Preview: Birmingham City vs Watford - prediction, team news, lineups

Birmingham City will be aiming to record a fourth consecutive home win when they welcome Watford to St Andrew's for Monday's Championship encounter.

The home side will enter the contest in 11th place in the Championship table, while the visitors are one point behind in 15th position. 

---

Match preview

Birmingham City are sitting four points adrift of the playoffs after winning seven, drawing four and losing six of their 17 league matches. 

Chris Davies's side have avoided defeat in four of their last five matches, including a four-point return from their two games since the international break.

Birmingham cruised to a 4-1 victory over Norwich at St Andrew's, before they played out a 1-1 draw in their West Midlands derby with West Bromwich Albion.

Marvin Ducksch scored his third goal in two games to cancel out Alex Mowatt's opener, although Blues have now gone three consecutive away matches without a win.

Birmingham will be looking forward to returning to St Andrew's, where they have won their last three games by a combined 12-1 scoreline. 

The hosts are hoping that home advantage will help them in their bid to beat Watford for the first time since claiming a 2-1 home victory in November 2014. 

Watford went through the whole of November without losing a match, recording two victories and three draws since losing to Coventry City on October 25.

After hammering Middlesbrough 3-0, the Hornets went on to draw 1-1 with Ipswich Town and Bristol City, before returning to winning ways with a 3-2 success in their away meeting with Derby County.

However, they were unable to pick up a second consecutive win in last Tuesday's clash with Preston North End at Vicarage Road.

They at least managed to extend their unbeaten home streak to six matches after Mamadou Doumbia cancelled out Daniel Jebbison's opener. 

The Hornets have now scored in seven consecutive matches, although they may be frustrated by the fact that they have recorded just one clean sheet in their 17 Championship contests.

Watford have enjoyed success in their last seven meetings with Birmingham, having recorded six victories and one draw, including a narrow 1-0 success in their most recent away clash in March 2024.

Birmingham City Championship form:

Watford Championship form:

---

Team News

Birmingham remain without Ethan Laird, Lee Buchanan and Scott Wright, while midfielder Willum Thor Willumsson has suffered a setback in his injury recovery.

Tomoki Iwata will serve a one-match ban after picking up his fifth yellow card of the Championship season in Wednesday's draw with West Brom.

Bright-Osayi Samuel looks the most likely candidate to replace Iwata at right-back in what would be his first start since a 1-0 win over Preston North End on October 21.

As for the Hornets, Gracia has confirmed that there are no fresh injury concerns ahead of Monday's trip to St Andrew's. 

However, the Watford boss is still unable to call upon Kwadwo Baah, Rocco Vata, Jack Grieves, Caleb Wiley and Egil Selvik. 

Winger Giorgi Chakvetadze will provide a useful option off the bench after making his long-awaited return from injury as a substitute on Tuesday. 

Birmingham City possible starting lineup:

Beadle; Osayi-Samuel, Neumann, Klarer, Cochrane; Doyle, Paik; Roberts, Stansfield, Gray; Ducksch

Watford possible starting lineup:

Baxter; Ngakia, Keben, Pollock, Bola; Kayembe, Louza, Kyprianou; Doumbia, Maama, Kjerrumgaard

---

 

 

We say: Birmingham City 3-1 Watford

Birmingham have not beaten Watford since 2014, but they have recorded comfortable victories in each of their last three home games, and we think that they will make full use of home advantage to pick up all three points on Monday. 

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.

---

---