This week Boris unveiled his road-map out of lockdown. It is to be a series of gradual steps, over several months, gently easing the social and economic pressures we face. We should expect a slow-and-steady-wins-the-day effort to squeeze Covid-19 out, letting the vaccines do their job. Watford’s path towards promotion looks like being a similarly prolonged step after agonising step, and who knows, come June 21^st, when we shall hopefully no longer be under any coronavirus-related restrictions, we may be able to look forward to another season in the top flight. But even though, at the moment, we keep on winning, you get the feeling we’re going to be doing things the hard way.

As for tonight, there are only two changes from Friday’s game. Chalobah is rested altogether, with Gosling coming in for his first start after competent outings as a sub in the previous two games. Cathcart returns to the bench as arguably the first choice pairing of Troost-Ekong and Sierralta are re-united at the back. Blackburn have lost their last four league outings so it looks like a good time to be playing them. If results go our way, we could be sitting in an automatic promotion place by tonight. This would rely on our bettering Brentford’s score against Sheffield Wednesday – a pretty far-fetched possibility only two weeks ago – but with the Brentford juggernaut seemingly derailed after three straight losses, not so unthinkable.

But as swiftly as form can nosedive, it can revitalise – it wouldn’t be out of the question tonight for us to have a stinker and Brentford rediscover their free-flowing best, putting us four points away from second. Norwich, farthest east, are already admiring the sun rising over the shores of the promised land, as the rest of us try desperately to stave off the long dark night and keep them in sight. Let’s hope we can keep up with them. Anyway, that’s enough pre-match preamble.

As it turns out, this game was a belter, in every sense of the word. The ball was flying up and around, skidding off a slick surface, or sticking in a swampy patch to beckon a flurry of legs to pile on in. There were five goals, but there could have been fifteen, so perpetually was the ball on the verge of doing its own thing, the pitch of tackling unwary players. Producers of spot-the-ball competitions might want to check this game out, because it seemed to have its own agenda at times, morphing into the iridescent floodlit mist, disappearing altogether at the edge of Sky red button’s sole camera’s focusing capacity. The perfect night for a bright orange ball – whatever happened to those?

A swirling night on a Jekyll and Hyde pitch, it’s no wonder we saw something of the weird and wonderful. In the latter category was one Joao Pedro, who once again shone like a lighthouse in a storm. He’s young, technically gifted, strong and combative. While others were squinting through the elements at their boot laces, he was playing head-up, one-step-ahead football like a chess grand master. Such were the conditions, I rather pessimistically thought we might be staring at a 0-0 after the opening exchanges. How could anyone get a foothold in this game, given the playing surface and veil of drizzle here at Ewood Park? The goalkeepers, Kaminski and Bachmann, hit long clearances directly to each other in close succession, bypassing their entire teams altogether. Without any natives to get restless, the rot looked likely to set in.

Just before minute 20, Pedro kept possession of the ball near the half-way line and, surrounded by Blackburn shirts, scanned every possibility, eyes darting from ball to pitch, as he maintained full control, hunting a way out of the corralled space he was occupying. He subtly moved the ball inside again, slipping his markers to find a forward pass. He always wants to keep the ball alive, and is so adept at doing so, often only a foul can stop him.

Following this pleasing little control-cameo, he soon showed the bravery and appetite that is making him such a success at this level. On 25 minutes, Cleverley’s long ball over the top found him a willing runner, as ever, but where the keeper hesitated, Pedro did not, getting his boot up high to lob the ball skywards. It was a bit of a hopeful punt, but if young, gifted Brazilians do hopeful punts, then why wouldn’t they bounce directly into the net, as indeed this one did. The ball’s trajectory was such that I would challenge anyone to say they could tell where it was going to finish up. It put me in mind of my favourite of all Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Men – Mr Impossible – whose trick to kick a football so high it came down with snow on it might have been a blueprint for Pedro’s lifted effort. Regardless, it was a lovely piece of magic in the murk.

The second Watford goal on 38 minutes was a great sweeping team move, a joy to behold. On a breakaway, Hughes carried the ball through the Watford half for thirty yards before laying it off to Gosling, whose first time pass played a foraging Kiko down the right flank. His, and our, first instinct was to play Sarr into space down the wing, but he was being closely marshalled by two back-tracking defenders. Instead, Kiko took a few extra yards and whipped the ball into the box. Pedro managed to bring the ball under his control 8 yards out, and flick a deft shot through a host of bodies. Blackburn’s Kaminski managed to paw the ball out into the path of a lunging Sarr who guided the ball in from close range with an outstretched right boot. The energy in the team after this swift and deadly counter-attack was visceral – like water rushing towards a plughole, all the players surged inexorably towards the ecstatic Sarr who’d ran directly to the corner flag, where, centrifugally, they combined in celebration.

