Unbeaten in seven

Watford have not lost since the day of my birthday party when my 'Boro friend John came and delighted in seeing his team triumph 1-0 at home. It had been a mixed handful of games before that, with wins punctuating away defeats in "the most competitive league" in the country (TM). Since then, however, it has been mostly draws that have kept us unbeaten and as a consequence we have hardly moved in terms of relative league position. On Boxing Day we went one up but were held by Cardiff on Malky's first return. Clearly, if we keep this up, we will finish exactly where I predicted. I've still yet to go this season, though. Mediocrity rarely felt so rewarding.

Sweet Dreams are made of (most of ) this

Starting a fortnight ago (2-0 at Bristol City), Watford won three games on the trot, including our biggest ever away victory (at Millwall's Den, 6-1) and then a 3-1 home defeat of Middlesbrough, Danny Graham latching on to a poor back pass to score after 17 seconds and give Hanna a great start to her first ever football game.

Last night, though, we were 3-0 down to Swansea (with Brendan Rodgers "Short, greedy bastard, you're just a...", Liam led) with three-quarters of the game gone and there seemed no way back as they outpassed us and outplayed us in the middle. Out of nothing, a Troy Deeney goal sparked a remarkable comeback from the 'Orns, that saw us score a second and have a 95th minute equaliser disallowed.

Though I have not been blogging much about the team's fortunes since my return I have been going and since we are in a very respectable 4th place after 9 matches, many fans feel that pre-season predictions of relegation were misplaced. Who am I to disagree?

Hello Newcastle, goodbye Burnley.

In the course of researching an answer to a comment on one of my Sportingo pieces, I was surprised to see just how much Newcastle spend in comparison with other Premiership teams. They have the fifth highest wage-bill and have spent ridiculous amounts in the transfer market over the past 10 years. It is slightly gratifiying then to see that this has not bought them success. They are relegated with Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion from the Premiership and will be visitors at Vicarage Road next season. Thus my prediction that last year´s play-off winners would go straight back down again was proved wrong as Hull lost at home but finished in just-safe 17^th. Wolves and Birmingham won automatic promotion and Burnley won the play-off final against Sheffield United, preventing the latter “righting” that perceived Tevez-related wrong.