lonehornet

Rotherham 1 Watford 4

I’ve been to a few high-scoring away games supporting Watford. One that lives long in the memory is a sparkling Friday night 5-0 defeat of Fulham in 2014, our last promotion season, a game which culminated in Almen Abdi’s goal of the season, a sumptuous curler from outside the box. Happy days indeed, especially as one could just turn up at the away turnstile and pay for a ticket with cash.*

Just as satisfying was our 6-1 thumping of Millwall at the New Den in 2010. My then neighbour, Chris, was a big Millwall fan, a football cameraman with a larger-than-life personality. I remember him (half) joking, “I went down the Den for a fight, and a bleedin’ match broke out!” The atmosphere is always a bit tasty in that patch of the capital, but on this day, most of the home supporters had long left the ground by the time we were bouncing around at the final whistle. If my memory serves me right, even Mariappa got on the score sheet that day, aswell as Danny Graham and Marvin Sordell.

I think it would have been a memorable away trip last night, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the longer the trip, the more rewarding it is as more time and effort has been invested in the experience – and Rotherham is a bit of a schlepp from Hertfordshire. Secondly, like the Fulham and Millwall games I’ve referenced, the scoreline was never in doubt, at any stage, and goals were scored nice and early to settle nerves and fix grins. Thirdly, there would have been some great news coming through via social media regarding scores in other matches, notably those involving our promotion rivals, which would have been joyously received. Ahh… let’s hope fans are fully back in the grounds next season.

If ever there was a good time to visit the New York Stadium, it was last night. The home team were without their isolating manager, Frank Warne, and their first team coach, and hadn’t played in 13 days. In fact, their training ground had been closed due to a covid outbreak in the Millers’ ranks until the day before the match. The only good thing, from a Rotherham perspective, was their players were rested, but that doesn’t bring match sharpness or momentum, and it showed.

Interestingly, Frank Warne had been on the pitch the last time Rotherham beat Watford, 18 years ago at Vicarage Road. Last night, he was reduced to watching the game from home on his laptop, sending messages down to pitch-side. I don’t think it would have mattered what he said, the game was effectively beyond their reach by the 39^th minute.

You might think such a one-sided affair would not offer up entertainment, but there was plenty to be had. Rotherham came fresh out of the traps and forced a corner in 17 seconds, before Wood hit a snapshot over, and Freddie Ladapo showed some great trickery on the right to deliver a decent cross. The home side, clearly not fatigued, were giving this a right go.

But for all the spring in their step, their organisational senses were dampened, perhaps from lack of training, and it didn’t take long for us to exploit this weakness. Nine minutes in and first blood to the hornets, Zinckernagel playing a teasing cross in for Sierralta to exonerate himself from Saturday’s own-goal with a fine header over Blackman and into the net.

Rotherham continued gamely, testing us with free-kicks into our area, one of which Smith headed inches wide after 15 minutes. Their wing-back Wiles looked like he could cause us problems down the left, but he simply wasn’t able to better Kiko. Ledepo, as he would prove later, seemed capable of both magic and mischief.

However, their admirable forward intentions left us in a strong position, able to pounce on the break. Just before our second, Pedro had won possession in his own third and found Kiko marauding down the right wing, his cross headed behind. From the corner, Zinckernagel pounced to retain the ball, and looped a cross into the edge of the 6-yard box. Chalobah got the faintest of touches to test the keeper, whose save fell straight to Sarr. His controlled side-foot finish into the roof of the net was high class. With so many black shirts in and around the goal I was half-expecting to see a flag, but it wasn’t forthcoming. 26 minutes in, two attacks, two goals. Clinically does it.

We dominate. After a fine midfield surge from Hughes, Sema’s cross is chested out for another corner, which drops unexpectedly at Sierralta’s feet and he can’t adjust. Pedro is in the thick of it, forcing corners, and setting up Sarr for a gilt-edged chance which would have been flagged offside had he scored. Sema ferrets to stop the ball rolling out of play, setting up Pedro for a shot which falls to Chalobah, whose effort is tipped behind. We are so in control that Bachmann is patrolling 10 yards from the half-way line.

So it’s no surprise that from the next Kiko-won corner we make it three. Zinckernagel swings it in low and it comes through to Sema on the edge of the D. He controls with his left leg, the ball taking a short rise and fall before being volleyed mightily into the bottom right corner. It’s a screamer, of the technical variety. The team celebrate together with gusto, knowing that the job, already, is done. Everyone is pleased for Ken, you can just tell, and the away end would be in full voice by now.

Given this unassailable advantage, the team can now play with no pressure, and perhaps rack up some more goals to help reduce Brentford’s superior goal-difference. At this stage in the game, the news from Derby is that Brenftord are 2-0 to the good, so extra goals would be welcome.

It could have been four before half-time, an onside Pedro inches away from meeting a through-ball. It could also have been one for the hosts, as Olosunde let fly directly at Bachmann, before the keeper had to come through a crowd and punch away a corner. There were strident penalty appeals for a Masina handball, which looked all day like a dipped shoulder through my yellow-tinted specs. Ihiekwe sent in a dangerous cross which Smith couldn’t convert.

The second half does not deliver so much on the pitch, as off it, although it will serve up a penalty save, and the goal of the match. Chalobah and Zinckernagel had both taken first-half knocks, and Sarr was to find himself on his haunches, clearly struggling, within 10 minutes of the re-start. The Senegalese paceman had started the half in frightening mood, robbing back possession on his own 18-yard line and searing forward to play Pedro through. Pedro delayed his shot by milli-seconds, but it was enough for a covering tackle to be made. Sarr squeezed into the box minutes later, hot butter oozing, defenders unable to tackle him.

Xisco has earned the right to deploy a damage limitation strategy, even though it harms our effectiveness. Sarr and Kiko are withdrawn on 53 minutes, for Ngakia and Gray, Pedro moving to the flank to accommodate him. The game deflates. There is a much slower tempo to proceedings now. It is at this point I realise the Sky clock has frozen at 49 minutes, 35 seconds. It doesn’t revive again until the 72^nd minute when whoever has fallen asleep on their watch, revives to reset the time. Whilst dribbling spittle onto their chin, they would miss a few entertaining minutes.

The tamest penalty I’ve ever seen was given against Troost-Ekong for a tap on Smith’s foot, on the say of the assistant ref placed nearest. It was around the 60^th minute I’m guessing, although with no clock I can’t be sure. A goal here would be irksome, coming in such a totally unmerited way. But the chances of a Rotherham goal de-railing our evening were slight, so I watched more with interest than trepidation. Bachmann has some previous when it comes to saving penalties, so when he dived to his right to push Smith’s effort wide it felt smugly foreseeable. Of course he was going to do that. From the resultant corner, Chalobah clears one off the line and then wins a foul. Rotherham frustrated again.

We are much less potent now, but happy living a deserved charmed life. Masina plays a ball into Gray’s feet, who squares to Sierralta. He can’t bundle the ball home, Blackman down bravely to snuff out the chance. With Chalobah and Zinckernagel next to be withdrawn, for Gosling and Sanchez respectively, Xisco is already thinking about Birmingham at the weekend.

On 68 minutes out of absolutely nowhere, like the penalty, Freddie Ladapo lets rip a sublime pearler from about 25 yards into the top right corner, Bachmann statuesque. Our lead is surprisingly diminished, but so too, we now hear, is Brentford’s at Pride Park, Derby getting one back. So it’s as you were, in terms of goal difference.

I’m still marvelling at Ladapo’s strike when suddenly Gray is in, Blackmann parrying smartly, and Gosling applying the finishing touch – his first since coming on – to make it four. Rotherham’s revival choked before it could even draw breath. We’d be jumping and singing now. This is the best trip, I’ve ever been on – ooh oh ooh oh.

Now, might we push on a bit? We do, but we’ve lost our clinical edge. Pedro races down the left to cross for an onrushing Gray, but it’s put behind for another corner. We miss a header and Gray’s shot from distance is blocked. But the away end would be roaring right now because Bournemouth are 2-0 up on Swansea in the late kick-off. What’s happening at the Vitality is arguably more important to us now than the remainder of this game.

From a Rotherham corner, Crooks charges into a header which somehow goes wide, resulting in bodies falling and Bachmann taking a hefty knock, but after a few minutes he’s OK to resume. Foster is on the bench, but he won’t be getting the gloves back off Bachmann unless he’s injured.

The last change, on 80 minutes, sees Hughes off for Success, now that the game is done. We are just ticking along now, although still making opportunities. It doesn’t really matter that Gray doesn’t appear to be on the same page as Pedro, or that he spurns a great lay-off from Success, thumping it angrily over with 5 to play. The Chelsea manager, Thomas Tuchel, was asked this week what would help his strikers to score – he said they should close their eyes. I think Gray might benefit from this kind of psychology – if he was more relaxed in front of goal, he might just be more instinctive.

But we’d not be dwelling on this because word has come through that Derby have equalised and Brentford are on the verge of dropping two precious points. Since I was Young, I followed them, Watford FC, The team for me… Woaaaaahhhhh. Only Gray would be agonising about his late weak header from another Masina cross, as Elton John’s Taylor-Made Army throw arms aloft and send rapturous noises into the South Yorkshire air.

We weren’t there, but boy, if we had been, it would have been a blast. A precious away trip for the memory bank. Confirmation of Swansea’s 3-0 capitulation on the south coast would have sweetened the journey home. We do at least still get the pleasure of waking up the next day, looking at the league table, and grinning a stupid grin until our faces ache.

*I lived in south-east London for the best part of 15 years, so was a regular at away matches in the capital, when we were a Championship side. The bad part of getting promotion to the Premiership was, suddenly, I couldn’t get an away ticket anymore. You can’t just wave turnstile stubs about and get nudged up a band. Unless you’ve bought a ticket through the system, it doesn’t, of course, count on your attendance record.

Cardiff 1 Watford 2

On a personal note, not a lot has gone right this past week, so thank goodness for Adam Masina. If anyone could Troy Deeney a free-kick, that’s what our likeable left-back did deep into injury time to secure all three points. Blast it hard down the middle and hope the keeper flinches. That stands a good chance of working from the penalty spot, but not usually from outside it. God bless Dillon Phillips, the Cardiff keeper, then, for swatting a desperate, and late, windmill arm at the ball as it thundered into the goal. It was like shooting practice against Casper the friendly ghost – remember him? He was no match this time around for Watford’s very own BFL (Big Friendly Left-back).

It’s not only been a bad week for me, the Windsors have certainly had a stinker. Harry and Meghan’s interview, a touch one-sided, has caused a great deal of press interest, exactly what the estranged chicken-ranchers were keen to avoid, allegedly. One journalist described Meghan’s race revelations as “a gob-smacking toast-dropper”. For me, that describes Masina’s free-kick perfectly.