Blackburn, just like Derby County on Friday, looked utterly shell-shocked, conspiring to pass the ball out of touch in the ensuing minutes. Intent on making redress, they looked suddenly incapable of doing so. Until, that is, four minutes later when Harvey Elliot drilled home an angled drive from the right side of the box to bring one back for the hosts. The goal was utterly avoidable, starting from a short Bachmann clearance which Sarr vainly tried to rescue back deep inside his own half. But Blackburn had been bustling and busy, and wouldn’t allow us to settle, or have any time in possession, so when the ball fell kindly for Elliot, his strike of high quality was fully merited. Our two goal cushion had been deflated in a few minutes, but we saw it out to the half-time whistle to lead 2-1.

Before the second half, the golden boys were out doing drills, staying warm and switched on. We were to need every ounce of concentration we could mine by the evening’s end. After finishing the half on a high, Blackburn had more belief about them and I was expecting a good bit of home pressure in the first knockings. The game continued at a high clip, with chances created at either end and in the first fifteen, anybody could have scored.

On 60 minutes, though, it was us again. When Sema latched on to a first-time Pedro pass he was falling away to his left, but somehow scooped a shot wide enough to the keeper’s left hand with just enough pace to bobble into the net. Gosling, Cleverley and Masina had all been involved in the move, but Pedro’s pass was perfect for Sema who won’t care too much that his goal – which turned out to be the winner – was a bit of a scruffy number. Watford had three goals away from home, Pedro one of these and two assists – a man of the match performance.

I’m eager to say it should have been comfortable from there on in, but nothing about this league is remotely that. A Tony Mowbray inspired Blackburn will continue to create and be resilient, and they plugged away, bright in possession, with a fast and dangerous outlet in Adam Armstrong – a striker with 20 goals this season in a team lying only thirteenth. And in a fixture that had provided 20 goals in the last six meetings, why couldn’t there be a few more in this game?

Blackburn’s second goal came in the 82^nd minute, with two subs combining to hasten in another period of panic and plenty of rear-guard machinations. The sub who scored was Ben Brereton, stabbing the ball inside the back stick after it had been allowed to sail across the goal and touch down unimpeded. The sub who had delivered it was Downing, whose introduction into this game causes me to divert my thoughts, momentarily, elsewhere. And so I will digress.

Stewart Downing belongs to a group of English internationals who I have mentally grouped together in a list which, if I had to give it a title would be: “We’ll never win the World Cup if he’s playing”. This group of individuals, although highly skilled and deserving of a call-up, are those players whose introductions into squads, or worse, onto pitches in vital matches, usually leaves me with a sinking feeling. The irony is, every player who has turned out for the three lions since 1966 technically qualifies for this group as they have not won the World Cup to a man.

Downing, before tonight, I thought had probably retired, or dropped down to the lower leagues where his class would undoubtedly have shone brightly. The fact that he’s turning up tonight, for the opposition, on 55 minutes, is both a surprise, and a cause for concern. Just like the former player returning to haunt his old club – a la Hughes against Derby – or the player who always scores against us even if he’s playing on one leg – cue about a thousand players, but we’ll distil them into Sergio Aguero for brevity’s sake – a player who I have sometimes publicly admonished to friends down the pub as not being good enough to play for England is exactly the guy who is now going to make my stupid mouth pay. I don’t know why I’m down on Downing, but I am, in an England shirt, for no end product I guess.*

So, cue the end product here, where Blackburn have once again burst our two goal cushion with some kind of hoodoo delivery from Downing somehow evading our entire defence. It was just the very kind of thing I had been anticipating ever since his introduction to the play from absolutely nowhere in my consciousness. Who next off the Rovers bench? Perhaps Kevin Phillips? Or Shane Long? – hold on, we’ve got him on Saturday…

We can blame the weather and the pitch, the number of games coming thick and fast, the changing of the back four again, or an unquantifiable revenge curse of an ex-England man, but there are some real moments of stodgy defending that have no reasonable excuse. Troost-Ekong did not have a great game here, exposed by some wayward passing and sluggish footwork. It was just a bit loose from Troost, compared with the impeccable touches from Kiko to his right, and the Thor-like up-and-at-‘em from Sierralta to his left.

Daniel Bachmann did as much as anyone to keep three points in the bag. The most obvious contribution was a telling save from Jarrad Branthwaite in the 89^th minute, patted away from close range off the line in a crowded six-yard box. Before this he’d come haring out of goal to make a clearance approaching the half-way line as Armstrong was winning a foot race against our last man, Hughes, who fully admits he is no speedster. It showed a sensational reading of the game, and a very honed radar for trouble. His passes out to Kiko and Masina were measured to perfection all evening, highlighting just how accurate his range can be. There was no clean sheet tonight, but he did everything right when he had to.

