Tomorrow’s visitors to Vicarage Road, Burnley, are something of a statistician’s delight this season.
With so few defeats and goals conceded, the Clarets are delivering numbers that grab attention.
They are unbeaten in the league since November 13, a run of 29 games, and have not lost any of their last 14 away Championship matches, winning 10 and drawing four. In that run they have scored 19 and conceded only three.
No opponent has scored more than one goal in a league game against Burnley this season, and they have kept 29 clean sheets in their 42 league fixtures, and conceded only 13 league goals all season.
Burnley have only let in four goals in the second half of games this season, which averages out at one goal conceded per almost each eight hours of second-half football.
The Clarets have scored the first goal in 25 Championship matches this season, and gone on to win 24 of them – a 96% success rate when scoring first.
The only team to take a point from Burnley when going behind was Blackburn, when Andi Weimann’s 23rd-minute goal cancelled out Lyle Foster’s 10th-minute opener on Saturday August 31.
In more than eight months since then, Burnley have scored first in 22 league games and won the lot.
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It all adds up to a season, statistically speaking never mind where they finish, which means Burnley’s efforts may not be matched.
“It is really outstanding, and you have to take your hat off to Scott Parker,” said Tom Cleverley.
“He identified a way of being successful really early, and they have committed to that and executed it with real class and efficiency.
“I think people forget they have a lot of quality in their team, some really good players on the ball and people who are probably at a higher level than this.
“They have picked a way of being a really fit team that is defensively disciplined, and a team that gives the opposition next to nothing.
“That is what they have executed better than anyone else ever has in this league.
“There is more than one way to be successful in the Championship and you can see that when you compare Burnley and Leeds.”
When Liverpool came to Vicarage Road in February 2020 defending an unbeaten league record, the Hornets were written off completely and predicted to be the Reds' next victims.
A 3-0 win later and Watford had created a massive shock.
Does facing a team on a long unbeaten run provide extra incentive?
“Absolutely it does. You always get a bit of extra motivation when you’re pitching yourself against the best,” Cleverley replied.
“You want to prove to yourself that you can be at that level as well.
“We are really motivated by who we are coming up against tomorrow and we obviously want to finish our season off in the best way we can.
“Burnley have always been, since I’ve been at Watford, a club fighting at a similar level.
“These clubs who seem to be developing faster than us, or are going to be playing at a higher level than us, super motivate me.
“I’ve seen us and Burnley at a really similar level for the last seven or eight years, and I don’t want that gap to get any bigger."
As this graphic from the BBC shows, as things stand, every team in the Championship can either go up, go down, or both (even though Swansea, Sheffield Wednesday and QPR are showing 0%, they still can mathematically go up or down - just their percentage chance is less than 0.1%).
Will we ever see a more open division than this season?!
“It’s been brilliant,” Cleverley enthused.
“For the neutral, this season has been absolutely fantastic.
“It’s been a really exciting division where every game matters, and it is really difficult to predict the scoreline in games.
“It is a one-of-a-kind league. I enjoyed playing in it, I’m enjoying coaching in it and it really is a great spectacle.
“I think the most entertaining part is still to come, too.”