Until that very unexpected and brilliant conclusion, I’d been consoling myself with a point well-earned. A point that may prove vital by the end of the season. Against a team unbeaten in eleven, their new coach Mick McCarthy yet to taste defeat as Cardiff boss. They played like a team in form, potentially dangerous from any set-piece, donning an air of entitlement, even while we were dominating play. I cannot overstate how morale-boosting this kind of win is during a promotion run-in, when your rivals keep winning. Swansea and Brentford would have been banking on us dropping points here.

I’m writing this report in-between fetching bowls of Multi-Grain shapes, roasting Butternut Squash for Jamie Oliver’s simple baked lasagne (simple, hah!), and calming fraught children over bickering hamsters. Apologies, then, if this report goes a little off-piste, or is curtailed unexpectedly just as it starts to show promise.

I watched the game on Hive Live, lucky shirt affixed. I’m struck by how eloquent and dashing a figure ex-Watford striker Tommy Smith cuts. He reminds me of Jonny Wilkinson in his mannerisms, the meditative tone of voice, and general philosophical vibe. I’d like to think when Masina’s goal went in he was uttering a primal scream on the Hive Live desk, but I’m guessing he was a little more restrained.

The other Tommy, Mr Mooney, is like a kindly, but competitive uncle. I shook his hand once at the inaugural Graham Taylor day several years ago now – it was the absolute highlight of that very wet afternoon. I bet he was fist pumping in the gantry with a winner’s hard stare as Masina wheeled away and ran to the bench to spark joyous and unabashed celebrations involving the whole squad. A picture of togetherness and unity, not unlike the scenes against Bournemouth (which has cost both clubs £10k a-piece for not controlling their players), but much, much less spiky.

Cardiff’s sprinklers had been out making the surface nice and slick – making controlling the ball on the deck, and explosive changes of direction decidedly difficult. It was clear from the off the Cardiff way would be long, high balls into our box, a barrage of unsophisticated but relentless battering. Kieffer Moore spear-headed this bolshy juggernaut with the requisite amount of bullishness and bad attitude. But Cardiff are not a dirty team, like Bournemouth, they’re just unapologetically physical.

When the ball was in the air, Cardiff were happiest, always most likely to win a header, or cause us problems chasing onto a runaway through-ball. They were noticeably less happy when the ball was on the turf, and we were passing it around for fun, despite the squally conditions. Not only were we sharp and technically proficient in possession, we also demonstrated superb skill, epitomised for me by two moments.

Firstly, Chalobah’s goal coming two minutes after we had conceded, was a delight, and a contender for goal of the season. Sema and Zinckernagel had been tinkering around in the box, with shots and paths blocked. A lucky deflection rolled the ball to Chalobah who, with some Cruyff-like footwork, sold two defenders in close proximity, jinxed to the right and lashed a finish into the bottom left corner. It is insane that Chalobah scores so few goals when he has such prodigious talent.

Wearing the captain’s armband for the day, he did exactly what a captain should do. He cajoled the troops when we conceded such a disappointing early opener – stay calm, keep cool – his message to the team was not to lose your heads. We hadn’t won an away game after conceding first, and Cardiff was not the kind of opposition that would – you’d have thought – shower gifts. Then captain Nate showed composure and world-class feet to bring parity – showing his charges the level to aspire to. He battled all day long, and when late on in the first half, defending in his own box, his ankle took the full body weight of a toppling Harry Wilson, it looked like a bad one. But Chalo stubbornly walked it off and returned to the fray.

The second moment was a sumptuous chest and bicycle kick from Pedro, after Sema’s knock-down. It was balletic in execution, and dynamite in result, the ball fizzing the palms of the keeper – anywhere else and that would have been top of the young lad’s growing show-reel.

We didn’t do a lot wrong in this game. Sierralta was one of our standout performers today, keeping the aggressive Moore in check. He was culpable for the own-goal in the 15^th minute but you have to feel a lot of sympathy for him. Either he made contact with Josh Murphy’s cross, or Moore had a tap-in behind. So he tapped it in himself to deny Cardiff’s number 10, all 8 goals in 11 games of him, the pleasure. The Chilean’s head did not drop; his reaction was not crestfallen, but a study in controlled anger with himself. It felt like strong hearts and heads would be needed, with a mountain to climb, and then the captain did his thing moments later.

Sarr was a bit more his mercurial alter-ego on the day. Not a lot went right for him, either, but his persistence did pay in the end when he was tripped for the Masina free-kick. Minutes earlier a decent looking penalty shout had been ignored by the ref. In the 34^th minute his snapshot across the goal was deflected and tipped away by the keeper. He headed straight at Phillips from a Sema cross – on the right flank – in the 55^th minute. In the 66^th minute he sliced wide from the right-hand side of the box, after excellent work from Kiko to rescue an overhit pass, and a knock-down from Chalobah.

Sarr was certainly targeted by the Cardiff defence, and whilst not exactly roughed-up, it was obvious he fancied the blood and thunder less than they did. Once again, he symbolically threw his gloves off shortly after our equaliser, but this time his knock-out blow came indirectly – from that direct free-kick. Which, incidentally, is the first goal we’ve scored direct from a free-kick since 2016, courtesy of the wonderful Almen Abdi. I knew we were bad at them, but I didn’t realise it had been such a long, fruitless time.

So Cardiff threw their form, and their muscles, at us. Vaulks torpedoed long throws into our six-yard box – Bachmann actually caught one of them! The sentinel central defender Flint managed his own scissor-kick from a dropping ball in our box, which bazooka’d away to the next county, much like a Vaulks throw. Josh Murphy smashed one into the side-netting just before half-time after bettering Hughes. Plenty of scud missiles and cluster bombs spread uncertainty throughout our rear-guard, but there was never panic, and Bachmann remained untroubled, called into action to block a fierce Vaulks drive near the end of the game, but little else.

There was a semi-calamitous moment, when Bachmann and the rather erratic Troost-Ekong failed to communicate outside the area as Moore chased onto a through-ball. Bachmann took a touch too many, and had to bring his man down, stranded as he was out of goal. Harry Wilson’s effort was poor, fortunately – we all know what he can do from a free-kick on his day.

Coming from an early set-back to be in the ascendancy, and eventually conquer, is good muscle memory for a team to have. Zinckernagel is looking to be one hell of a player, and the incisiveness he showed in midfield with the virtually faultless Hughes and Chalobah indicates a rosy future ahead in the middle of the park. Mooney was perhaps over-egging the pudding when he stated it was like “the first team playing the reserves” – but we bossed this game where it mattered, in footballing terms.

Results elsewhere this week have crystallised the look of the table. Norwich are home and dry. Brentford, who beat Blackburn midweek, are neck and neck. Swansea with a draw at Ewood Park, followed up by a win against Luton in the lunchtime kick-off, remain stubbornly victorious. They leap-frogged us into second, before Masina’s blast propelled us from fourth back up to second. It’s going to be tight. The final two games of the season are against Brentford and Swansea, and one can only hope we may have done enough by then to not need wins. But as things stand, if we win those games, the Premier League would surely be the reward.

In-form Barnsley beat Bournemouth at the Vitality to put them firmly into sixth – five points clear of the Cherries who consolidate seventh (stifles a chuckle). We sit on 69 points, and whatever happens now, we are almost guaranteed a play-off spot. And I don’t think anyone would fancy playing us right now. So, bring on Rotherham on Tuesday night.

It’s Mother’s Day, and writing a match report is not – should not be – permitted, so I’m winding this up now. It’s a full year since lockdown, and nobody expected we would still be eeking out this strange half-life. But eek it out we must, even during the most challenging of weeks. Unexpected bombshells come in all shapes and sizes. Meghan-shaped. Masina-shaped. But you’ve got to be in it, to win it, as they say – so just keep on keeping on, and soon enough a toast-dropping gob-smacker will have you leaping out of your kitchen chair in ecstasy.

Watch the highlights here.

Watford 1 Nottingham Forest 0

We’d been outside this morning on litter-picking duty, arranged by our local Parish Council. Getting the kids away from the TV was difficult; exercising one’s social responsibility and protecting our local environment concepts they were not quick to warm to, pitched as they were against Teen Titans Go on a Saturday morning. However, once they had litter-pickers in their hands, and a brown bag full of sweets courtesy of the organisers, they were on board. We proceeded, socially distanced of course, to fill three bags full of rubbish.

It would be harsh to compare our performance today with this collection of waste material, carelessly thrown from car windows, but then again, there was a whiff of garbage in the final reckoning. We didn’t stink, for sure, but we were far from smelling like roses by the final whistle.

Whilst plucking crisp packets and beer cans from the hedgerows, my mind was partly focused on today’s prospective team sheet. With Cleverley injured, and Chalobah still suspended, who would now populate our midfield three? A change in formation was not conceivable, given that this system has been credited, along with Hughes in the centre, with giving us back our identity.

By the time the refuse bags were being tied-up for collection, I had decided the returning Pedro should replace Sema on the left wing, with the Swede dropping into a midfield role behind him, providing the link with Masina. Without three first-choice midfielders, this was preferable to risking Carlos Sanchez, the 35 year-old Colombian International journeyman, who we had signed on a free transfer during midweek.

As it transpired, Xisco did indeed introduce Pedro for Cleverley, but instead of deploying him in the forward three, the 19 year-old was to fill one of the vacant midfield berths himself. I was willing to accept that compromise, as it allowed 10 other players to remain in position. Just as well really, because strangely enough, Xisco didn’t ask for my opinion on the matter.

Forest are a giant of a club, but they haven’t done well at our place in the last decade, and they were to slumber here. The match at the City Ground in December had been goalless, and with Chris Hughton’s remit clearly defensive stability, another bore draw felt likely. Running out in red this lunchtime were James Garner and Glenn Murray, both of whom had been Watford players earlier in the campaign – both then, with something to prove.

Also, Anthony Knockaert, always capable of being a thorn in the side, and someone who’d just love to plaster over the torrid memories of that penalty miss in Leicester colours from 2013, in a play-off semi-final now etched in Watford folklore. Almunia’s double save from Knockaert set up the best 30 seconds of football I have ever witnessed from the stands. As Deeney blasted Hogg’s headed knockdown from Forestieri’s cross past a desperate Schmeichel, Knockaert remained stunned from his double miss, hands on knees, unable to process this moment of personal and sporting despair. It’s no wonder he looked up for it in the early exchanges today. But those emotions got the better of him as he received an early yellow card, and comprehensively lost his personal battle with Masina all game long.

We started quickly, Forest offering nothing. A corner in the first minute, a header from Gray straight at Samba in the fifth. Knockaert jinxed in and shot from distance, but then hauled down Ismaila Sarr as he strode out and received a caution. The semi-dangerous looking Krovinovic put a cross into our box, but it was easily cleared.

We begin to crank it up – we are being invited to – and Sarr is the catalyst. He robs a ball in midfield and finds Gray, but he can’t return the pass. Kiko passes for Sarr to head goalward, Ken Sema forces a corner. Hughes floats a ball to Masina on the wing who fires one inside for Pedro, too hard, and it bounces to the keeper.

