Brighton & Hove Albion vs Watford

AMEX Stadium is the venue as Brighton & Hove Albion and Watford go head-to-head in an intriguing Premier League fixture.

Brighton staged a breathtaking second-half comeback to beat Burnley 2-1 away from home on the opening weekend, registering only their second Matchday 1 victory across the last six seasons (W2, D1, L3). Another success here would propel them to their best two-game start to a league campaign for the first time since 2015/16. There’s a good omen here, as the ‘Seagulls’ have never lost a top-flight home meeting with Watford (W1, D3), with those fixtures yielding an average of just 1.25 goals. Yet, Brighton have kept a clean sheet twice in their previous three such encounters, which has not been the case in any of their last five Premier League outings. Notably, Graham Potter’s side concluded the 2020/21 season on a run of five unbeaten home league games (W3, D2) – only once have they gone undefeated in six straight top-flight matches at the AMEX before.

On the other hand, Watford marked their swift top-flight return with a tense 3-2 home victory over Aston Villa, which should give them enough confidence to snap a six-match losing away Premier League streak. Indeed, Watford’s last Premier League season back in 2019/20 saw them earn the division’s second-fewest points on the road (10), which immensely contributed to their relegation that time. On the bright side, though, the ‘Hornets’ have amassed the second-most victories in England’s top-four tiers so far in 2021 (18), with only Manchester City (20) winning more than them. Another potentially good omen is that the traveling side on the day has gone undefeated in ten of their last 13 H2H encounters (W4, D6, L3).