SWANSEA City go to Vicarage Road tonight believing they are taking on the world — and not just Watford — as they bid for promotion to the Premier League.

Depending on results elsewhere, Paulo Sousa's men could close the gap on second place to five points and stretch their advantage over seventh to nine with victory over the Hornets.

But Swansea head for Hertfordshire convinced they will have to win the hard way after getting a raw deal from the officials yet again at Nottingham Forest last weekend.

"We have try to turn all the decisions that have gone against us into a positive," Leon Britton said.

"We have talked about that as players and the manager has talked about it as well.

"It's us against them. We are not going to get any favours from refs and people don't want us to do well, which means we have got to look after ourselves.

"We have got to stick together as a group and use what's happened to help us dig out results."

Sousa has claimed bad refereeing decisions could cost his team promotion in the wake of the Forest controversy, when Darren Pratley was denied a blatant penalty before the home side won the game in injury time despite a clear offside.

Swansea believe they have been hard done by on a string of occasions, and Britton admitted: "We are wondering when a decision might go our way.

"People say they even themselves out over the course of a season, but we're going have to get a load between now and the end if it's going to happen this year.

"I can't remember a season like it. It's not just penalty decisions, teams have been getting away with bad tackles against us but then we commit a foul, it's a yellow straightaway.

"I don't know about conspiracy theories — I think it's because we're not the biggest club in the Championship.

"The bigger teams seem to get decisions, especially at home, but everyone sees us a small club in this division.

"It's probably the same in the Premier League. Apart from Manchester United, nobody got a penalty at Old Trafford for years and I think referees side with the bigger clubs."

Swansea are again heavily depleted by injury and suspension as they visit a Watford side flirting with the relegation places.

Garry Monk, Fede Bessone, Albert Serran, Joe Allen, Andrea Orlandi, Jordi Lopez, Ferrie Bodde and David Cotterill are all in the treatment room, while Gorka Pintado serves the third game of a four-match ban following his red card at Derby.

Suspension

Watford are without their star man, Tom Cleverley, because of suspension as they look to end a three-game winless streak.

They will hope for a repeat of last season's 2-0 home success over Swansea, when Roberto Martinez's team produced one of the worst performances of his reign.

"We were awful from start to finish that night," Britton recalled.

"We were lucky to lose 2-0, and that game sticks in the mind.

"We need to make sure we give a much better account of ourselves this time, because if we get the right result we will be in a very strong position."

gareth.vincent@swwmedia.co.uk