Then our goal in the 17th minute, originating from Sarr pouncing on Bong, charging to the by-line and firing across goal. Both Gray and Sema rush the six-yard area, but a brave Brice Samba dives low to divert the ball away. It falls to Adam Masina, who is unmarked with an open goal gaping from 12 yards out. Hit it first time we all think. But instead, Adam puts his left foot on top of the ball and rolls it forward two feet, then hits his laces through it back into traffic at the far post. The ball evades the covering defenders, and with a bit of a dip, squeezes between the goalie’s legs into the back of the net. His celebration is Ronaldo-esque, crunching his abs in a heroic stance. The boy, like the nutmeg, was a bit on the lucky side.

The rest of the half is slow and predictable, with only Sarr flashing his wares sporadically. He nips past Bong who impedes his path and somehow escapes a yellow. He wins a corner from which Zinckernagel feeds Pedro as he runs forward from the back post, only to sky the chance. Sarr’s cross on 39 minutes is cut out by Worrell’s arm, leading to a poor delivery (don’t get me started) from the resultant corner from Sema. Sarr is an inch away from being fed through by Zinckernagel, only a last-ditch Yates tackle prevents a certain goal-scoring opportunity. Forest continue to offer very little – a long throw, a Krovinovic shot from distance – perhaps the most encouraging thing a yellow card for Pedro who looks unlikely to stop nibbling away at the Forest midfield, and is lucky not to pick up a second yellow later on.

The second half is vacuous. Tepid. Flabby. We lose our way with a million passes across our own 18-yard box which seem to hypnotise the rest of the team. Forest slowly come to life as we dither. A grimace settles on my face for the whole half. It’s like being in the stocks, just waiting to get hit by some rotten tomato. We can only be thankful our would-be tormentors are such a poor throw.

Masina finds space on 50 minutes, plays Zinckernagel in who sets up Pedro for a left-footed effort. It’s on target, but never likely to trouble Samba. Krovinovic has a blocked effort, Bong tees the rebound into Bachmann’s hands. Forest keep giving the ball back to us, but we don’t know what to do with it. A 52nd minute corner doesn’t beat the first man; Sarr’s cross two minutes later drifts apologetically out.

The defining moment for Gray in this, his second start as our main attacker, will be a glaring miss on 55 minutes from a deliciously whipped trademark Kiko cross. He only needed to make contact with his left foot but somehow missed altogether. Some misses are painful, and for a host of reasons, this one would have really hurt Gray. Scoring in consecutive matches would have smacked of that elusive consistency all strikers feed on, and put this game well past Forest. Instead, Forest made some attacking substitutions – bringing on Cafu and Lolley – having survived by the skin of Andre’s left shin. Perhaps they would make us rue that miss…

With half an hour to play, Sky voice what everyone watching can see; “Watford’s chief worry could be themselves”. Where have the tempo and conviction in recent outings gone? Perhaps residing with Watford’s number 8 in his facemask watching from the stands. Thank goodness Cleverley should be back for the final run-in, midweek scans having revealed his ligament tear not too severe.

Now Forest become assertive, without ever really threatening, and we suddenly look full of mistakes. Troost-Ekong plays the ball out shortly before Kiko concedes a corner, from which Garner misses Krovinovic’s delivery by inches. Knockaert fires across a full-length Bachmann dive, wide but confidently so. Gray is removed for Sanchez, not being allowed time to make up for his miss, with Pedro replacing him up top.

It is now a horrible watch. Bong heads weakly to Bachmann off a Knockaert cross. But what if that had been Toney? A Garner effort deflects wide, followed by a Cafu thump which deflects and loops agonisingly past the corner of post and bar. That, again, was lucky. We concede another corner, which Pedro, good lad, clears at the near post.

We carry no real threat during this period of the game but in the 77^th minute, Sema hustles through and feeds Pedro who shoots. The ball comes to Sarr, who plays it back to Zinckernagel. His strike sails over. But we snap out of our reverie, and with the introduction of Joseph Hungbo on 80 minutes, we suddenly have a cutting edge again. With five to play, Hungbo spears a pass into the corridor of uncertainty, Sarr just a fraction away at the back post. He makes several more runs down the left flank and my grimace loosens a little. This home-grown talent looks like one to nurture.

We are readying Isaac Success off the bench in the 86^th minute, my mind in paroxysms of all the potential ironic headlines if his introduction delivers failure to see this out, but before he comes on, Sierralta concedes a corner, forced backwards by another of Forest’s attacking subs, Lyle Taylor. Both fellow late-sub Blackett and Garner can’t take advantage of chances presented. Success replaces Pedro on 87 minutes, and within moments, Taylor is through and planting his shot into the bottom left corner of our net. Oi, you headline writers, wait – THE FLAG IS UP – as Harry Enfield might have put it. I breathe again, straightening out the lucky shirt.

This was not an enjoyable game to watch as a Watford fan. Although nothing ended up going wrong, not a lot went right for most of the ninety minutes. It was a must-win game, and we won it, but there was no shred of mastery here. Our first half performance was just good enough, and we got our noses in front fairly fortuitously. Our second half effort was poor, and only the weakness of the opposition prevented us from dropping the proverbial baby.

So, it was a rubbish watch. Some folks don’t mind winning this way, but I do. We played a poor team, got lucky with a goal, and then sat back, hoping for a second on the counter. Against most of the teams in this league, we would have drawn or lost the game.

The victory lifts us up to a clear second place, thanks to Brentford’s game with Rotherham being postponed due to a coronavirus outbreak in the Millers’ camp. It feels significant, finally overhauling Swansea and Brentford, even if they have games in hand. Norwich win again, emphatically, still ten points clear. With a win in the bag, and no Brentford game, attention turns to Swansea, at home to Middlesbrough. Having won in their last outing against Sheffield Wednesday with a 96^th minute Ayew penalty, today they went one better, winning with a 97^th minute one. But we can only affect our own results.

The week ahead is a big one. By the time we face a fired-up unbeaten Cardiff side at their place next Saturday, both Swansea and Brentford will have played their games in hand. In all likelihood we’ll be kicking off against the Bluebirds in fourth spot, needing one of our strongest performances of the season to come away with anything. Let’s hope we turn up and leave the Cardiff City Stadium with the scent of victory in our nostrils.

Watch the highlights here.

Watford 2 Wycombe 0

It’s often wise to expect the unexpected. Take last week, when my wife went out to buy her Dad’s birthday cake and came back with two Russian Dwarf Hamsters. Didn’t see that coming. Yesterday evening’s game pitched the best home record against the worst away one, so by all accounts this was a home-win banker. For those who used to do the pools, or enjoy accumulator bets on the footy, we know very well there is no such thing. You may well successfully predict the outcomes of many matches, but there’s always one result that scuppers your pay out. Who could possibly have foreseen Watford ending Liverpool’s unbeaten run back in February 2020? For that matter, who thought Huddersfield would run out 4-1 winners against Swansea a few matches back?

So, being a bit wise to this kind of thing happening, I did entertain the possibility of a shock result in yesterday’s match. The bottom club in the league could smash and grab three points at our place. Their recent form had certainly improved – of the 9 points they had garnered away from home, 4 of these had come in the last two matches – plus they had recently beaten play-off contenders Reading. Throw in our insipid performance in the reverse fixture (where we were lucky to land a point in a 1-1 duffing-up), plus our loss of two class acts in the suspended duo of Chalobah and Pedro, and the wise-headed may be tempted to incline their heads knowingly, a touch. An ex-Watford striker in Uche Ikpeazu, whose career with the Hornets spanned three years and six loans, but precisely no minutes on the pitch in a yellow shirt, might want to prove his doubters wrong. Especially with matches running out, and stakes increasing. After this game, only a dozen more to go. Zero wriggle room.

Home schooling has been a joy this last year, but its privilege is wearing a little thin now. Still, I continue to learn a thing or two. My lad’s Reception-year phonics homework focused on the trigraph – a sound consisting of three letters – ure. This trigraph – do keep up – is pronounced your, as in Midge, lead singer of Ultravox back in the last century. (I wonder if Midge and Reg, of Elton John fame, ever recorded together? A pairing to give Chas and Dave a run for their money, eponymously speaking). It’s tricky enough for a 47 year-old to say sure it’s pure, or lure, let alone a 4 year-old. But the testiest two words he had to identify were secure and manure. As I mouthed these words to my son just hours before kick-off, I wondered which one it was going to be tonight.

As it happened, things did go to form, and we were not obliged to land ungraciously in any pile of animal waste. As for being sure of the three points, I didn’t get that feeling of security until the clock ticked over the 90. For once, the final five minutes of extra time were not noticeably reducing my life expectancy by hardening the arteries.

I expect a lot of words will be written between clenched fingers about the man who scored both of Watford’s goals tonight. Andre Gray has been a divisive figure, both on and off the pitch, guilty primarily in fan’s minds for not justifying the then record pay-out of £18million to Burnley as a replacement for Ighalo. His recent off-the-field misdemeanours and senior moments have been well-documented, and I don’t think it is worth thinking any more about them. In my mind, Gray has always been fully committed when his boots are laced, and for many reasons, his chances to get a good run in the team, and therefore the confidence he so clearly needs, have been in short supply. For most of his time at the club, we have played with a lone striker, so he has been restricted to cameos off the bench or chances to impress in cup games in a weakened eleven.

I am chuffed for Andre that he grabbed two crisply finished chances tonight, albeit relatively easy opportunities. And for Xisco too, who has not simply sidelined a high-earning, low-performing player, but has decided, almost certainly on merit, and hard work put in on the training ground, to give him game time. Andre has been given ample support by the club, and tonight was another shot at redemption. By the way his team-mates celebrated with him, he is a fully accepted member of the squad with an important part to play in the run-in. It can only be good for us that we have another striker scoring goals.

Three changes were made to the team which started against Bournemouth, two enforced. Gray’s inclusion, given his goals, was entirely vindicated, although I was disappointed, if truth be told, not to see Perica lining up instead. Gray, regardless of his on-field commitment, represents the dying embers of a now failed Premiership Watford, and along with the PR baggage he brings, the potential to disrupt. Perica, with fewer minutes even than Gray this season due to suspensions and injuries, represents the new Watford we all want to see rise from the ashes. In truth, as a club in transition, we’ll need to rely on both for now.

Cathcart was rested for a returning Troost-Ekong at the back, with Zinckernagel preferred in the vacant midfield role, rather than Dan Gosling, who was missing altogether. If anyone needed a chance to prove their credentials, it was the Dane, whose assist and scoring stats in the Norwegian league had us drooling over our cornflakes back in early January, but whose inability until tonight to make the starting line-up had left us eating our soggy ties. Xisco implored those given a chance tonight to make the most of it, and I’m pleased to say they did.

I watched the match on the Sky red button again, all static camera, poor visuals, flat commentary and no replays. In many ways it is closer to the real thing, replicating as it does viewing the match from a single vantage point in the stadium, through blurry short-sighted eyes, with punditry provided by random spectators nearby who know about as much as I do, but state it more authoritatively. And when something pivotal happens, you can’t see it again. So I apologise in advance if some of my recollections are crooked.

