
Championship
England
Bristol City
Today
Watford
ABC Tips
Bristol City v Watford Bet Builder @ 4.32
This match has the feel of one that both need to get something from. The play-offs are just out of reach for both teams at the moment, but not far enough away that either team will be giving up on their goal just yet.
Bristol City have seen BTTS-Yes come in in three of their last four matches. Whilst many of Bristol City’s recent home matches have indeed been one-sided in their scorelines in one way or another, a lot of that is down to variance, and the Wrexham match last time out demonstrated that when both teams are going for the win, BTTS-Yes is a very realistic outcome.
City’s seasonal xG record at Ashton Gate stands at 1.33 xG for and 1.43 xG against, so, on average, chances are being created at both ends.
Watford have been short on goals in recent weeks, but their creation has actually been generally fine, just the execution that has been lacking. The Hornets have actually created 1 xG or more in each of their last eight matches, and it is only a matter of time until that consistency pays off in regular goals.
Whilst neither of these clubs would be amongst the highest earning corner winners in the Championship, there is a particular piece of form that came out in the research that makes me believe that this is a decent angle to take at the price.
That form comes in the very specific scenario of Watford playing away from home. Watford’s last few away matches in the Championship have seen a lot of corners.
The last Watford away match saw 16 corners taken, with Watford taking seven by themselves. They won nine at Southampton, conceding three, and there were 11 at Hull, and 15 at Blackburn. Watford's away matches average 10.7 corners in total.
Bristol City home matches also average over this line, with an average of nine corners won in the league at Ashton Gate.
Mendy was brought in to be an experienced presence in central midfield and provide the hard graft to go alongside the guile of Imran Louza. He established himself in the team just before Ed Still’s arrival, and the new manager also seems to like him, as he has now started Watford’s last five matches, playing the entire duration of four of them.
This does call into question some potential rotation, especially given Mendy’s age of 33, but I am expecting him to at least start here, and given that, I expect him to draw at least one foul.
Mendy is averaging 1.14 fouls drawn in the season so far, but recently he has upped his ball carrying, and as a result, he has been fouled on more occasions. His last four matches have seen him fouled seven times, with them spread out evenly across the matches, so two fouls against him in three and one in the other.
The final piece of the puzzle is the fact that the Bristol City midfield has been made more combative. Sam Morsy is playing some minutes, and Tomi Horvat has also come in and provided extra duel presence in attacking midfield.
It is a shorter price, but I like this angle in several ways.
Firstly, there is the fact that Pring is a usual candidate to be fouled in most games that he plays in. He averages 1.45 fouls against him per 90 in the league so far this season, and he has been fouled at least once in his last four starts in a row.
The other side of this bet is that Watford’s right-hand side seems to be much more combative than their left. Nestory Irankunda had a go in right midfield last time out and committed five fouls from that position.
James Abankwah has been playing on the right of the three central defenders and has been regularly committing fouls from that position too, nine in his last five matches, and the aforementioned Namplays Mendy has tended to play on the right of the midfield pivot and is also averaging over one foul per 90.




