WATFORD v TOTTENHAM
Football : England : FA Cup
Friday, January 27th, 2012, 7:45PM GMT

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PREVIEW

The weekends FA Cup action kicks off on Friday with a couple of matches and this one sees League highflyers Tottenham travel just westwards to face Watford. Tottenham would be the automatic pick, but I feel there are far too many changes expected to the team, meaning the price on Tottenham is bad value.

Harry Redknapp is sure to rest a whole bunch of players tonight, with the loss to Manchester City in their last game. Chasing Manchester City is the priority this season, as is a top 4 finish, and with Wigan next up, he will make sure players like Adebayor and quite possibly Defoe get given some rest.

Watford have won the bulk of their games in the Championship at home, 5 of 7...however, they have been pretty poor and so they are only just safe from the relegation zone at the moment, sitting 18th. While they have lost only once in their last 10 home games, they lost their last match at home to Reading 2-1 and overall are on a 3 game losing streak, scoring just 1 combined. Tottenham, even understrength, are the favourites, although the price is poor.

There are a few bets I've been looking at other than the Tottenham win, such as Tottenham to win by exactly 1 goal, which is a much better price. You could go for Tottenham -1 but I feel the price is still pretty bad, while -1.5 does not look likely to me.

I think Tottenham have enough talent to come here and score, and so I'm going to go with that market. Adebayor may well be rested, along with Defoe. The last time these two met it was Pavlyuchenko who scored, along with Bent. The Russian is still at the club, and may well get to start.

BETTING VERDICT

You could take Pavlyuchenko to score at any time, which pays 2.25 at Bet365. I'm going to take him to open the scoring, which pays a huge 6.00

The Pick :

Tottenham to win

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take Roman Pavlyuchenko to score first @ 6.00 (Bet365)