Apropos of missing key things in games, I will digress briefly. When I went to our FA Cup 6^th round match against the then holders Arsenal back in 2016, a match we won, miraculously, 2-1, I mistook the identity of our winning goal scorer completely. The thunderbolt from Adlene Guedioura, after a perfectly judged roll-back from Deeney, literally tore a hole in the space-time continuum, so fast had it been hit. I believe I thought it was Capoue, probably because the bloke I was hugging shortly thereafter did too. Anyway, I was quite surprised to find out otherwise listening to the radio on the (simply delicious) tube journey home.

Before kick-off this evening, a tribute to former Hornet Glenn Roeder, who passed away this week aged 65. Both teams applauded warmly around the centre-circle, for a true footballing gent the news of whose passing was sadly received. Following this, the now familiar taking of the knee, which once a thing to inspire solidarity, now seems to have taken on an unforeseen divisiveness. All players took it this evening, leading to my son’s jolly question: “Who are we praying to before this match?”. Well, whichever deity will promise us three points son, not fussed.

Wycombe Wanderers, in their red and white quarters, looked more association rugby than soccer, with some large leading names in their ranks, the largest of which, Akinfenwa, was testing out the capacity of our away benches. I can’t help but like Wycombe, and I wish them every success in their attempt to escape relegation. Gareth Ainsworth looks like a thoroughly decent human being fighting against the odds, his laid-back appearance and long wavy hair missing from some biker pub lock-in. Unlike his bonnet-doppelganger, Brentford manager Thomas Frank, he doesn’t seem to have an uptight, antsy bone in his body.

We take charge from the off, as both teams settle into their roles of possessor and dispossessed, with Watford’s superiority somehow a shared, established mindset. Zinckernagel and Sema are linking up on the left, Cleverley, Kiko and Sarr making triangles on the right. Hughes, like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up every bit of lost possession. The only touch of sloppiness comes from Masina, who gives away the ball in the eighth minute, leading to a badly timed Zinckernagel tackle, and a Chairboys’ free-kick at the edge of our area.

Wycombe’s captain, and number 3, Joe Jacobsen, clearly has a good set-piece delivery, and is their most dangerous player. He blasts this effort off Sierralta behind for a corner, from which a subsequent strike following a team-mate’s blocked effort, sails harmlessly over the bar. The juxtaposition between our left-back and theirs didn’t put Masina in the best of lights – there have been some ponderous elements to his play in recent games.

We are defrosting into the game, rather than burning the house down. Our intensity seems to be caged until we unlock the Wycombe defence in the 14^th minute. In a mini spell of concerted pressure, following crosses from Sema, Sarr and Zinckernagel, a fast move involving Cleverley and Sarr puts Kiko in another crossing position from which he expertly feeds the onrushing Gray. His finish from two yards out is emphatic. As if a demon has been shrugged off, Gray sprints furiously and snaps into a high-press challenge immediately from the re-start.

Suddenly there are gaps everywhere, and Cleverley’s shot from outside the area on 16 minutes deflects away for a corner. With our throttle finally engaged, we are purring, with any splutters masterfully mopped up by Hughes. On one occasion where he engages, wins and waltzes away from trouble, I can’t help waxing lyrical to myself about how cultured he is, to which my son adds, wisely, “Oh, he’s so grown up, isn’t he?” Yes, yes, yes, he is.

Zinckernagel, contrary to my expectations, looks assured, nippy, and progressive. When he’s not thrown in at the deep end with the team clinging on to a one-goal lead, he looks much the better for it. Let others put out fires, give this boy the matches. He is bright, with great control, and although we lose some of Chalobah’s physicality, Zinckernagel has a livelier approach, with twinkle-toe feet, and tonight his passes were well measured. I am delighted to be put firmly in my place about his suitability to wear the shirt.

In the 23^rd minute, Sarr backheels to Kiko, who nearly plays Gray in again. A few minutes later, Sarr goes down after a blistering foot-race only he was winning, but penalty appeals are waved away. Masina heads tamely back across goal to no-one in particular when presented with a chance to score, and then a fine team effort started by Zinckernagel, with Sarr inevitably involved, leads to a Gray shot blocked, and then a must-score rebound that Stockdale does well to save when Sema looked odds on to double our lead. Sierralta at one point strolls all the way forward unimpeded to the edge of the Wycombe box – there doesn’t appear to be much appetite for closing us down.

Wycombe flare up dangerously every now and then from set pieces. A long throw is allowed to bounce in our box on 24 minutes, and Horgan finds space to cross from the left flank on 30 minutes. Troost-Ekong is very vocal and sure-footed, blocking and marshalling competently. Switching off against any team would be foolish – Wycombe managed to hit two past Brentford before the Bees stung back maliciously with seven of their own earlier in the season.

In fact, those five goals are the difference between Watford and Brentford in the fight for second place at the moment, separated as we are by goal difference – we really should be making our chances count for more. With better execution of the final ball we would have been more than a single goal to the good. Nothing is going to feel secure, until we score a second. Our 70% possession has yielded a single shot on target.

The faintest whiff of manuresque humiliation is whipped up inside the first minute of the second half as David Wheeler sticks the ball in our net from a long, hoisted free-kick into our box. Bachmann is hurt, but recovers. More importantly, Wheeler is adjudged to be offside, but we only just side-stepped that one. And Wycombe are mustering themselves a bit. I can’t help thinking that with the guile of Kashket residing on the bench, there is a more potent off-the-shelf Wycombe ready to deploy if it’s still 1-0 in the latter stages. We’d better get a move on.

Ismaila Sarr is involved in virtually everything we do. In the 54^th minute, he juggles the ball beautifully from a throw-in but delivers a poor cross. But in the 57^th minute, latching on to another Kiko pass on the right wing, he elects not to cross but to pass back to the central figure of Zinckernagel. His vision, and weight of pass, Messi-esque perhaps, cuts through the defense and leaves Gray with a simple job of converting under the onrushing keeper, again from a few yards out. Simple, exquisite football. The goal comes at the perfect time with Wycombe just beginning to grow in confidence.

Sarr’s ubiquitous involvement is inadvertently making a rod for his own back, in that inevitably a lot of things he does come frustratingly to nothing. This was a 4 or 5-nil home win for the taking, for the want of better decision-making in the final third. As Sarr is so frequently the player who must make that decision, the spotlight falls, a little unfairly I admit, on him. In the last quarter of this game, Sarr wastes a plethora of promising situations. His crosses go straight to Stockdale, or the opposition defence, through balls get cut out, and his focus seems to wane.

In the 78^th minute he is more or less ambling around in a central position, wandering, unsure what to try next, not probing or looking for a give-and-go anymore – weaponry at walking-pace. He lets fly a poor effort from distance as if he can’t really be bothered to try anything else, an air of being immune from criticism. The crowd would certainly have let him know their feelings about this wastefulness with a reverberating groan around the Vic. But it wouldn’t have been long-lived, the drums and cheers would have quickly risen again.

Our habit of scoring early in a half is useful – the count, according to our colleagues at Sky, is 22 goals for and only 4 against in the first 15 mins of either half. As such, Wycombe were never in this game, even if the paranoid fan’s viewpoint wisely suggests anything could have happened. My pulse quickened on a couple of occasions. Right-back Grimmer was tripped up just outside the box in the 65^th minute, the free-kick headed dangerously back across our goal from Tafazolli. 10 minutes later the tree-like Ikpeazu was tackled in the box by a succession of players and was eventually felled, but not illegally according to the officials. Akinfenwa’s introduction saw a headed half-chance, if that, from a Kashket cross. In extra time Bachmann collided with an offside Wycombe forward, bringing no penalty. Wycombe threw the kitchen plug at us, and it bounced off.

We’ll have to wait and see if Cleverley was injured in a tackle by Thompson with 10 minutes to play – he was subbed almost immediately for Wilmot. If so, that could be season-defining. Hungbo had a few promising minutes when he came on for Sema, emitting plenty of hunger and youthful desire. Perica once again had to make do with a snatch of game time which gave him no opportunity to impress. Success was named on the bench, and one can only hope he one day delivers on all that promise so richly suggested by his name. And Pochettino’s son on the bench, too, with a name to live up to – this time that of his father, the current manager of Paris St Germain no less. Somewhere in WD18 Dennis Bergkamp’s son is also plying his trade, no doubt trying to outstep a sizeable shadow.

I’ll save the last word for my lucky shirt. I first wore it for the home win against Norwich. Only once now have we not won when I’ve donned it for a game – the respectable enough 0-0 with Millwall. I was not wearing it for either the 1-2 home reverse to QPR, or the insanely depressing 0-0 with Coventry, the only match of football I can remember which compelled me to throw something at the telly. For those of a superstitious persuasion, I will make sure to be wearing the lucky shirt come Saturday’s lunchtime encounter with Forest. But I’m afraid a shirt that may purport to prevent losses just won’t cut the mustard if we want automatic promotion. We’ll need wins against ambitious opponents, and for that, we’ll need to play a whole lot better than tonight.

Watch the highlights here.

Bournemouth 1 Watford 0

After a heated argument, it’s always a good idea to let things settle before trying to resolve any outstanding issues. When you’re emotional, you might end up saying something you’ll later regret. Best not to send that retaliatory email until the morning, whilst feelings are still running high. Well, it’s fully six hours since the final whistle at the Vitality and I’m sufficiently cooled down to revisit the game. At least I think I am.

Let’s begin by acknowledging there was more at stake for Bournemouth today than for us. We had won the last four games on the bounce, lost only one of the last ten, and were looking at entering the automatic promotion places, albeit temporarily, with a draw. An away defeat, whilst clearly not part of the plan, wouldn’t by any measure de-rail our season’s ambitions.

The same cannot be said for Bournemouth, who had lost their previous two, surrendering sixth spot, the final play-off place, to Cardiff in the process. With six league defeats in the last nine games, their recent dip in form had cost Jason Tindall his job, leading to a period of limbo in which his assistant, Jonathan Woodgate, had steadied the ship, amidst unsettling rumours swirling of a fanciful and high-profile, va-va-voom appointment in the wings. In the end Woodgate, and not Thierry Henry, was installed until the end of the season. It looked like a good time to be playing the Cherries, and an ideal opportunity to kick an old foe when they were down. And boy, would they have deserved it.

But this game was always going to be played in semi-isolation from the form book and other considerations like league position or managerial uncertainties. When the fixtures were first released, it was Luton, our traditional enemies, and Bournemouth, our current ones, whose dates we first picked out. This game had banana skin, or should I say, oil slick written all over it. Bournemouth hate us as much as we hate them, and no elevation in class or recent results would save us, in the final analysis, from succumbing to their superior hatred on the day.

