’s 15-match run without a victory against Watford as the Blues left Vicarage Road with a 1-0 win.
Town were good for the three points but had to wait for their goal with Chopra converting a Carlos Edwards cross.
Historically, the clubs are evenly matched, the Blues winning 25 times (22 in the league), losing 25 (24) and drawing 16 (16).
Despite having ended the lengthy winless run at Vicarage Road last season, the Blues still haven’t beaten the Hornets at Portman Road in eight games, since March 2004 when Dean Bowditch netted a hat-trick and Jermaine Wright added a late fourth as the Blues won 4-1, Scott Fitzgerald scoring for the visitors.
Although they are without a win in nine matches, the Hornets have drawn their last four away games and their most recent victory came at Huddersfield prior to the start of that run.
Keeper Scott Loach rejoined the Blues from Watford for £150,000 during in the summer of 2012.
Reece Brown joined the Hornets in the summer after his release by Manchester United following a loan spell with the Blues at the end of last season.
Watford goalkeeper-coach Alec Chamberlain, who remains with the club despite this week’s staff changes, was, like Loach, a youth player with the Blues but never made a first team appearance, while Town youth development coach Steve Foley spent time coaching at Vicarage Road earlier in his career.
Following his appearance on a star-studded, special Life's a Pitch, Blues legend Kevin Beattie, who celebrated his 60th birthday on Wednesday, will be a club guest at the game.
He will be interviewed by PA man Rob Chandler on the pitch prior to kick-off before watching the match from the directors’ box.
There have also been calls on social media for fans to mark the occasion with a minute’s applause as the clock ticks past the 60-minute mark.
Saturday’s referee is Graham Scott from Oxfordshire, who has shown 53 yellow cards and somewhat excessive looking eight red in 15 games so far this season.
Scott’s last Town game was the 1-0 defeat to Burnley at Portman Road in October when he kept his cards in his pockets throughout.
Squad from: Gerken, Loach, Chambers, Veseli, Hammond, Cresswell, Mings, Smith, Berra, Skuse, Hyam, Wordsworth, Tunnicliffe, Edwards, Anderson, Tabb, Hunt, Graham, Murphy, McGoldrick, Nouble, Taylor.