I’ve never before seen a Watford team take the field from the gents’ toilets. Luton were obviously not going to roll out the red carpet for their closest rivals, but still, having us emerge from the pitch-side bogs was a little disrespectful. Given our subsequent performance, a little apt too.

It’s clear to see we’re a good footballing side, but we don’t like a scrap. If there’s a fight to be had, we tend to go into our shell rather than roll our sleeves up. Bournemouth duffed us up, and now Luton harried us senseless, both determined to get the better of us by sheer force.

There are a few key reasons we lost today, and so because I like a list, with all its promise of finding order in chaos, here they are in bullet-point fashion – enjoy:

1. We have not respected the rivalry with Luton. Simply put, we have other teams who have proven to be larger thorns in our sides in recent years, and Luton have fallen down the pecking order. Being dismissed, even somewhat unintentionally by your traditional enemy, must hurt a little.
2. The pitch. Great for a fight, but not for slick passing. Bobbly as hell.
3. Complacency. We were all wary of this game, but none of us really thought we’d lose. We’d not have accepted a draw before the game, and until the 78^th minute, three points were still there for the taking. Tommy Mooney’s commentary – wonderfully biased – portrayed Luton as a team of half-wits who didn’t have a footballing neuron between them. He described one of their centre-halves as not the sharpest knife in the toolbox. Tommy was voicing what we were all thinking – we can’t lose to this uncultured lot can we?
4. Adam Masina. Injured in the warm-up, and replaced by Achraf Lazaar. His would be the defining contribution.
5. Contrasting motivations. Luton had absolutely nothing to play for except to stick one on us. For their entire fanbase, this was perhaps the only opportunity for a generation of fans to have local bragging rights. An empty stadium should have worked in our favour, but it didn’t. The Luton boys played their hearts and guts out for the win, and probably couldn’t give two hoots about winning any of their remaining matches. If they manage to scupper our return to the premiership, job most certainly, most incredibly, done. We wanted the points, of course, but we’re not scrapping for every point. Had the gap to third been one or two points, perhaps we’d have seen a different kind of performance today.

Kenilworth Road is a shabby stadium, a bit like the Vic in its prior skin. Our relative decade of success, contrasted to Luton’s relative demise, is writ large in the architecture. Our place has been improved, filled-in, lovingly enhanced. The condemned bits have gone, the pitch can rival the greens of Augusta. Luton’s place, whilst not quite a bombsite, is how things could have been without the Pozzos.

As if to emphasise this was more battleground than pitch, the smoke from an orange flare drifted past the players lined up to remember the Duke of Edinburgh, whose recent passing has seen an outpouring of admiration for a man of such constancy, unmitigated self-assuredness, and unwavering support to both Queen and country. Today’s kick-offs were brought forward to 12:30pm so that the nation could tune in at 3pm to witness his self-orchestrated, uncompromising, and most touching of funerals. It was fitting, and consoling, that the 3pm kick-off was reserved for the most important event of the day. It put losing three points to Luton in its proper place, filed away swiftly in the best-forgotten segment of one’s long-term memory.

As such, I don’t really want to relive the game – so I’m minded to keep this as brief and upbeat as possible. On a positive note, this game is now behind us, and perhaps we won’t need to play Luton again for another few decades. Both Swansea and Brentford dropped two points with home draws against opposition they would have expected to beat – Wycombe and Millwall respectively. Andre Ayew, Swansea’s talisman, was subbed after nine minutes due to injury, and you can’t help but think his absence will really impact such a low-scoring side.

Norwich were the big beneficiaries from those results, gaining promotion to the Premier League. We play them on Tuesday night and may encounter a slightly less combative Canaries as a result, especially as their later game against Bournemouth saw them expend a lot of energy playing most of it with 10 men, succumbing to a very long-in-the-coming 3-1 home defeat. Hopefully we’ll arrive like the proverbial second bus and make it a double sucker punch. Norwich will want to beat us to claim the title, which may play into our hands as the only team that can de-throne them. Other positives are harder to come by, but at least we didn’t suffer any injuries, and we’ll be able to bounce back quickly if we get a decent (i.e any) result at Carrow Road.

This game was so unlike us. We ended up without a shot on target, and had less possession than our opponents. With Chalobah presumably injured, Sanchez had defensive midfield responsibilities from the off, and the more advanced Hughes the armband. Our procession from the toilets down onto the smoky pitch was just the start of it. After 10 minutes, we had just about weathered an early Luton onslaught. An Adebayo header forced a 2^nd minute corner from which Bradley fired over. Ruddock blazed one across the six-yard line, then Dewsbury-Hall and Naismith both forced corners, Bradley heading over with Sierralta challenging well. Luke Berry swung a dangerous ball into the corridor which the Chilean wisely left to beat the far post.

The next 10 minutes were slightly better in that we weren’t completely under the cosh, but still, Naismith almost scored from a Dewsbury-Hall free-kick conceded by Sema in the 19^th minute, his header inches wide. Dewsbury-Hall again threatened, his shot drilled narrowly wide of Bachmann’s right hand post, and shortly after he was to whip a curling effort just the other side of the Austrian’s left-hand upright.