It was a glorious sunny midday on the south coast, as we attempted to take three points off one of our promotion rivals for only the second time this season – our victory over Norwich in Xisco’s first home game being the only prior occasion. That match for me sums up the motivations in this one. We had been performing poorly and losing touch with the league leaders. We had dispensed with our head coach Vladimir Ivic and installed a new, unproven manager, in Xisco Munoz. We were playing a team in form, on top of the league, and it was imperative to perform well and not to lose. It meant everything to us and less so for Norwich. With this win we began to shrug loose Ivic’s defensive albatross, and after much backslapping and fist-pumping, enjoyed a victory boogie in the dressing room to Sweet Caroline. Somehow, we had re-discovered the joy of playing and winning as a team. Who knows what Bournemouth’s victory tune would be today – possibly Getting Away With It by Electronic.

Similarly, Woodgate’s Bournemouth were here not to lose. They set themselves up to frustrate and “do the simple things well”, as their manager said in the post-match interview. With four, rather than three, at the back, and with the cultured thug Carter-Vickers imposing himself alongside the experienced head of captain Steve Cook in the heart of their back line, it was clear Woodgate was demanding a disciplined and tight defensive shape. He was not let down by his charges.

Our away kit gleamed impossibly white in the sun’s glare, putting me in mind of a Daz Ultra advert. And if Bournemouth’s kit was reminiscent of AC Milan, suggesting flair in the attacking third mixed up with Italian devilry at the back, we were Real Madrid, confident and self-assured, emitting a pre-match entitlement to take the points home. But where Real Madrid are the kings of winding up and unsettling inferior opposition, with Sergio Ramos the absolute pass master of the art, we showed our lily-whiteness instead by rising to the opposition’s provocations. In the end it was our ill-discipline, regardless of any perceived injustice, that was our undoing.

The first half was a cagey contest, with two technically proficient sides whole-heartedly committing themselves to stymieing the opposition. There was some carefully constructed build-up play, but defences were on top throughout, and only one shot required intervention from a keeper, Bachmann tipping over Kelly’s drive just after the half-hour mark.

Bournemouth created the better chances. After 20 minutes, Junior Stanislas was guilty of fluffing his lines after cutting inside and hitting an air shot from only six yards out with only Bachmann to beat. He’d struck an earlier chance well enough but a full blocking body dive from Sierralta in the seventh minute suggested we would be putting bodies on the line, and not letting our recently cultivated intensity slip.

Watford’s chances were a poor return for 63% possession, Pedro heading wide from a Kiko cross on 25 minutes, and Hughes skying an effort over after a brilliant long punt from Bachmann had set Masina racing behind the Cherries’ back line. His pull back to Sarr, who then teed up the chance for Hughes, deserved a better finish. Watford probed from side to side in spells, but could not penetrate, and Sarr’s blasted effort from outside the box just before half-time, summed up the stale-mate.

Still, we had dominated the early exchanges, even if we hadn’t yet created clear-cut opportunities. We’d shown excellent early intent, crossing twice into the box in the opening minutes, Masina heading wide from a 4^th minute Kiko cross. We were the first to every ball, and there seemed to be acres of space for our midfield to operate in. Sarr was popping up on both flanks, Kiko and Cleverly were recycling the ball well, Sema had a wild swing or two, and Chalobah almost charged through the centre, just unable to beat Ben Pearson to the ball. Pedro and Kiko both had shots blocked from distance.

It seemed entirely plausible that we would slice Bournemouth open at some stage and score a quick goal or two to sting them, just as we had done against Derby and Blackburn in our last two outings. Chalobah was controlling the midfield creativity, Hughes and Cleverly waspish and relentless in support. We were not greatly troubled at the back. Sarr, Sema and Pedro, or the Armoured Spears, (as The Athletic’s Watford correspondent Adam Leventhal‘s anagram so delightfully captures their recent menace to Championship defences), could surely not remain blunted across another 45 minutes. The experienced mini-me supporter on my shoulder whispered in my ear that a draw would probably be a good point, and did I want to take it now? No way, I greedily rebutted.

The first half was remarkable for one striking anomaly. “Where is the needle?” my notes enquire. The earlier game between these two teams was more like a war, with Sarr’s legs raked by studs, and barely-legal challenges from the likes of Billing going unpunished, before a devastating 96^th minute Chris Mepham equaliser set-up by Kelly, a player who should have long been enjoying an early bath. The animosity between the teams has a potent recent history, including coinciding promotion to and relegation from the top flight (the Cherries pipping us by one point on each occasion, to no avail last year, but it did rob us of the title of Champions on the final day of the 2014/15 season).

I noted some of the testier and more antagonising Bournemouth players were on the bench, the likes of Billing and Wilshere, so perhaps this accounted for much of it. But I also took the lack of spice to suggest a lack of heart from the hosts – perhaps their containment-first strategy meant they weren’t bothered too much about unsettling us. Focused not so much on the three points, but on laying down a marker of intent to be more resilient, harder to break down, and if so be it, at the expense of their rampant attacking ethos under Eddie Howe.

My notes prior to the second half read: Lerma, once on the hornet’s radar; Gosling, can he haunt his old club? Long, will he pounce? I was preparing for something to happen and looking at the most likely candidates based on their ability to fulfil Murphy’s Law. Lerma because he chose a move to Bournemouth instead of us. Gosling because it would be his first minutes against his old team if he came on. And Shane Long, because he always scores against us. One of these cast members would indeed prove to be the main protagonist, but not in the way I had envisaged, with a stunning individual goal or the like. Oh no, not a bit of it.

The second half then was a notch more fired-up, Bournemouth encouraged by keeping us so resolutely at bay and in-check. Chalobah, Sarr and Kiko combined to cross for Pedro in the 50^th minute, Begovic getting ahead of the Brazilian to block away for a corner. Danjuma then danced past four of our defenders on the left of our goal before Sierralta put a stop to him. From the short corner Danjuma exposed us again, hugging the touchline and jinxing into the box before being snuffed out. Bachmann had to produce a fine diving save to his left from the same marauding player in the 58^th minute, which was followed immediately by our best chance, Sarr setting Cleverley racing clear into the box to shoot left-footed across Begovic who ably palmed it clear low to his left. We were getting a little rattled by the increase in intensity from Bournemouth, and the joy they were suddenly finding from Danjuma’s trickery down our right flank.

I must now, calmly, address the defining moment of this game, as it led directly to many subsequent events, some of which were felt instantly, and some of which will have longer lasting ramifications for the yellows. The metaphorical stone chucked into the pond, producing ripples.

In the spirit of honest self-assessment, and wanting only to understand how everything unravelled quite as it did, we must admit to being culpable of several wrong doings. Chalobah did raise his hand to Jefferson Lerma’s face, and Pedro did lunge in twice, fairly recklessly, on the same player in the space of a few minutes, in injury time, deserving of his two yellow cards. After the first incident involving Chalobah, Cathcart was guilty of switching off from the resultant free-kick punted straight over our back line, and Bachmann was at fault for not covering his front post sufficiently to prevent the dangerous Danjuma from squeezing in the winning goal. The whole team were to blame for not starting the second half in the same vein as the first, allowing Danjuma time on the ball to twist and turn our defence, and penetrate our area with some dangerous runs. We did not capitalise on any of the chances we fashioned before or after the main pantomime event got underway.

Chalobah had been the best player on the pitch in the first half, playing with authority, physicality and panache, as well as that broadest of grins he so disarmingly wears through good, and even more so, patchy moments. Patchy is probably an understatement for the moment when Jefferson Lerma tackled Nate by jumping on him in an uninvited piggy-back, his arm grabbing across Chalobah’s neck for anchorage. Our man had been gamely trying to play football despite this human limpet unilaterally attaching himself.

Lerma’s grappling right arm across Chalobah’s neck may have simply been an attempt to keep hold of the piggy he was riding, but Nate instinctively repelled it with a raised hand, which, antagonised and impeded though it had been, stopped well short of meaningful contact. Meaningful contact means someone jumping on you and grabbing you around the neck like Willy Carson at Chepstow, not a hand of reasonable protest sent out as a last, frustrated, resort. Chalobah could at any stage have easily buckled his legs and gone down for a free-kick under his adversary’s mount. Instead, he swatted a hand in protest, as if to paw aside an irritating fly.

Jefferson Lerma’s subsequent reaction was appalling. He hit the deck as if Tyson had caught him with an upper cut, and through a combination of under-handedness and, potentially, huge embarrassment, clutched his face and stayed down, much as if somebody had opened the Lost Ark and his face was melting. This lad could evidently give Rivaldo a lesson in histrionics and feigning injury.

Such was the extent of the over-reaction by Lerma, positioned as it was right by the technical areas, that virtually every player became drawn into the spectacle. Chalobah, grinning effusively, knew Lerma was pulling a fast one. Lerma, prostrate on the ground, surrounded by players, staff and officials for minutes on end, lay there milking it. At no point did anyone think to summon medical staff, for it was clear to all that this stricken man was faking it.

The Bournemouth players smelt blood, and a red card for their opponents’ best player would help their cause no end. They saw every reason to string this out, and by the time Chalobah had received a yellow card – which means an automatic two match ban for reaching 10 yellow cards this season – Lerma was back on his feet, and play could resume. Watford had switched off, and in some respects, given the injustice of the play-acting and the disruption to the flow of the game, a dip in concentration levels was understandable. However, when opposition players stay switched on and punish you, it is, in footballing terms, unforgiveable.

This was the first time Watford had conceded first in any league game under Xisco. I was intrigued to see if we could muster a response, but with the game descending into that feisty affair I had initially been expecting, and with Bournemouth so disciplined defensively, it looked like a difficult proposition. With Masina, Hughes and Chalobah now all in the ref’s notebook, did we have the freedom to be more robust in key areas and take the game to Bournemouth? For the first time in a while, I thought how great it would be to bring Deeney on. He would have relished an introduction here.

Bournemouth began to slow everything down, taking an age with goal kicks and throw-ins. Just before the carded Masina and Chalobah were subbed on 72 minutes for Lazaar and Gosling (could he?), Sarr had nutmegged Kelly and with a presentable chance hammered the ball wastefully into the near-side hoardings. Jack Wilshere, failed protégé, petulance etched on his face and coursing through his veins, was introduced for Stanislas, to bring some greatly unwanted cynicism, misery and anti-football to the afternoon’s play. He was yellow carded for delaying a throw-in, having hoofed one ball far into the corner of the stadium in a show of absolute disrespect for the laws of the game – and he would pay for this chronic gamesmanship in due course.

Our last notable chance came on 77 minutes when Sarr almost poached a headed Sema knock-down from in front of a hesitant Begovic, his forlorn reaction showing how close to stealing in he’d been. Lazaar had a couple of speculative efforts, showing some poor decision-making in crucial moments. Perica came on for Sema, but couldn’t get into the game, and was never likely to score as he had done in the reverse fixture. Billing took to the field for Ben Pearson, who had gone off with cramp, having scurried himself to the ground. Tellingly, it was Pearson, a battling cave-man destroyer, who was awarded Sky’s man-of-the-match. He had been a key nullifier, nullifying by example, and more pertinently, eligible for the award having not tarnished himself by being involved in any of the handbags that followed.

