Spurs come a-calling

Watford's unbeaten run came to an end in the first game of the year. They'd beaten Darlington 4-1 at the Vic on NYE (Sordell got 2) but went down 2-0 at Fratton Park a couple of days later. They are currently 18th and have been there and about since October. With the league pretty tight, a winning run could put them right up there but it doesn't look likely (from this armchair, anyway).
On Saturday, the Horns battered Bradford 4-2 in the cup third round and the following day were drawn home again to slightly bigger opposition. Tottenham - flying high in 3rd in the Premiership - come calling on the 28th January and I am hoping to be there for my first game since April. COYH!

In Spirit

I may be 11,358 miles away (or 13 hours ahead) but enjoy the news of Watford's fifth straight win (2-1 at Scunthorpe) and seventh game without defeat. Three wins out of three in December (snow prevented matches) - beating Sven's Leicester 3-2 at home; inflicting QPR's first league defeat of the season (3-1 at Loftus Road); thrashing protion-chasing Cardiff 4-1 at the Vic - have been followed by a 3-0 over Portsmouth before this latest triumph. We are top scorers in the division and now have the prospect of suffering for our success: Burnley are sniffing after our manager and I'm sure there will be bids for top-scorer Danny Graham. As is pointed out with crushing regularity at this time of year, we are "a selling club".

Schadenfraude too

I have been gone too long. After two months of insufflation in La Paz, we have all but completed two weeks of volunteering at animal refuge La Senda Verde near Coroico in Bolivia (the website will be improved in the near future). In the meantime, Watford have sold all their best players (Tommy Smith eventually went to Portsmouth and was followed by a petulant Mike Williamson, Tamas Priskin went to Ipswich, Jobi McAnuff and Grzegorz Rasiak followed Brendan Rogers to Reading). The latter two players combined to put Reading ahead in our Saturday showdown but Danny Graham continued his scoring form (six already in nine matches) to get us a point at the Madjeski. There is great satisfaction at seeing Ipswich and Reading poach from us and now struggle in the bottom four while we sit in a far better-than-expected seventh (Newcastle are threatening to run away with it), which makes us closer in position to bottom-of-the-Premiership Portsmouth than to either of our championship rivals.
We got old-boy Heidar Helguson back and he scored twice in a recent 3-3 "thriller" with Leicester and although now injured, I´d back him to beat Saturday´s red-carded Nathan Ellington in the goals tally even if H didn´t find the net again all year. Coventry at home tonight and if we can send them back pointless to whence they came, we might even nick a play-off position. Okay, okay: it is early days.

Four out of three

After a gripping 2-2 home draw with seventeenth-placed Colchester closely followed last week’s lame 3-0 drubbing by West Brom at Vicarage Road, there are some among Watford’s Yellow Army who are losing the faith. Not least because we beat Norwich convincingly at Carrow Road midweek and had 26 goal attempts against the U’s, I am still part of the Watford faithful.

The Hornets have won eleven of sixteen games and are eight points clear of second-placed Charlton at the top of the Championship, though West Brom can close the gap to six points on Monday if they win at Coventry. It’s a great start for the club that was relegated bottom of the Premiership in May, six points below nineteenth-placed Charlton and eleven points from safety. At first sight, the current position seems even more impressive given the sale of Ashley Young and Hameur Bouazza, two players who emerged through the youth-team and scored almost a third of the Hornet’s goals in the top flight.

Scratch those facts though and you see that those two players only scored eight goals between them (Young left in January) and the team managed only 28, one fewer than they have so far in the second tier. This season is already a different prospect: Darius Henderson and Marlon King have each scored nine and Adam Johnson, on loan from Middlesbrough, is on five. Current rates would see both players score more than they did when we won promotion two years ago. The year in the Premiership, most of which “the King of Vicarage Road” missed through injury, leaving “Doris” playing in an unfamiliar role, can partly be dismissed as part of the learning curve that Watford are on.

Watford’s early success comes despite the repeated assertion by the manager – Aidy “Betty” Boothroyd – that the team is not playing well and that there is better to come. That may just be a psychological tactic but there are not many who would claim Watford are artists of the beautiful game. “Three nil to the football team,” Baggies’ fans taunted last week and there was a poverty of imagination from the Golden Boys in that game. Going two goals down in a two-minute spell is not explanation enough; Watford have played the long ball, the percentage game, even when they didn’t need to. There are glimpses of better but it might not be until Gareth Williams and Damien Francis come back from injury that the midfield can hope to be significantly more confident in the passing game.

Before I go on to the hypothetical, perhaps I should justify my faith. Some Watford fans allow themselves to be haunted by memories of 2000/1, when Watford briefly topped the table ahead of the competition (Fulham) at about this stage of the season before a thrashing at Craven Cottage saw the Hertfordshire club limp to a 9^th placed finish. Betty and others have stated that it is far too early to be looking at this season’s table but is that true? Can history tell us anything other than the fact that seven years Watford drifted into the sort of oblivion that Cardiff managed last season? Top after 16 games with 33 points, the Bluebirds finished 13^th on 64 points, thereby managing the rare feat of winning more points in the first third of the season than in the following two-thirds added together.

Yes. History can tell us that last season was a real blip. After sixteen games, eventual champions Sunderland were in 17^th position and neither of the other promoted sides was in the top three. In each of the previous four seasons, at least one of the automatically promoted teams was in a top two position at this point (Both Reading and Sheffield United in 2005/6, Wigan (eventually second) were top with 36 points after 16 games in 2004/5, WBA second after 16 and second at the end of 2003/4, Portsmouth and Leicester top and second (as they would finish) at this point of 2002/3. At least one of Watford, West Brom or Charlton are statistically likely to be automatically promoted. Many fans predicted that in August, though. Then again, they would probably have suggested Sheffield United would be in the mix too. Unless they “do a Sunderland”, the best they can hope for is the play-offs, like all but the bottom five clubs.