An honourable mention should be made for Dan Gosling, who linked up well in some good phases, and showed himself a consummate operator in his first full start. He was withdrawn on 60 minutes for Zinckernagel to get more of a chance to prove himself as part of that midfield trio. Although he was neat at times, he could not do what Gosling had done before him, and muscle his way into possession, or what Wilmot would do after, winning headers and one-on-ones. What opportunities he had he squandered rather weakly, including another under hit pass on a promising, overloaded counter-attack. When Wilmot and Gray came on with fifteen to play, he pushed forwards into Sema’s position, and looked a livelier bet in a more advanced role where defensive duties are less demanding.

The Dane was not the only guilty party in wasting counter-attacking opportunities, Sarr being the chief spurner, and only because we expect so much better from him. In the 90^th minute he carried the ball from the centre circle on a breakaway with only one defender to beat. What should have been an easy kick and rush job which he would have easily won, or if impeded, brought a certain red card for the defender, became a slow-motion saunter where even some of the half-hearted Blackburn players jogging back arrived to provide congestion. By the time Sarr tried to lay the ball off to Gray, the chance had gone. Frightening to think what a truly clinical and ruthless Sarr would look like on his day, if he was fully determined to put defenders to the sword every time.

Hughes is coming more to the fore, the club recognising what a pivotal man he is for all their ambitions, on and off the pitch. His pre-match interview shows a steady head, on steady shoulders, still only 25 years of age. Until this game, we had not conceded a goal in the 11 hours he had been on the pitch this season. This was much in evidence tonight, epitomised early on by a great flying block in the 13^th minute to stop an Armstrong shot after good work from Corey Evans. It was Hughes on the cover when Troost-Ekong lost out to Armstrong on a promising Blackburn counter shortly before we scored the opener. He won a free-kick in our own box in the 83^rd minute, just after we’d conceded a second time, and was fouled again on 88 minutes, instrumental in slowing the game down. Thank goodness he was given the full 90.

As the Lancashire floodlights fade, we can look back now on four wins in a row for the first time this campaign, two of which were garnered away from home, and 60 points amassed. We may well need another 25 to go up, but we have discovered the knack of winning games at exactly the right time and should rightfully feel confident about the run-in. It is thrilling stuff on the pitch, as well as in our heads, fuelling our dreams.

In summary, an away game that started scrappy and boggy, which promised long and tedious overhit through-balls all night, developed into another highly entertaining affair. It was a game where Pedro proved himself yet again an epic chaser of lost causes, and in that pivotal opening goal, braver and more decisive than the keeper in the moment that mattered. If this was a road-map to the promised land of VAR and thrashings by the blue half of Manchester, then it was Pedro who negotiated its slippery causeways, and whose footing needs to stay firm to guide us on our way. There is a long way to go.

Click here for match highlights.

*Other players in this highly subjective and very personal of groupings include Phil Neville. He is the reason I stopped smoking in the year 2000 after he gave away a penalty against Romania in the Euros, consigning us to defeat in a game we only had to draw to progress. It consigned my summer to ashes, and so it seemed as good a time as ever to quit the nasty nicotine habit – I would be feeling rubbish all summer long now anyway. Phil, unlike his brother Gary, seemed to add nothing to an England side except some needle, and the ability to harass in a sideways capacity. Not good enough for me.

More controversially, and I hesitate to mention him because in some quarters he is royalty, and his trophy cabinet suggests I am so so wrong, but James Milner too underwhelms me in an England shirt. I liked him when he cut a strong dash on the left wing for Newcastle. Over his career he has become a battling midfield general, with strength, stamina and irrepressible energy, but somewhere along the line he’s had a flairbotomy. Every team needs an enforcer, or someone who can play in every position, but Milner’s prowess, very much like Phil Neville’s, is to repress and repel and reduce. If a player has some unpredictability about them, like a Kieron Dyer, or a Steve McManaman, I can forgive them any obvious frailties. If they score goals, like Crouch, or even Heskey, I can love them. But if they are solid and boring… well, we’ll never win the World Cup, will we? My feelings about James Milner are well documented amongst my footy friends who delight in reminding me what a bad judge of footballing character I am where he is concerned. Whenever they get the chance, which has been quite often over the years, they delight in winding me up about him. The thoughtful gift of Milner’s book, Ask a Footballer, remains resolutely unopened on my bookshelf to this day, but does make me smile when I see it. I’m told he’s a lovely man.