Lerma’s starring role did not end with the Chalobah incident, although he became more object than subject, as the minutes went by. Joao Pedro, showing the frustrations of a 19-year-old whose team is being stifled to the death, was typically relentless in his pursuit of ball retention. This feverish desire to change the game’s fortunes led to a hot-headed challenge on Lerma at the edge of the Bournemouth box, for which he was rightly carded, although this was simply teenage exuberance. Old Lerma hit the deck again, looking to fool absolutely nobody but run the clock down a bit. Gosling, his former team-mate, was having none of it and tried to hoist him off the turf, a look of disgust barely concealed on his face.

By the 96^th minute when it was clear the game had been strangled and was in its last whimperings, Pedro dived in again on Lerma, and could not help himself from kicking out after sliding through his man. The kick was small, and apologetic, but sufficient to get a second yellow, and his marching orders. This sparked a full-scale brawl as Wilshere steamed in on Cleverley before every man and his dog had a go. Both clubs will certainly face fines for failing to control their players, but players are only human, and they will react furiously when tempers are running high and injustices are seen to prevail.*

So to the fallout. No Chalobah for two games. No Pedro for one. Three points adrift of second after Brentford come from behind to beat Stoke. The consolation of a Nigel Pearson-enthused Bristol City beating Swansea away from home. Nothing very catastrophic has happened. Xisco Munoz in his post-match reaction intimated several times this experience would only strengthen his team’s resolve. In contrast, Woodgate’s hollow insistence that Chalobah’s raised hand merited a straight red, by “the laws of the game”, a politician’s answer, weak in and of itself. They’ll not be able to win games in this unvaliant manner every week. It’s not good PR when the Sky commentary team are branding your players shameful, and a “disgrace”.

Looking ahead, Gosling, Gray and Perica will have to step up as we enter a period of very winnable fixtures. If only Quina were not on loan in La Liga, scoring their goal of the week, he might have had a crucial part to play. We face the four bottom clubs in our next six matches, and need to put a run of wins together again. I hope Xisco is right and that we will channel the frustrations of today’s game into even more committed performances.

Today has shown us, if ever we needed reminding, that a play-off scenario is to be avoided at all costs. We do not want to be facing the likes of Bournemouth, Reading or Cardiff in a winner takes all contest, which can easily be reduced to a scrap to suit the underdogs.

And I will need to go back to the lucky shirt. The lucky blog ain’t so lucky anymore.

View match highlights here.

*The Harry Potter studios, not far from Watford, know a thing or two about good versus evil. If Draco Malfoy and his cronies had been ultimately victorious over Harry and his brigade, there would be no Hogwarts empire. The sneering, cheating, win-by-any-methods skulduggery of Voldemort’s followers were never meant to prevail. Dumbledore’s magic is stronger, and ultimately conquers. Harry finds it impossible to step away from provocation, and injustice, and that is only natural – we forgive him, laud him for it. And we note the Quidditch pitch is a thoroughly dangerous arena where scores are constantly settled, egos bruised, and bones broken. The Bournemouth Bludgers has a ring about it.

Blackburn 2 Watford 3

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.

Watford 2 Derby 1

It’s 8:21pm on Friday evening and approaching half-time in the Watford versus Derby game, but I don’t have any idea what is going on at Vicarage Road. Instead I’m sat in my car outside Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham, waiting to pick up my wife and son, who is this evening being discharged from the children’s Oncology ward. This is not in any way an unusual situation – my boy has been on the ward here, either as an inpatient or outpatient, every day except for two this month. I’m feeling excited to see them, and bring him home for hopefully a decent run of nights in his own bed.

I’m recording the Watford game for consumption later on this evening, if events allow. In the meantime, as I prefer to approach pre-recorded games as if in real time, I must try to avoid finding out the score. I don’t want to switch the radio on or look at my phone in case some bulletin or notification steels into my line of sight. It means I am sat here in silence, bathed in a gloomy orange from the hospital car-park lights, a surgical blue facemask stretched over my ears in readiness to deploy but resting over my bearded chin for now.

There’s something comforting about self-enforced detachment. We should all be encouraged to go off-grid and unleash our minds to wander in directions of their own choosing. This kind of mental detangling is like an ice bath for the brain. My mind wanders wistfully around hospital corridors and across the hallowed turf at the Vic.

It’s approaching midnight now, and I’m home, with a household safe and sleeping. I’m feeling happy and ready for some delayed gratification. Time to put on the game. To fool my mind into thinking this is happening now I watch it from the start, adverts, punditry, interview clips and footage from past games all. It’s late but as far as my brain’s concerned, it’s approaching 7:45pm. Tonight, Matthew, I am a time-travelling lone hornet.

A few things to note from the build-up. Derby have changed system to match up with our 4-3-3, and brought in five new players to their starting eleven, including both full-backs, Lee Buchanan and Nathan Byrne. It looks like they want to match us man-for-man across the park and nullify as much as possible the threat of Sarr and Sema out wide.

It can be read in one of two ways. Either Rooney is showing us a lot of respect by changing a side that has won its last two games, perhaps signposting their anxiety about our weaponry, or else we’ve been sniffed out by a legend of the game whose team is now going to prove our new structure but a house of cards ready to be toppled. Derby should be up for this encounter, despite a poor performance against Wycombe (albeit garnering 3 points) – we have never completed a league double over tonight’s opponents.

Our side is as one would hope and expect after two highly perspective-altering performances – unchanged except for Sierralta giving way to Cathcart in a game of musical centre-half chairs, with Troost-Ekong returning after a rest. Sensible enough from Xisco, who would be mad to tamper with this system unless forced to do so. Achieving 9 points in 7 days would be sensational, particularly at this stage in the season, and almost too much to dare hope for. Anyway, on with the game.

So it’s half-time and Watford are 2-0 ahead. In a parallel universe it could be 1-1, had Pedro’s deflected opener not ricocheted off his trailing leg to beat Marshall by instalments, nor Kazim-Richards’ headed effort in the closing minutes been harshly ruled out for an alleged infringement by Wisdom on Bachmann. Let’s just say we have quite a few brownie points stacked up from VAR-related incidents in last year’s relegation season, so I won’t lose any sleep when we “get away with one” as we seem to have done here.

We started the game well, Cleverley once again setting the tone with his scurrying and chasing down every cause going. Together with Hughes and Chalobah, our midfield three commanded the centre of the pitch for the opening exchanges, ably assisted by some committed pressing back from the front three, Pedro in particular. Sema brought us a delicious You’ve Been Framed moment as he beat himself with a step-over and knocked the ball into touch – it wasn’t really Ken’s half.

Just as we were beginning to get a bit tentative and sideways – a bit Iviccy – allowing Derby to grow into the game a bit, we pulled the trigger, twice. The first goal came from Hughes winning the ball in his own half and playing forwards. A neat exchange between Kiko and Sarr saw the latter turn on the after-burners and beat his man to the byline, playing the ball fast into a pocket of danger which resulted in Pedro’s determination to be in and around the action rewarded with a kind deflection off his right heel.

The way Sarr accelerated past Buchanan was like nothing I’ve seen on a football pitch before. It put me in mind of Usain Bolt in the 100 metres, at around the 60-metre mark, where his trademark was to suddenly explode and leave all others in his wake. It was as if he leapt forwards in time, a bit like Quantum Leap. You cannot defend that.

Hughes doesn’t switch off and grapples himself into the referee’s notebook inside a minute. By the same margin of time later, from the same player’s cleared corner, Cleverley is bravely into Roberts on the edge of the Derby box, feeding Chalobah who coolly backheels to the sauntering Hughes who measures a left-footed shot into the far corner just beyond Pedro’s poaching toes. This is Hughes’ first game against his old club, and he’s showing them exactly what they’ve been missing since his departure.

We seem to have put the game beyond Derby in the 21^st minute, through a combination of aggression, skill, composure in the box and a sprinkling of good fortune. With the best home record in the league, and 6 out of 8 clean sheets since Bachmann’s instalment between the sticks, it looks like being a long evening ahead for the Rams.

The rest of the half has much to commend it, even if we don’t test the keeper again. Femenia fizzes in a few low crosses, bodies sliding only inches away from a connection. Sarr keeps breaking all kinds of land-speed records, dislodging his own GPS tracker from the back of his shirt at one point. We take throw-ins quickly, always on the front foot, show industry and endeavour in bucket loads. Derby have had 8 clean sheets in their last 16, but we are pulling them apart and look dangerous from every forward foray.

And yet. Derby should have had a goal back with Kazim-Richard’s header in the 37^th minute from a wicked in-swinging Nathan Byrne corner, and created a half-chance with Waghorn stealing through at the death, (which in reality only the likes of Bergkamp or Ibrahimovic could have despatched). On the way down the tunnel Kazim-Richards is “left hanging” by the ref after imploring him to look at the goal again.

Cleverley grabs himself an innocuous yellow card on 41 minutes, to join Hughes on the tackling tightrope, whilst some lackadaisical passing around our own 18-yard box leaves me wincing on a few occasions. “Only a matter of time before we come unstuck at the back” I’ve scrawled. And for all the flashes of genius, and our two knock-out punches, the half-time possession stats show complete parity, and 2 goals from 2 shots on target – so there is clearly still work to be done. However, I’m feeling optimistic for the second half.

So it’s full time and Watford have snatched three points from a game that could easily have seen the score line reversed. My heart is pumping with adrenalin from watching a frankly agonising last 15 minutes. Cleary even this new look Watford finds the habit of nearly chucking away points hard to drop.

By contrast the first 15 of the second half was entirely comfortable. Watford were still probing, Kiko and Sarr combining incisively throughout, Cleverley seemingly undeterred by his earlier booking and as rapacious as ever. We are sitting a little deeper but turning defence into attack quite nicely and at 2-0 it’s a relatively easy watch. Derby are coming into it a little more, but Waghorn’s crossing is poor, and he looks just like the frustrated number 9 stuck out on the left wing that he is.

On the hour mark both teams make substitutions, and this is where the wheel nuts start to loosen, even if the cart rumbles on. Chalobah who has been almost scintillating at times, and strong to boot, is withdrawn, presumably to stave off a potential 10^th yellow card. Gosling comes on, a safe pair of feet, but never a scintillating one, I suspect. Derby whisk off the embattled Shinnie and ineffective Roberts, for Gregory and Jozwiak. It’s pretty clear we have not done a Bristol City job on Derby this evening, and the game is far from out of sight yet. This shift in personnel seems to promise a shift in momentum, and my palms, although not sweating, begin to pre-tingle.

Watford continue to carve out promising situations, but so too now do Derby. Kazim-Richards has a shot on 62 minutes during a flurry of Derby pressure. Joao Pedro flicks a header over the bar from a Sema cross – the first time Ken has had a one-on-one all evening – before heading clear a Derby corner whipped into the front post. This is the first of several such identical blocks, including a most crucial one deep into injury time when Derby were threatening to bulldoze their way into our goal.

