Watford vs Brighton: Preview and predicted line-ups

TEAM NEWS

Watford: Chalobah, Deulofeu, Okaka, Cleverley, Kaboul and Wilmot are all sidelined with injuries, though summer addition Ken Sema is expected to make his debut for the 'Hornets'. 

Brighton: Chris Hughton will be without the injured Izquierdo, Steele, Deulofeu and Andone. Highly-rated Iranian forward Alireza Jahanbakhsh, who joined the club in July for £17m, is in line to make his debut for the 'Seagulls' alongside new left-back Bernardo. 

Deeney: “We’ve had a great pre-season in terms of the hard work we’ve done. We haven’t lost a game, so the confidence is really high. Everyone’s buzzing. I think we’ve got to be aiming for top-10 - that will be our mini-league, to try and be the best of the rest essentially. We don’t have the budget of the other teams, but we certainly have a great playing squad. We need to be lucky, in terms of injuries and stuff like that, but Burnley proved it last year - it’s not necessarily about having a massive budget, it’s having a togetherness and a willingness to do whatever you need to do to win games."

Hughton: "Would I take 17th? Probably the bigger part of me says yes because my responsibility is to make sure this club is in the Premier League the following season. But we have to think about Watford on Saturday and trying to get a result there. We will go into every game looking to get something. It's important, we know more than most what a bad start can bring. We all want a good start. If we get off to a good start, there will be teams getting off to a bad start. We just need to make sure we are fully prepared for the first game and make a good game of it. We feel we're ready."

DID YOU KNOW? 

This will be only the fifth top-flight meeting between Watford and Brighton, who have recorded one win apiece.

No club conceded more home goals than Watford's 31 in 2017-18.

Brighton have won just one of their last six opening league games and have failed to score in four of those matches.

SCORE PREDICTION: 0-0

WATFORD PREDICTED XI: Foster, Janmaat, Cathcart, Kabasele, Holebas, Hughes, Capoue, Sema, Pereyra, Deeney, Gray

BRIGHTON PREDICTED XI: Ryan, Bruno, Dunk, Duffy, Bernardo, Stephens, Propper, Knockaert, Gross, Murray.