Watford v West Brom: Oppose goals between promotion-chasing pair

• Watford are winless in five

• WBA untrustworthy on their travels

• BTTS No holds plenty of appeal

Watford denied at the death

Watford boss Slaven Bilic said he was disappointed, and expected his players to feel the same way after watching victory at runaway leaders Burnley slip from their grasp in stoppage time on Tuesday. The Hornets looked set to take all three points and hand the Clarets their first home defeat of the season, courtesy of Joao Pedro's 31st-minute goal.

But four minutes into added on time, the hosts scrambled an equaliser from a corner to share the spoils, Watford's fourth stalemate in their last five league fixtures.

Bilic said, "It feels like a defeat when you are so close to winning. I have told the guys to be disappointed, I am also disappointed, big time, but that also shows what we can do if we come into every game with the same spirit, with the same organisation, with the same attitude, the same mentality. If we can add a bit of quality to that we can achieve a lot."

Tom Cleverley was due to make his first start since August, although injury in the warm-up scuppered those plans with Ken Sema taking his place. Keinan Davis returned to the starting line-up with Matheus Martins and Henrique Araujo dropping to the bench, where Imran Louza was involved for the second consecutive game after injury.

West Brom drop vital home points

West Brom head coach Carlos Corberan blamed poor game management as the Baggies sacrificed two points through Blackburn's late equaliser on Wednesday night. A soft Ben Brereton Diaz free-kick just minutes ensured the encounter ended 1-1 after Jayson Molumby had earlier put a dominant Albion in the ascendency with a second half header.

Victory would have marked a seventh home league win on the spin without conceding for Corberan's side - a club record - with the leveller a first goal conceded at The Hawthorns in more than 13 hours of action. It meant WBA concluded the night in 10^th, having been set to climb inside the play-off places had maximum points been accumulated.

Corberan said, "It's clear that we lost two points and only won one. We were very close - after we scored the first goal we were closer to the second than they were to their first. Only one action of bad game management would cost us a goal - it was exactly this. It's truly frustrating because I think the game management until the last minute was excellent."

Corberan made a big call to hand 21-year-old goalkeeper Josh Griffiths his Baggies bow for the under-fire David Button, who was dropped after high-profile errors. That was one of four changes in all as midfielder Nathaniel Chalobah also came in for a full debut and attacking duo John Swift and Brandon Thomas-Asante returned to the staring side.

Market makes it a pick 'em

Watford and West Brom have met 17 times in league action this century with the Hornets succeeding just three times and the two teams sharing the points on seven occasions (W3-D7-L7). However, the Hertfordshire hosts have enjoyed the upper hand in recent Vicarage Road encounters, posting W2-D2-L0 in their last four when welcoming the Baggies.

Watford 2.727/4 were expected to be amongst the leading contenders for promotion but the Hornets have been plagued by inconsistency and injury. The visitors have managed only W4-D6-L4 since the start of November, and are winless in five (W0-D4-L1) over the past month. However, the hosts have claimed W5-D2-L1 when welcoming top-10 rivals to Vicarage Road.

West Brom 2.707/4 have undergone an eye-catching revival since Carlos Corberan took charge at the end of October. The Baggies have posted W10-D1-L4 to move into play-off contention with Albion also boasting the second-best Expected Goals (xG) process over the last 12 rounds. However, WBA's aforementioned four losses have all arrived on the road.

Oppose goals at The Vic

The Championship is averaging just 2.44 goals per-game this season with 48% of fixtures seeing Both Teams To Score 1.9420/21 pay-out. But neither Watford nor West Brom have been particularly prolific in that specific market, especially so under their current management.

Since Slaven Bilic arrived at Vicarage Road, Watford have seen only 8/22 (38%) Championship contests produce BTTS profit with the Hornets recording an impressive nine clean sheets yet failing to score themselves on seven occasions. Those dates delivered a low goals per-game average of just 2.32.

Meanwhile, only 4/15 (27%) West Brom league encounters during Carlos Corberan's reign have landed the Both Teams To Score bounty as Albion have silenced eight of their 15 opponents during that same sequence. Overall, the Baggies' second-tier battles under the Spaniard are returning an even tighter 2.06 goals per-game average.

With that in-mind, and considering the high-stakes nature of Monday's match-up, I'm more than happy to oppose both sides scoring by backing the 1.991/1 available on 'No' in the Both Teams To Score column.