Although Birmingham City return to the more familiar surroundings of their St Andrews ground for this Tuesday night’s clash against Watford, The Blues will head into this midweek Championship game on the back of a 1-0 defeat away at Cardiff City on Saturday.
Saturday’s lunchtime clash in Wales saw Birmingham on the end of another loss in the second tier and the bigger picture shows that the hosts have now managed to win just once in their last nine matches, that coming in the form of a 2-1 home win over Huddersfield Town last time out on home soil.
Back home tomorrow. 👊 pic.twitter.com/ebqOJj5UvS— Birmingham City FC (@BCFC) August 15, 2022
Back home tomorrow. 👊 pic.twitter.com/ebqOJj5UvS
However, new Blues manager, John Eustace inherited four of the five losses within this sequence but he’ll be demanding that his side make St Andrews a fortress this season as the west midlands club seek to avoid any last minute relegation dramas again this term.
League wins at St Andrews have also been hard to come by for Birmingham as they’ve captured just two victories from their last eight games, a sequence that includes four defeats and shipping 2 goals or more in five of these eight games as well.
John Ruddy is expected to start in goal, while Chang, Juninho Bacuna, and Jordan James will make up the midfield three and Troy Deeney will be facing his former club and will partner Scott Hogan up front.
Watford’s unbeaten start to this new Championship season continued on Friday night when they secured a valuable three points by way of a 1-0 home win over their former Premier League counterparts at Vicarage Road.
Two wins out of their opening three games will give new manager, Rob Edwards, and his side a massive boost following last season’s bitter disappointment of being relegated from the Premier League and the visitors will be looking to push on in the west midlands on Tuesday night.
Watford occupy an early 3rd placed position in the Championship standings and although they lost the services of Emmanuel Dennis to newly promoted Nottingham Forest in the summer transfer window, the visitors still possess the likes of Ismail Sarr and Joao Pedro for the time being.
Nigerian forward Samuel Kalu will not be able to return from a hamstring problem until next month, while midfield duo, Tom Dele-Bashiru and Imran Louza, remain out with long-term knee injuries.
New signings, Manaj and Keinan Davis, are expected to compete for starting places up front for the visitors who have won seven of the previous eight meetings against Birmingham City and whom look the most likely for the points here as well.