FESTIVE TREAT Watford vs Chelsea: Why Vicarage Road clash is sure to be a Boxing Day cracker

FESTIVE TREAT Watford vs Chelsea: Why Vicarage Road clash is sure to be a Boxing Day cracker

This is a fixture that has been filled with goals over the past couple of seasons

Christmas has come and gone, and now’s the time for football fans to get excited.

There is a huge fixture list this Boxing Day with 18 Premier League teams in action and matches running from 12:30 pm until almost 10 pm.

We start the day in the early afternoon with Wolves’ trip to Fulham, and the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, and Liverpool are all in action at the traditional 3 pm kick-off time.

Arsenal visits Brighton at 5:30 pm before one final fixture takes place in the evening.

And that late match might just be the best of them all this Boxing Day.

Watford host Chelsea at their Vicarage Road home in a 7:30 pm kick-off, with the Hornets going for their third win in a row and the Blues hoping to recover from last week’s shock defeat to Leicester.

And, if recent history tells us anything, it is that this clash will certainly be one for the neutrals – though it will have Watford and Chelsea's fans biting their nails down to the skin.

The last four matches between Watford and Chelsea have seen 21 goals scored, a remarkable average of 5.25 goals per game!

The Hornets have scored 10 of these goals, with Chelsea edging the total with 11 scored.

Five of these goals were scored the last time these two teams met, which just happened to be, like today’s match, an evening kick-off at Vicarage Road.

Chelsea, managed by Antonio Conte, were reduced to 10 men after half-an-hour due to Tiemoue Bakayoko’s dismissal, and they fell a goal behind when Troy Deeney converted a penalty just before half-time.

The Blues appeared to have rescued a point with Eden Hazard equalizing in the final 10 minutes, but Watford ran riot in the dying stages, scoring three times to rout Chelsea.