Swansea City vs Watford Predictions

• Fewer than three goals have been scored in five of Swansea’s last nine home league contests.
• Fewer than three goals have been scored in seven of Watford’s last eight Championship games.
• Watford are without injured attacker Joao Pedro, who has scored seven of their last nine league goals.

Brazilian blow could hinder Hornets

Watford are going to miss their star man Joao Pedro when they travel to Swansea to face a side that should be getting better results than they have been doing under Russell Martin.

The Swans keep on finding ways not to win games that they dominate and are probably best avoided in the match result market for Friday’s Championship clash. Their xG figures in the three matches they have played in December reveal a team with a finishing problem as Martin’s men have created double the quality of their opponents’ chances and taken just one point from nine.

Slaven Bilic’s men, on the other hand, will arrive in Wales on the back of a chastening 2-0 home loss to Millwall on Boxing Day in which they lost two key players.  Left-back Hassane Kamara will be suspended after receiving a straight red card, but more worrying in the long-term for Bilic is the ankle injury sustained by his Brazilian star.

Goals might be scarce at Swansea

The former Fluminense forward has scored seven of the club’s last nine league goals and arguably has been the only attacking player making them tick in the last couple of months. Despite a recent run of three wins and a draw in their last four away assignments, Joao Pedro’s absence suggests the Hornets are not the team to back at around 9/4 here.

Swansea have been scoring sporadically recently, but they tend to get their goals when throwing caution to the wind after going behind, like they did in coming back from 3-0 down to claim a draw at Coventry and at home against Wigan. That said, they toiled without reward at home to an abject Norwich team a fortnight ago.

Backing Under 2.5 goals seems the safe play here because the majority of Swansea’s last nine home contests have seen fewer than three strikes while seven of Watford’s last nine in total have too. A 1-1 scoreline gets the vote for correct score backers because the Hornets average exactly one goal per game across their last six aways, but have shipped seven goals across that sequence.