Sunderland 2 Watford 0: Highlights after Niall Huggins and Abdoullah Ba goals plus Ryan Andrews red card

Watford have won just two of their opening nine league games so far this season and were beaten 3-2 by Middlesbrough last time out.

To find out more we caught up with Watford writer Andrew French on the latest episode of The Roar Podcast.

You can listen to the full episode here

Here’s what he said when asked about how The Hornets have played under new boss Valerien Ismael:

“It’s been wholesale changes. I think we had over 20 players leave during the summer, either sold, released or went back to their clubs after loans.

“Ismael has come in and we have a very, very thin squad, of his choice, and a completely different style of play to what anybody expected.

“There is no hoof ball, no long, direct balls, it’s very much playing out from the back. You will see our goalkeeper will play 15, 20 yards outside his penalty area and almost act like a sweeper.

“The only change came against Middlesbrough on Saturday when we went from 4-3-3 to 3-5-2 which the manager said himself was pretty much an unmitigated disaster. We were 2-0 down in 20 minutes.”

Here’s what Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray had to say about tonight’s opponents:

“I think they have very, very talented footballers, they look very athletic and very talented.

“I’m not sure why their results haven’t been there at this moment. I’ve watched their games during the week and they are capable of scoring really good goals.

“I know they will be a tough test for us and don’t anticipate them coming and banking everybody behind the ball.

“I think the talent they’ve got in their team suggests they are going to come and utilise that talent.”

We’ll start with the Sunderland team news.

Head coach Tony Mowbray said in yesterday’s press conference The Black Cats have picked up another injury to a ‘key’ player,, while he isn’t expecting any of his currently injured players to return before this month’s international break.

That means Pierre Ekwah (dead leg) and Bradley Dack (hamstring) remain sidelined, with Dennis Cirkin (hamstring) also unavailable.

Aji Alese (thigh) and Eliezer Mayenda (hamstring) are expected to return after the international break but will need some game time for the under-21s before featuring for the first team.

Timothee Pembele, Jay Matete and Corry Evans also remain unavailable.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Sunderland’s Championship match against Watford at the Stadium of Light.

The Black Cats are in good form after winning four of their last five matches, including a 3-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday last time out.

We’ll have all the build-up ahead of tonight’s match, as well as in-game analysis and post-match reaction.

Stick around and refresh the page for live updates throughout the night.