Sarr cuts inside on 68 minutes and with plenty of time and room blasts the ball rather carelessly over the bar. Derby win another corner after Gregory races clear, and soon after a free-kick just outside the box after Sarr dives in on the lively Knight. The Sky commentary team declare the game to be “somewhat on a knife-edge”, which at 2-0 it really shouldn’t be. One more goal should do it for us, and Cleverley’s cross which just evades the onrushing Sema would have done it. These are fine margins.

In the 75^th minute, I scrawl a very worried looking emoji face on my notepad. That’s because Hughes has been withdrawn for Wilmot, in a double swap which also introduces Zinckernagel for Sema. In one instant, our capacity to see this game out is diminished. We are now far less in control, our blonde metronome de-commissioned. With barely enough time to bring my nails up for a bit of a pre-emptive bite, a wicked cross from Nathan Byrne dips viciously at the feet of Troost-Ekong who, facing his own goal two feet out helplessly scoops the ball up and over the despairing Bachmann. The clean sheet has gone, but not yet the three points. If those go too, where to start with the recriminations? Xisco is playing with fire here.

Squeaky bum time. Sky are up for this now, and Watford are “looking nervous”. In the 80^th minute Derby throw on a home-grown talent, Sibley, as if to out-Hughes us now that we’ve had the audacity / stupidity to remove him. We may have lured away their previous best local lad, but there’s another cab coming off the rank. It all seems to be written, and frankly I’m just waiting for us to capitulate.

It’s all Derby now. An 83^rd minute corner is going directly into our net before Bachmann throws himself across the line just in front of it to flap it out. The sound of the woodwork is, I assume, Bachmann’s body hitting the post. He mouths a “wow” because that was an improbable save. And equally improbably, we are conspiring to mess this all up at the death.

It’s an agonising watch, with five minutes of extra time to negotiate. With half our outfield players now out-and-out defenders and the attacking outlets of Sarr and Pedro still alive with running, we should really be seeing this one out with less turmoil. We manage to kill a few vital minutes down near the corner flag, Sarr tempting Sibley into a crude tackle. The ball eventually pops out to Zinckernagel who hits a weak effort on 93 minutes, gifting possession back to Derby.

The orange-clad Derby keeper Marshall has been playing every ball long into our box since the 85^th minute, and when Cathcart shanks a clearance behind for a Derby corner with only seconds to go, their goalie sniffs an upset too and heads into our packed penalty area. Earlier in the season Bournemouth had snatched an equaliser in the 6^th minute of extra time, and the feeling of Deja-vu here was palpable. A second Derby corner ensues, for which Marshall remains, but Pedro nuts clear again at the front post and Tim Robinson eventually blows the final whistle. If the Vic had been full tonight, the release of tension would have come in a deafening roar of victorious relief.

It’s 2am in the morning. The scenes I’m watching happened over five hours ago but feel exhilaratingly immediate. My heart is thumping with a mix of relief, joy and trauma survival. Xisco didn’t quite burn his fingers with those subs, so you have to hand it to him for his brave attempt to safeguard his best players and give his full squad a run-out. Heaven knows we’ll need them all if we are to mount an automatic promotion push. We’re level on points with Brentford now, in joint second place. We have points on the board even if others have games in hand. It’s a great evening’s work done, and all the theatre and drama you could hope for from a 90-minute game of football.

Well that’s quite enough time-travelling for one night. I’m off to join the rest of my family in the land of nod, with a smile resting on my exhausted face.

View match highlights here.

Why The Lone Hornet?

In non-pandemic times, when I manage a trip to the Vic, or an away match I can get a ticket for, odds are I’m alone. I don’t turn up to games regularly with anyone, not since my girlfriend (now wife) told me she didn’t really care for it, even after she had witnessed the entire home run of the 98-99 season which culminated in our play-off victory against Bolton under GT. She must have known this would be like a dagger to my heart. What more, I can’t help thinking, could my team have done to snare her affections?

So I’m always in someone else’s seat in the Rookery, that random bloke who you find you’re hugging in the ecstasy of the moment. I’m never short of people to hug when the goals go in. For me, a trip to the Vic is like a holy pilgrimage, back to my place of birth – Watford General Hospital on Vicarage Road – a distinctly personal journey that is full of mystery and longing, with the magic of the turf at its epicentre. And there’s usually a McDonalds thrown in as a guilty pleasure.

I gather with my tribe, strangers all, but family all. I leave alone, back on the train, or to the car parked god-knows-where, encouraged or consoled by glances from fellow horns heading my way out with looks of commiseration or glee meant for me to reciprocate. As fans, in our colours, we share this bond, unspoken. So, perhaps this blog is to allow me to reminisce with the wider Watford community, as I can’t do it with my own friends or family, none of whom support Watford, or with the people I hugged at the game, because believe it or not I didn’t take their number.

I was born in 1973, in the hospital next to the football ground, which I’ve always thought such a perfect conveyor belt for new fans. In actual fact, the facility pre-dates the football ground by some considerable time. It was originally Watford Union Workhouse, built between 1836 and 1837. Children born there from 1904 were given 60 Vicarage Road as the address on their Birth Certificates to avoid disadvantaging them later in life. The workhouse then became Shrodell’s Public Assistance Institution before being taken over by the NHS and renamed Watford General in 1948. The football ground close by had been opened on 30th August 1922.

My life in the Watford area didn’t exactly end as I came off the conveyor belt, but it wasn’t to be long lived. Our family, consisting of my parents and an older sister by two years, were living in a cul-de-sac in Carpender’s Park at the time. That’s because my Dad was working for Marconi, and we had moved from our historic patch of deepest Suffolk to facilitate this. I was still in nappies by the time we had been re-absorbed by those south-folk, where I was to be nurtured, in a single-parent household as it turned out, in various locations including Sudbury, Lavenham and Ipswich. In 1975 my Dad’s work had taken him to Toronto, installing radar technology on the newly-constructed CN Tower, from which vantage point he determined to start a new life on the other side of the Atlantic. He lives in Canada to this day, Watford barely a footnote in his personal life story, yet a deeply-embedded, significant one for me.

I grew up in a picturesque Suffolk village, Lavenham, famous for its crooked house, and in recent times as the birthplace (in the film series, at least) of Harry Potter. I was a little Liverpool supporter pre-1982 as they were the best team, and that seemed to be what mattered in the playground. With no-one to instruct me otherwise, I revelled in the shiny red kit and the self-designated association with names that still send shivers down my spine, like Dalglish, Rush and Souness. I even had a little knitted Liverpool player called Kenny, whose studs were glued on and were forever dislodging, not unlike the real things before blades were invented.

But in 1982 something meteoric happened. An upshot team with the best player I had ever seen – move aside Dalglish, here comes Barnsey – gave Liverpool a very close run for their money and ran out runner’s up in the old First Division. This promoted team, with the jewel of John Barnes gleaming in its otherwise robust and no-nonsense crown, was Watford. I don’t know if it was exactly a light-bulb moment, but I remember thinking, hang on, hadn’t I been born in Watford? And aren’t you actually supposed to support the team where you were born?

The switch in my allegiance to Watford was swift and absolute, and there was no looking back. True, I’d only switched loyalties from champions to runners-up in the top division, so not too great a downgrade (if you ignore the fact they were Champions of Europe aswell), but in doing so I had found some credibility to my fanaticism. There was a genuine tug at my roots going on which I found both compelling and fulfilling. I could actually say I belonged to this tribe. No, I actually did belong to this tribe. There it was, on my birth certificate. At 9 years old football was what I lived and breathed for. Watford was the club I decided to worship until my dying day.

I took to becoming a horn as if I had always been one but no-one had ever told me – which is very much like it was. I ditched the iconic pin-striped Crown Paints Liverpool kit for the glorious golden Iveco Watford one, and as a kid with no dad in a Suffolk village did as much as I could to support the hornets – which was, in practical terms anyway, very little.

With my Uncle, in my Nan’s front room, I watched and couldn’t understand how we were beaten in the 1984 FA Cup final, forever cursing Andy Gray for heading the ball out of Sherwood’s hands and spoiling my delusions of team grandeur. But we didn’t really turn up that day. The next time we got a shot at that trophy, in 2019, I was in attendance, and sadly witnessed the ultimate demonstration of what it’s like when your team doesn’t turn up.

I started keeping a scrapbook full of newspaper match reports as we sank into footballing mediocrity. The appointment of Dave Bassett was like hauling up a huge white flag on our top flight ambitions. John Barnes going to Liverpool was a neat little implosion of my footballing karma. Although I still regard him as my favourite Watford player of all time, I can’t quite forgive him for seeing himself as a Liverpool player first and foremost, however stupid and wrong-headed that is.

Not until I moved to Ipswich as an 11 year-old did my Uncle take me to several games at Portman Road, before, as a teenager, I was able to afford going myself. This is where I first saw my beloved Watford, standing in the Churchmans Stand at Portman Road, concentrating on not cheering if my team were to score. How I longed to be in the away end! Whenever we turned up in the county town of Suffolk, we usually played well, and I would leave feeling elated as those around me grumbled their disapproval.

Throughout my teenage years all my friends were Ipswich fans – tractor boys – and so in footballing terms I was a bit of a pariah. Kids who supported the big clubs kind of got away with it. But if you turned your back on the local team for an outfit not demonstrably superior, that was taken as a snub. A shame really, because I have a real soft spot for Ipswich, the first team I ever saw play, and an incredible one in the early eighties. Both clubs had great community standing, with giants of the managerial world at their helms, Bobby Robson and Graham Taylor, future England managers both. But I hadn’t been born on Portman Road had I?

When I left Ipswich, I spent a year abroad in Canada, working and getting to know my Dad, and then went to University in Hull, where I was to meet my future wife. It wasn’t until after University, in the late 90s, that we established ourselves in London as young twenty-somethings. I suddenly had relative proximity, and some cash to enable me to go to Watford and see a game or two. Since then, there has rarely been a season when I’ve not gone to at least a handful of home and away matches, some seasons where I’ve got into double figures of games. But even throughout the bleakest of seasons, and our relegation to the third tier, my commitment has never wavered, and my blood runs yellow to this day, home or very far away.

Preston 0 Watford 1

The football gods will usually punish you if your expectations are greater than they are entitled to be. Following a 6-0 humbling of Bristol City at the weekend, and fielding a nearly unchanged eleven, with the promise of another instalment of attacking verve in a 4-3-3 formation, it was easy to forget just how poor we had been in nearly every game so far this season. Especially so away from home with our startling inability to score, all the more bewildering given our imperious home form. Add to this a wounded Preston team who we had beaten 4-1 earlier in the season, at a home ground we hadn’t won at since the year dot, in a league it is so difficult to do the double in. Mix in the less than lucky funereal-black third kit, and our historically well documented ability to spear an optimistic fan through the heart with a hapless back pass or early red card, and there was no right to feel expectant.

