Following eight days and two games in Portugal, Brentford are back on home soil and take on Watford at Vicarage Road on Saturday.
Thomas Frank’s side lost 3-1 to Primeira Liga side Estrela da Amadora in a behind-closed-doors friendly on Tuesday, while the Hornets were defeated 3-2 by Wycombe Wanderers.
Captain Pontus Jansson headed home a last-gasp winner as the west Londoners won 2-1 on their last visit to Watford in April 2022 in a game that will live long in the memory.
For those unable to attend the match, the club will be streaming the game exclusively on our website. Click here for more information.
Pre-match Analysis
Richard Cole, Playmaker Stats: Brentford face a far more familiar foe after return from Portugal
Watford are a far more familiar foe than Benfica and Estrela da Amadora with the two sides having played each other in the Championship in 2020/21 and then again in the Premier League in 2021/22 after both earned promotion to the top flight.
As ever with the Hornets, things are very different now compared to those teams from just a few years ago.
Tom Cleverley was named as the club's permanent manager after his short stint at the club – a move that almost certainly made many of us feel old seeing the 34-year-old former midfielder now in the dugout.
Cleverley played in those last four games between the two teams with Brentford enjoying a record of three wins and one draw. In all four of those games which Cleverley played over the space of two seasons, Watford had a different manager. This time, he's the manager.
So far, pre-season results under the former England international have been mixed. The Hornets went down to a 6-1 defeat to Fulham in a behind-closed-doors game with the club not releasing its line-up for that fixture, stating only that Giorgi Chakvetadze returned to the team after his part in Georgia's impressive EURO 2024 campaign.
There have also been wins over Boreham Wood and Hibernian with new arrival Rocco Vata impressing. The 19-year-old Republic of Ireland international joined on a free transfer from Celtic this summer with Watford having to pay a compensation fee.
Vata is clearly a signing for the future as is forward Mamadou Doumbia who at the age of just 18 is already a Mali international.
Another new arrival is tall defender Antonio Tikvić. The German-born Croatian youth international joined on loan from Udinese after the 20-year-old featured just once for the team in Serie A last season.
There are some returning faces at Vicarage Road this summer as well. Moussa Sissoko was at the club for the 2021/22 campaign before moving to Nantes but is now back after two seasons away. Jonathan Bond is the other return with the goalkeeper returning after a stint in the MLS with LA Galaxy.
With new faces and few exits so far (Ismaël Koné has moved to Marseille while Jake Livermore left on a free), pressure will be on Watford to earn their spot in the Premier League again this season.
Cleverley as a manager is still a relative unknown after just nine games in charge of the club (a record of two wins, five draws and two defeats).
However, the new Watford boss certainly speaks a good game. The former Manchester United man still has "a lot of unfinished business from my playing career," as he begins his managerial career in earnest.
Scout Report
Dan Long, Sky Sports: Watford aiming to get back on track after lowest second-tier finish since 2009/10
Watford were back to square one at the start of last season.
A turbulent first year back in the Championship had followed a one-season return to the Premier League, with Rob Edwards, Slaven Bilić and Chris Wilder swiftly in and out of the door.
Now it was time to put that to one side and try to get back to the top flight.
In Valérien Ismaël, they had appointed a manager who had impressed during time at Barnsley and West Brom, with further knowledge of English football following time spent at Crystal Palace in 1998. He was ready for a crack at the Premier League, too.
History tells us the Watford job comes with a health warning - he was the 17th man to take the job in a decade. The pressure is on from the start at Vicarage Road and eyes are always watching. But the Frenchman was, arguably, hindered from the start.
Stalwart Tom Cleverley had retired at the end of the previous campaign and, just over one month after his appointment, star striker João Pedro was sold to Brighton for a reported £30 million fee.
Their most influential player, Ismaïla Sarr left for Marseille less than two weeks before the start of the season, too.
There was a brief flirtation with the play-offs around Christmas time, but as soon as it had come, it was gone again.
A run of six defeats in eight between 3 February and 9 March saw the Pozzo family’s patience run a little too thin. With play-off hopes all but over, Ismael - who had been handed a contract extension in October 2023 - was sacked.
Cleverley stepped up from his new role working with the club’s under-18s to take over on an interim basis and guided the team to 11 points from the final nine games to secure a 15th-place finish - their lowest second-tier finish since 2009/10. In April, he was handed the reins as Ismael’s permanent successor.
In the Dugout
Tom Cleverley
Tom Cleverley started out in the youth ranks at Bradford, before joining Manchester United at the age of 11 in 2000.
His professional debut came during a loan at Leicester during the second half of the 2008/09 season, where he helped the Foxes to the League One title.
Over the next two campaigns he progressed up the divisions, first with Watford in the Championship - where he was named the Hornets’ Player of the Year - and then with Wigan in the Premier League.
Cleverley broke into the first team under Sir Alex Ferguson in 2011, who saw him as the prime candidate to fill the midfield void left by Paul Scholes.
He went on to make 79 appearances for United, collecting one Premier League winner’s medal and twice lifting the Community Shield. During that time, he also became a regular for England and won 13 caps under Roy Hodgson.
Seemingly deemed surplus to requirements when Louis van Gaal took charge, a loan move to Aston Villa followed and, though he came close to joining the club on a permanent basis, he opted to join Everton. He departed only 18 months into the five-year deal he signed in the summer of 2015, though, having made just 32 appearances.
So, almost seven years after his loan at Watford, he returned on loan again in January 2017 and then permanently that summer.
He became part of the furniture at Vicarage Road, making 146 appearances over the next seven seasons. He was part of the teams that finished as FA Cup runners-up in 2018/19 and won automatic promotion in 2020/21.
After announcing his retirement due to injury at the age of 33 in July 2023, Cleverley began to work within the Hornets’ academy.
He took over as interim head coach when Valérien Ismaël was dismissed in March, before being handed the job permanently a month later.
The Gameplan
With Andrew French of the Watford Observer
Watford Observer’s Andrew French explains how Tom Cleverley is likely to set up his Hornets side on Saturday:
“I would say it will almost definitely be a 3-4-2-1. The only variation is when, on occasion, they go 3-4-1-2 to be a bit more attacking.
“Cleverley had the chance to look at the squad in those nine games last season and, before that, had been working as U18s coach, so he had that inside knowledge.
“He also only retired the season before, so he knows a hell of a lot of the players at Watford on a personal level. He has said that, with the personnel and knowing the players as he does, 3-4-2-1 is the way to go.
“The wing-backs have a lot of ground to cover as they are quite narrow, so they have got the whole pitch in front of them to go and attack.
“The two no.10s tend to stay close to the no.9, operate in pockets and often go beyond, then the no.9 is really there as the fulcrum for the attack.”
Read our full interview with Andrew French here
Last Meeting
Watford 1 Brentford 2 (16 April 2022)
Pontus Jansson scored a late winner as Brentford beat Watford at Vicarage Road in April 2022.
The captain arrived to head home a Christian Eriksen cross in the dying seconds to give the Bees a 2-1 victory.
Christian Nørgaard scored early on before Watford levelled after a VAR check early in the second half and the game looked destined to end all square.
The hosts missed a golden chance late on, although it may have been offside, and when Brentford got theirs seconds later, Jansson took it.
The Bees return to Gtech Community Stadium to face Wolfsburg under the lights on Friday 9 August in their final pre-season friendly before the 2024/25 Premier League season kicks off. Kids go free with a paying adult thanks to Gtech; tickets can be purchased here.