Following Thursday night’s impressive 2-0 win over Napoli in the Europa League you have to think, despite all previous evidence, that we can kick on and get a positive result away to Watford in the Premier League Monday evening.
Watford will themselves still be on a high following their remarkable 3-2 comeback win over Wolves in the FA Cup semi-final which is a shame for us, would have been far better if they were despondent but alas, that is the nature of football emotions.
We know our away form is horrible and for me, it is mainly a mental thing, how else can the loss to Everton be explained, but the tactics and team selection of the manager do leave a lot to be desired on occasions.
Now, against Napoli Emery got the team selection spot on and I understand the concept of team rotation and horses for courses but the balance he got last night was perfect, he had tough tackling from Torreira, sublime passing from Ozil, driving runs from Ramsey, strong defence, attackers tracking back and so on, in better words, he has the team already to play Watford and he really does not need to make any real changes.
Watford are a physical team and so he may well think about dropping Ozil again, I hope not, because for me, that may upset the balance of the team, I understand the logic of not having a luxury player in a likely physical game but you need that sort of player to undo the rough and tumble play, to split open a defence, having hard tacklers that lack that killer pass does us no good either and you can end up with too many strong players in the middle of the park blunting your creativity.
So, I am hoping that Emery sticks with the same team or very close to it that beat Napoli, if he does that then I am positive we will get all three points against Watford.