Lazaar is *a bit* of a loose cannon, but did his defensive duties pretty well for most of the game. Going forward his shooting and passing are erratic, if we’re going to be generous, and we definitely missed Adam Masina’s cool head and cross-field distribution. Lazaar was there to help shepherd a dangerous looking cross into Bachmann’s grasp in the 27^th minute, but a minute later massively overhit a cross to the far post.  Sierralta and Troost-Ekong did very little wrong in this game, but it was our inability to utilise our forward weapons that really hurt us.

In the 29^th minute, Bradley received a yellow for tugging back an anonymous Sarr, but we didn’t really give him, or his fellow defenders, cause to make any desperate tackles after that. The free-kick afforded us was our first toe-hold in this game, after half an hour, but summed things up. Zinckernagel, somehow unmarked and in acres of space, received the ball from Hughes but tamely passed it into the keeper’s hands.

We’d played so much of the game without the ball, we weren’t at the races in possession. Instead, Ruddock, Lua Lua and Dewsbury-Hall continued to threaten our goal, Clark getting crosses in, Bree, Pearson and Bradley winning fifty-fifties, Bachmann needing to be alert. Luton appealed for several penalties amidst chaos in our box, Sanchez just doing enough to clear the danger without infringing.

Towards half-time, Hughes almost profited from some great hold-up play from Pedro, but the bobble of the pitch seemed to beat him and there was to be nothing to cheer about all game for the birthday boy. Zinckernagel was withdrawn at the break, perhaps with bruised ribs following an earlier collision, with Isaac Success his replacement. A goal here, and he might write himself into Watford folk-lore. Instead, he made very little impact on proceedings, and a scrappy second half passed him by.

Ten minutes in, we mustered a couple of quarter-chances, after Sema jostled to the by-line and fed Hughes – his mis-hit effort found Pedro whose shot was blocked. In the 61^st minute Hughes sauntered forwards but the crucial through-ball hit Success’ heels and the promising situation broke down. Immediately Bachmann was down smartly to smother a Lua Lua cross.

In the 62^nd minute Hughes replaced Sanchez in the holding role, as Tom Cleverly entered the fray after a seven-game absence due to injury. The stage was set for Watford’s number 8 to whip up some enthusiasm from the boys in yellow, but not even his introduction could jump-start the bus. After Naismith blasted a free-kick out of the stadium, we earned our first corner in the 69^th minute, which came to nothing. Cleverly did have a shot, well-wide, in the 70^th minute.

Shortly after, Adebayo had several presentable chances; one bounced up high from a free-kick which he spooned over, another he attempted to scissor kick with no great aptitude, the ball spinning onto his arm. But before he limped off, his final contribution would be telling.

Luton continued in lively fashion. Kiko drew a yellow for a shove on Lua Lua in the 72^nd minute, the Spaniard clearly frustrated by the amount of chasing back he was having to do. Bree’s shot from the resultant free-kick was tipped over by a busy Bachmann, Sierralta bravely clearing the subsequent corner. Our clearances were simply meat and drink for the Luton defence, absolutely nothing was sticking. This was just the kind of match a certain Troy Deeney would probably have turned in our favour.

Tommy Mooney could tell the game was getting away from us. As he shifted from be-patient-and-we’ll-win-this, to what-we-mustn’t-do-is-lose, Lazaar played a woefully short back pass which Bachmann rushed to the edge of his area to clear. Adebayo was much quicker to the ball than Dan, who scythed the Luton striker down for a stonewall pen. Our keeper was convinced a red card was coming, grabbed his bottle from the back of the net, and looked bemused to find only a yellow brandished. Back between the sticks he was helpless to stop Collins – subbed on specifically to take the spot kick – rolling it calmly into the bottom right corner. Sierralta managed to get a caution too for roughing up the penalty spot, a vain attempt to hinder the passage of ball into net.

We reacted a smidge to going behind, Sierralta chesting down an 85^th minute corner and swinging a shot into a Luton body. With three of the ninety left, Kiko couldn’t help himself pushing Lua Lua in the back as he sped to the flank, a second yellow, and hence a red card, the unhappy result. Only late sub Andre Gray – ex-Luton striker – came close to levelling things up, his 90^th minute header ruled out for what must have been a tight offside. But a point would have grossly flattered us. And so we trudged back to the men’s loos, a man, and three points, light.

The only thing worse than our performance today was that of the replay director on Hive Live. Every other foul was played back to us in slow-mo whilst the action, whether noteworthy or not, continued, unseen. It didn’t matter if a promising counter, or corner were happening, we were going to focus instead on an irrelevant tangle of legs from multiple angles. The one time we wanted a replay – Gray’s disallowed goal – it didn’t come at all.

Well, we’ve got this one out of our system. We’ll never have to replay this match again, and hopefully it will be an utter irrelevancy come the end of the season if we get promoted. If we’d drawn tonight, with others winning, they’d have clawed back two points on us. As it turned out, they gained only one.

Even if we stutter, and flail, only a modest return from the last four games will be enough. Millwall are Luton-lite, and we’ve got them at our place in our next home game. Norwich won’t be fully focused on Tuesday night. Brentford and Swansea are in poor form, and it may even be that this won’t all go down to the final minutes, on the final day of the season. But then it again, it just jolly well might!