Six weeks is such a long time in football. Back in early February I had resorted to throwing missiles at the telly. I’d reluctantly abandoned any hopes of promotion for this season. I felt glum, dejected and angry at my team. After today’s match, promotion back to the Premier League looks distinctly possible.
It takes a lot to make me throw something at the TV in anger – in fact, I’ve only ever done it once. That was February 6th this year, the projectile in question being a piece of scrunched up paper – not very rock ‘n’ roll I’ll admit. The game in question, Watford’s sorry 0-0 draw with Coventry in Xisco Munoz’s 9th game in charge.
Don Goodman, commentating for Sky, declared it was simply impossible for Watford to win promotion playing that badly. On that day we were lucky to get a point, our players looked like zombies on some drifting wreck, unable to pick each other out, lost for the want of ideas and any kind of hunger.
What irked so much was Xisco’s explicit promise of a new system, and a new intensity, off the back of a home defeat by QPR. Neither were delivered by the Spanish coach, even though, we were later to find out, they’d been practicing a different set-up all week only to revert to type on the day. It felt amateurish, and the players looked confused. Hughes stuck out on the left wing smacked of blatant incompetence from many a locked-down living room.*
Six weeks later, we are playing like a Premier League team in waiting. Xisco has now won 9 out of 10 games, and five in a row.
After the Coventry game, I think it’s fair to say we had all lost faith in the Xisco experiment. Had our previous head coach Ivic not been despatched so recently, the trapdoor would have been pulled on this genial but inexperienced fella, no doubt. But even the Pozzos could see that, reputationally, firing Xisco would be more damaging than missing out on promotion. If all you can do is keep on sacking head coaches, there will be an inevitable downward spiral. So Xisco remained in place. He had to.
Thank heavens Xisco stayed. Praise be that Hughes reverted to the centre of a midfield three. Halleluljah! The combination of Xisco’s positivity and attacking philosophy, our very talented players playing in the right places, our whole squad invested and employed in winning matches, some wise additions to personnel for midfield cover, and a lack of injuries to key players (in the main) – plus a decent slice of luck in games – has given us momentum, and now daylight in second place.
The game today against a Birmingham side fresh from beating Reading, and enjoying a new manager bounce – fighting for survival at the bottom of the league – should have been a contest. But it wasn’t. We turned up, dominated, and saw off their one-dimensional game with a swagger and belief that has me thinking, well, who can’t we beat? I was a little wary before kick-off, wondering what might happen if Birmingham were to press and get an early goal, as they had done against Reading. But not much.
The most compelling thing about the Blues this afternoon was their manager’s haircut. Lee Bowyer was a rascal of a midfielder in his playing career, a tough and reckless tackler, busy all over the pitch like a hyena, putting out fires. Today, with his bizarre silver comb-over, he puts me in mind of a sloth. The hairstyle is suitable, perhaps, for a septuagenarian, but not a whipper-snapper like Bowyer, who at 44 is younger than me.**
Back to the match then. Nathaniel Chalobah is captain again, and the best player on the pitch, again. He’s fired up with the armband on. On the 23rd minute, with the score at 1-0 thanks to our 3rd minute opener, he heads a dangerous long throw out off Pedro’s flick. Then he throws himself like a man possessed to block Bela’s effort from inside the box. He scores our second goal from a neatly executed corner routine. In the 86th minute he can be seen sprinting out from our defensive wall to choke a Birmingham shot at source, even with the score line at 3-0. Chalobah is an exceptional talent firing on all cylinders. Keep playing like this and it won’t be long before Gareth is on the blower again.
Our intensity at the beginning of halves is becoming a habit. Today, with both Ismaila Sarr and Phillip Zinckernagel out injured, we open our account in the third minute regardless. Pedro is given the freedom of Vicarage Road to run towards the penalty area and hit a decent effort to the bottom right of the goal. Their keeper, Etheridge, dives full stretch to save, but it’s an easy task for Sema to run in and tap the ball home. We’re so used to playing on the front foot and creating chances, it’s second nature to gamble, and Sema was alive to the opportunity.
Birmingham pose similar questions to Cardiff and Rotherham. Once again long throws are hurled into our box, and it is encouraging to see how well we deal with them. The team has been simulating this kind of aerial bombardment in training and it shows. We look comfortable, even if Hogan could have tested Bachmann inside ten minutes had his attempted header not come off his shoulder. We’re strong, organised and brave – Hughes takes an elbow in the face from Gary Gardner as he heads clear from another homing missile.
There are chances to finish the game in the first half. Masina kisses the outside of the post with a close-range shot off a Sema corner – before kissing the offending upright, as if to forgive it, or perhaps charm it for next time. Gosling has a header saved from Pedro’s cross in the 30th minute, before penalty appeals as the stumbling Bela handles from a Sema corner. Shortly after, Pedro nutmegs Pederesen on the edge of the box and is hauled down, the defender cautioned. Masina could not repeat his Cardiff free-kick feat, although it was certainly in his mind as he shot, weakly this time, at goal.
Then it’s hard to see how Isaac Success doesn’t score in the 36th minute from a Sema cross, unable to get the ball out of his feet allowing Dean to tackle. In the second half, an even more agonising episode – Success is through one-on-one with Etheridge, but a heavy touch plays the ball too close to the onrushing keeper.
Success, making a rare start, looks (and sounds) like he should be better than he is. A bit like Frank Bruno, who always looked, with his outstandingly ripped physique, like he should be unstoppable, but wasn’t, Success looks like he should be able to bully and command, but doesn’t. If anything, his physical appearance is counter to his actual presence on the pitch. He gets brushed off easily, goes down at the suggestion of contact, as if he were physically, and mentally, under-prepared.