Nevertheless, expectant I am, cursing at the black Sky box as it decides for the first time since our game against Southampton after lockdown – a bad omen – to pack up. By the time I had resuscitated said box, the game was 10 minutes old. Being late to the party is a bit crap, given this is my first match report for TLH, with no traffic jams involved. If it was a job interview, I’d be shown the revolving door, if the Pozzos hadn’t already trade-marked that one.

The red button on Sky gives a vastly inferior watch to Hive Live, with a static camera, no replays, and the kind of grainy visual you expect watching through some heavy duty PPE. My nine year-old daughter deemed to pass comment as she floated by disconcertingly on her hoverboard: “it looks so grainy and dark”. Well, it is Deepdale on a Tuesday evening in February, so not entirely unexpected. In fact, this is the archetypal are-they-up-for-it kind of game, where high earners in gloves and snoods (remember those?) shrug their way moodily from one half-hearted episode to the next. This is the crucible which exposes the wavering soul, and snuffs out the also-rans. You’ve got to really want it to get anything from here.

The commentary was like cheap stuffing for an otherwise decent Christmas dinner. I sniffed out bias early on with plenty of “scruffy” touches for Watford, whilst organised and “elegant” play came from Preston. Perhaps they really had been all silk and steel in that first 10 with several presentable chances allegedly squandered by Ched Evans. I wasn’t even vaguely surprised when late on Zinckernagel was mistaken for Masina giving away a late free-kick, only, presumably, because he was in the space Masina usually occupies, even if the two players are about as physically different as an eagle and a starling. And the useless stat, like some boring horoscope, given some meaning merely by being given expression, that this would be the first time in Watford’s history that they had three 0-0 results on the road. So what? And as we closed out the game with some committed tackling and robust defending, the back-handed compliment of “street-smart” was ushered more than once, as if it was only our nous – something we famously lack – that was seeing us across the line in this one.

At half-time, the score goalless, my summary note states: “Pedro the key?” I’ve also scribbled “Pedro a bit lightweight” without wanting to be too critical. Pedro is like a flickering flame being guarded from the four winds, and in danger of being snuffed out entirely – but not for the lack of willing. No, because he is in the number 9 role, getting buffeted by the close attention of a very shirty, grabby Preston back line. Even Houdini on steroids would struggle with this lot.

My thinking, or feeling, was thus… We had been full of purpose, and desire, always on the front foot and looking to attack – at least from the 10th minute when I arrived. However, 7 corners and numerous crosses into the box, where we were alive with bodies, didn’t look like yielding results. The white Preston wall seemed unbreachable by this method of attack, as attritional as it was. The fact that we had three different corner takers suggested as much – how on earth could we engineer some space for a chance? The only way I could see for us to unlock the defence would be to guard the flame of Pedro, hope to keep it alive, and hope to light the touch paper with it in a split-second of karma.

In the second half, we continued to impose ourselves, a bit like a classy heavyweight dancing around a lumbering opponent winning points but not splitting lips. And this dangerous opponent, typified for me by the louche and arrogant threat of Ched Evans, trying to harangue, oppress and force a mistake, always capable of landing a knockout blow. But in the 51st minute, a flash of quick feet from Pedro in the box, with the ball barely under control, heading away from goal surrounded by white sentinels, brought a tackle that connected crisply and definitively to those mercurial feet from Barkhuizen.

Was this the moment we would miss Deeney? Had Pedro missed, yes, of course. But actually there was no feeling of apprehension as the young Brazilian took responsibility, stroking the ball firmly into the bottom left corner with uncanny confidence. I was encouraged to see a fatherly Masina ushering away a dissenting, jinxing Preston defender trying to upset the boy genius as he prepared the spot kick with a meticulous ball placement. Let him do his thing.

This match felt very much like a sliding doors moment in our season, one that might have ramifications for future seasons, and the club’s entire trajectory. I make no apologies for the hyperbole. Was this showing going to back up the “one-beer” six-goals Bristol rout, or reveal once more another false and perplexing dawn. Thank god it was the former this time around. For players like Pedro to shine, they need the space and spotlight of a premier league stage. How depressing to be lost, perhaps for generations of fans, in a deep-pressed championship where grappling and gamesmanship seem to be the stock in trade of mid-table teams who know how to ruffle feathers and upset supposed superior opposition. Where the dark arts of “winning” fouls, contesting every adverse decision and time-wasting even though you’re losing are commonplace (yes, that was in evidence tonight). What a fate to avoid.

The start of the second half put me in mind of rugby. A high kick towards the touchline to be contested aerially, a signal flare if ever there was one that Preston intended to out-muscle us in the second half. Shortly afterwards we hike the ball out of our half and it is disheartening to see two strong arms wrapped around Pedro as he is straight-jacketed out of contention. How pleasing that our Ali, hardly able to float like a butterfly, was still able to dish out the fatal sting.

Hughes central. Tenacious, visionary, a fulcrum and a terrier. The perfect player in his rightful position. When Xisco made changes late in the game, it was only really Hughes I was desperate to stay on the pitch. He’s not just the heart beat of this potential new attacking Watford, he is the spleen, the brain and the legs. Somebody commission a statue already.

My four year-old son, always pleased to see Watford on the telly, laughs joyfully when he sees the blond flash of Hughes jogging to take a first half-corner. His delight is pure for his favourite player, who he stubbornly, if somewhat irresistibly calls “Will Fughes”. He loves “Wilf” because he is blond with a beard. I love Will because somehow no Premier league team thought they needed him and he is our best player. (Love you Will).

Cleverly is craft. Just such a craftsman, and a wise head, albeit sometimes a little late to the party with a tackle. A fine captain, never one to shirk or grumble, and close to scoring directly from a free-kick, which would have been a collector’s item right now.

“Chalobah the Destroyer” has been put on ice, and like the butterfly breaking from the pupae, “Chalobah the Expansive” has taken flight. Still a tough customer, go-go-gadget legs and leveraging opponents off the ball for fun, but now head-up, raking through-balls and deft touches to control a ball in flight. I have felt more frustrated, perhaps, about Chalobah than any other current Watford player, Gray included, because he has frequently looked so sulky and disengaged, whilst at other times playing such a key role he is simply undroppable. Now that he has craft and tenacity as midfield bedfellows in this new system, I hope he can find ways to express his considerable talents, as he did tonight, and against Bristol City, more consistently.

I like this new Watford. Thank you Xisco, and thank you Gino. So ready to criticise, perhaps now we have the blueprint to get the best out of our exciting squad. But let’s not anger the footballing gods by getting carried away. One injury to Hughes would make things look a lot different. And yet, so much to admire today that had been missing for so long, especially away from home. Another 90 minutes of full intensity and concentration. Fluidity of movement, with players swapping sides. Kiko popping up on the left wing, Sema over on the right. Winning second balls in midfield where we are no longer chasing shadows, under-staffed. Playing with relish, looking for opportunities to be creative, options on again and again. Being first team out for the second half… aah

There is a confidence here based on the defensive solidity we have spent the season mastering, masterful for sure when the personnel are right. Kiko is fundamental, with such an assured first touch and quality in abundance. It is no wonder we struggle to defend and are less potent an attacking force when he is out. Let’s forget about his effort in the 62nd minute as he popped up at the end of a sweeping attacking move to drill his shot perplexingly wide. Without the help of a replay I couldn’t tell if it was metres or miles off target, but the hoardings got a thumping. But he was there, dynamic and threatening, much much too good for this league.

Bachmann has been so solid we have not missed Fozzy. We are already, I think, taking him for granted. Tonight he caught a whiff of the general air of team confidence and was a little more experimental with his distribution, sometimes without success, sometimes close to inspired. He was precise and assured with the first ball short to either centre-back, or to the half-backs, and when necessary, with a goalkeepery flourish, urged team mates away to smack the ball into the opposition half. Great decision making from a guy who has had to bide his time more than most, but is clearly ready, willing and able.

Sierralta is strong and does not seem to have a concentration problem that has beset others like Kabasele. He was switched on in the 83rd minute when a dangerous free-kick into the box needed clearing when Bachmann hesitated. My favourite comment from passing four-year old son, as Sierralta bundled the ball away in a scrappy coming together with Evans: “He was being a bit unmissed”. A bit perhaps, but he did clear the danger.

Troost-Ekong was rested today for the totemic Cathcart. Both of these men are assured, but for me Cathcart has the experience, and therefore the edge between them. And Adam Masina, like a half-god, half-PE Teacher, is a shepherding figure in a superhero’s body, fast whilst appearing sluggish, switched on when most languid. In the 86th minute it was Masina who turned away from danger when it looked like he would be drawn into a Preston mugging at the edge of his own box. Never try to mug Adam, is my advice.

The close of the game was certainly uncomfortable as Preston went even more direct, lobbing balls forward and winning free-kicks. We played a disciplined defensive high-line, and Cathcart was imperious with a number of important headed clearances. But Preston did not in the end have that little special something that could crack our defence in return. Like the wolf huffing and puffing, our brick house maybe lost a few slates. The wolf was nearly roasted early when substitute Zinckernagel led a 4 against 3 breakaway near the death, which he squandered with a weak pass. This led moments later to a Preston free-kick deep into injury time that had me wondering if the Zinkster and not Pedro would be the defining contributor to the evening’s story, one involving the unforgiveable surrender of two dropped points.

It was Sarr with an aggressive surge and lung-busting run that quelled the late danger, summing up his night entirely. A threat, for sure, but a committed combatant tonight whose ability to always get to the ball first he made into a weapon all of itself. His grit says a lot about what is happening in the dressing room, and probably about the words he is receiving from Xisco and his team, and probably from talisman Deeney, not involved tonight but always involved. All that’s missing with Sarr is the work ethic and the ability to brush off the physical attention he receives. 30 games into the season, it looks like he is putting those minor flaws to bed. But he did need to change his boots at half time to keep going.

Substitutions in games this tight make every fan nervous. Zinckernagel looked off the pace, and gave away possession consistently, not a patch on the endlessly industrial and mosquito-like Sema he replaced. Gosling was sufficient, if not entirely proficient, but suddenly looks like a crucial squad member as Chalobah racks up the yellow cards (withdrawn early partly to guard against a 10th booking and an ensuing suspension). Stipe Perica flung himself about to little effect after Pedro jogged (slowly) off, his work done.

We didn’t overwork the keeper tonight. The ball was cleared off the Preston goal line in the final minute of the 90, but apart from that not a lot of goal threat for all our possession. We scored from a penalty and not from open play. We probably would have taken a poor performance and a Deeney penalty for the three massive points which keep Swansea, Brentford and Norwich on their toes. But this wasn’t another barely deserved smash and grab. This was a hard fought, well thought out, progressive and honest performance, with players running their hearts out for each other, and the wider cause. It was a display to be proud of, and to be optimistic about. A brothers-in-arms performance to warm us all.

Let’s see what Rooney, and the gods, have to say about that on Friday, shall we?

View match highlights here.