Despite waiting eight games for their opening Premier League win of the season, Mark Hughes' Stoke City can move within two points of their hosts with victory today.

The Potters' six-game unbeaten streak was brought down to Earth with a bang when a limp performance at the newly-renamed Bet365 Stadium last Saturday saw them beaten 1-0 by former Hornet Nathan Ake's header for Bournemouth.

That said, their 2-0 win at Hull in late October was their first victory on the road since beating an out-of-sorts Hornets side in the final throes of the Quique Sanchez Flores era back in March.

The story of Stoke's season is familiar to the club in recent years; a lack of goals, 13 in their 12 games so far, is a problem they still need to fix despite the season-long addition of Wilfried Bony on loan from Manchester City.

Good news for the Hornets comes with the fact Troy Deeney has scored twice in Watford's two Premier League games, and, if only to end the mystique around when it will come, it could prove a good omen as he searches for a 100th goal for the club.

Watford have also won six of the eight top-flight meetings between the two sides over the years, but were beaten at Vicarage Road last season thanks to goals from Jon Walters and Joselu, with Deeney's late strike a consolation for the hosts.

Another positive for the Hornets is that they have conceded only once in the last seven meetings between the sides; so could fortune favour Walter Mazzarri and his team as they go in search of their joint best-ever start to a top-flight season?