He cuts a frustrated figure. At one point he is fouled, but advantage is played, then lost. Success seeks his own retribution, chasing and bringing down Harper as if to make a point. But it is only the Nigerian who sees yellow. Perhaps he just needs minutes to get him used to the hurly-burly of the Championship, but he’s been at the club a long time now. You feel there’s a decent player in there though.
It would be doing Birmingham a disservice not to mention some promising moments for them. Their busy number 35, Halilovic, was a menace whipping balls into our box. Chalobah’s outstanding block from Bela was matched by Masina’s last-second tackle on Colin, who had waltzed into our box but wanted to get it on his right foot for a shot. That allowed Adam just enough time to hook his left heel around the ball. Jutkiewicz was the presence Success wasn’t, and needed our centre-backs to be switched on. Troost-Ekong slid in to cut out his cross midway through the first half, and Bachmann held the target man’s header on the line in the opening stages of the second.
Dean was presented with a half-chance after Pedro got caught doing tricks on the edge of his own box, and Roberts had a presentable headed chance. But for every ball lofted or ballooned into our box, we contested robustly, so that even if the Birmingham man got there first, he would not have a free header. In that regard, Sierralta was the lynch-pin; but every man defended with due diligence.
We needed the second goal, and it came from Gosling’s corner. Chalobah peeled away to the back post and like a bird swooping into position, attacked the ball with a powerful downward header into the heart of the goal. It had been coming, following nearly moments from Gosling and Sema on swift counter-attacks created by Pedro through-balls.
Come the 60th minute, Success was finally put out of his misery, replaced by Hungbo, Gosling making way for Sanchez. Birmingham made three changes which gave them a lift, and Jutkiewicz another headed chance in the 62nd minute. However it was Pedro who spurned the next only-the-keeper-to-beat chance, dithering enough for Dean to make a recovering tackle. Blues substitute Leko hit a shot from outside the box, showing some spirit, whilst Bachmann almost got caught with a dummy and drag-back in his own six-yard box. I’m pleased he’s showing this level of confidence, but enough already!
Masina goes off, with a back niggle, allowing Lazaar some time to shrug off the left-back understudy robes. His audition, though, does not go well. He is desperate to prove himself, but instead performs a litany of overhit crosses, badly-judged tackles and glory-hunting shots from distance. You can just hear his team-mates tutting. You’re Horatio, mate, not bloody Hamlet.
Before the game-settling third, Troost-Ekong lets a lofted ball bounce, which allows Jutkiewicz a snapshot, and Harley Dean has a header in the 79th minute. A minute later two fresh subs combine to nail Birmingham’s coffin shut. Ngakia, on for Sema, feeds Gray, on for Pedro, who runs from the halfway line and slots neatly under Etheridge. Only on for a matter of seconds, Gray is at his instinctive best and, perhaps spurred on by how poorly Success had taken his big chance, composed when it matters.
Keen for another, he is later visibly unhappy with Hungbo who elects to shoot from an angle instead of squaring it – but it’s hard to deny the youngster his chance to open an account in yellow. After Gray’s dagger through the heart, the Blues go through the motions, sub San Jose rattling a drive straight at Bachmann a minute before the 90 their only twitch before rigor mortis sets in.
And now we head into the International Break – the nemesis of teams in form, an oasis for struggling outfits. When we come back on April 2nd, we can only hope a very winnable home fixture against Sheffield Wednesday plays out as expected. After that game, the fixtures get progressively more difficult, so we’ll need to set a marker down and continue as we left off.
The league table is a thing of beauty for us hornets, so it’s perhaps not so bad that we can sit and relish it during this mini-break. We’re six points – yes, six massive points – ahead of Swansea, who were beaten at home by fierce rivals Cardiff. Our goal difference gives us, effectively, an extra point on them. So even if they win their game in hand, and beat us, we’d still be above them in the table.
Brentford slipped up against Nottingham Forest, dropping two more points, making them seven – yes, seven massive points – off our pace. Like Swansea, they have a game in hand and a game against us.
Even Norwich drew yesterday, going for a tenth win on the trot. We’re only eight – yes, eight massive points, I know – off the top spot, but we do play them, and our goal difference is equal.
Six weeks is a long, long time in football. It will take us to the final day of the Championship. I know it’s going to be a bumpy ride. But I believe in this team because – it’s palpable – they believe in themselves, and mental resilience, as much as footballing ability, is what’s required for promotion from this league.
But more important than that, please Will, don’t twist your ankle on the stairs…
*That rising feeling of having royally messed it all up is not new. When we were 2-0 down to Huddersfield earlier in the season after a Foster mistake and Capoue own goal, I switched off the radio. There was no way an Ivic team could possibly score two goals away from home, so this match, against very ordinary opposition, was already beyond us only 30 minutes in. I was not surprised to find out shortly after that the head coach had been sacked. The same can be said for Quique’s doomed second spell last year. In his final game against Southampton, which we lost 2-1, it was actually his final substitution on 82 minutes of Foulquier for Femenia that had me groaning into my hands. Did he actually want to lose the game? I felt bereft, and so too, evidently, did Gino – he’d had to pull the plug on his second coach that season.
** He’s not the only manager who resembles an animal. Scott Parker is a terrapin – a very well-dressed terrapin I’ll admit – and I’ll resist any puns about being a snappy dresser where the Fulham boss is concerned.
The Lone Hornet 