The table is far from irrelevant, whatever anyone tries to say. Tables do not lie any more after sixteen games than they do after forty six; they simply incorporate less information. Tables speak stats and matches speak stories: Watford players are disappointed with draws while their opponents are over the proverbial natural satellite. That is because Watford are top, and top they will stay for the rest of this year, though perhaps not the rest of the season. As well as the goal scorers, they have the team ethic necessary to navigate the Championship steeplechase.

There will be a wobble. There has to be, and some seem to think we are already feeling it. They may be right but with the international break upon us, it will be some time before we see whether that is the case. Betty has brought the team out of the other two breaks with back-to-back wins and there is no reason why Barnsley away and Burnley at home should not be games Watford can win, especially since their form away is now better than at home.

Watford can probably afford to lose two more games before Christmas and still be top when they travel to Southampton on New Year’s Day 2008. Bristol City, second for a handful of matches, can now be written out of the top two positions, especially since they travel to Vicarage Road and The Hawthorns in December. WBA also host Charlton and Wolves within the next five weeks. If they take maximum points from these three home games, they are likely to open up a gap over the third place team and could perhaps even steal pole position. For that to happen, though, their away record will have to improve.

I predict that Watford will be top of the Championship on December 31^st 2007. With the loss of ‘Boro on-loan wonder-kid Johnson and a defensive gap created by Danny Shittu going to the African Cup, the opening of the transfer window in January will be crucial to all of the teams looking for promotion and perhaps even for their subsequent possibility of surviving in the Premiership. Even the automatically-promoted teams will need to have better players and better teams than they have now. However, it is not just a question of buying in players that make the team stronger (rather than just boosting the squad) but also the capacity to avoid being raided by more-moneyed Premiership clubs when those windows open.

Aidy Boothroyd has proved he has what it takes to motivate his players. Some doubt his ability in the transfer market and it seems that the majority of those bought and brought into the squad in January 2007 have been superfluous to the team’s requirements. The summer splash brought in Jobi McAnuff from Crystal Palace and Nathan Ellington from WBA but these two players have yet to justify their transfer fees. The competition for places created by their purchase, though, may be a part of the motivation for the 23 goals scored by the players keeping them out of the team.

I have faith. Come and check it again in January.

Firsts

Watford v Portsmouth

Easter Monday, 9^th April

I got up earlier than I wanted to with legs and neck still aching from yesterday’s exertions as goalkeeper and defender in Regent’s Park (I had a great game: my team mates called me a “professional” keeper). After breakfast I pocketed my season ticket (with a little Post-It I’d written “gloves” on (the ones I used in the park are falling apart)) and cycled to Euston, trained it to the Junction and rode to Kerry’s. She made me a cuppa and Joss and I walked to the ground. I said I expected a draw today but felt that was hopeful after our defeat and their victory two days ago.

We didn’t start well and Pompey went about their business largely unchallenged so it was no surprise that Matthew Taylor had plenty of time to curl in a shot beyond Ben Foster with little more than quarter of an hour gone. The fans in blue, who’d already been quite loud, sang “Let’s all have a disco” and danced in the Vicarage Road end. Going behind did at least serve to rouse the Golden Boys and Tamas Priskin, who’d given the ball away in the run-up to their goal, dribbled well in their box and found himself tripped for a penalty just before the half-hour mark.

Joss pointed out that Darius Henderson’s absence meant someone else had to take our second league penalty of the season and it was Hameur Bouazza who stepped up. I shouted to their keeper, David James, that the achievement of a Premiership record number of clean sheets would not occur today and the Algerian international strode up and coolly proved me right. Further pressure from us followed as we howled at James whenever he had the ball (his facial hair was a tad excessive) but the final goal of the half was a complete surprise. The ball was knocked out of the area and our captain, Gavin Mahon, who has not performed at Premiership level this season, ran in threatening to unleash a left-footed half-volley that I fully expected to reach the back of the stand. Instead, he smashed it with glorious technique into the top corner of the net for his first goal of the season and perhaps the best Watford goal I’ve seen for many years. The kick-off was followed by the half-time whistle: a high to take into the dressing room.

We started the second half as we had ended the first and Priskin got his name on the score sheet for the second time since joining. Since the previous effort was in the abandoned game with Wigan, this goal counted as his first and he ran down the touchline to celebrate with Marlon King, who was sitting behind the bench. The fans went into celebratory mood and our players didn’t let up though Portsmouth had a couple of chances. “Boozer” Bouazza had a shot saved by James and later another shot was parried but he latched onto the rebound to get his second and give us four goals for the first time in the Premiership. “We want five”, we sang, and Boozer seemed especially keen to make that happen, with two long-range shots that went wide. Portsmouth’s sub netted one but when I led the “Let’s all have a disco,” chant a minute or two before the final whistle, the whole of the Rookery joined me in dancing and singing in merriment.

At the final whistle, “England’s number one” turned and threw his gloves into the stand and I caught the right one. Had the second been thrown in the same direction, it would have saved me a purchase and they would’ve been used in Regent’s Park this Sunday. As it was I gave the sweaty thing to Joss but made him promise not to use it/take it out of the house. We bumped into Jake and Matt in the shop and then walked back happy with our three points and the confidence boost ahead of the FA Cup Semi-Final on Saturday. Joss showed the glove to his mates in the close outside his house and his friend Louis exclaimed “Lucky bugger”.