We've had a better start to the season than last year and sit in fifth behind Burnley, QPR, Leicester and Forest, only the latter of whom we've played (1-1 at the Vic). We lost at Blackpool and Blackburn and put six past Bournemouth and five past Barnsley, contributing to us being top scorers in the league. Meanwhile, Palace, who tamed us in a boring play-off final in May, are second bottom and sure to come back down. Automatic promotion is a long way away and not going to be any easier this year than last.
It's still early, obviously, and not until Nov 9th will many of the top sides have played any one (or two) of the others, by which time - admittedly - there may be a different look to the top six.
I know it doesn't count after just two games but our 6-1 demolition of newly-promoted Bournemouth at the Vic put us top of the Championship on goal difference. Troy Deeney scored the Horns' first hat trick since 2003. I will make sure I see some games this year.
Drama. I saw before I left for the pub that our first-choice keeper had been injured during the warm-up. When I got to the pub, the stand-in was prostrate, head being supported by a medic. Sixteen minutes were added to the first half and nineteen year old academy graduate, Jack Bonham, came on to play in our biggest game for years.
A defensive mix-up gave Leeds the lead. The Horns needed to better Hull's result so defeat was not in the script. Almen Abdi took a pass after a great run by Ikechi Anya and slotted a great shot into the top corner. 1-1. Game on.
In Hull, the champions Cardiff took the lead. As it stood, Watford were automatically promoted. There was a long time left, though. Before Watford's second half had begun, Hull scored and minutes later took the lead. Nothing Watford could do would be enough.
Watford were nervy. There were no great chances and then Troy Deeney dove in and got himself a second yellow and marching orders. Head-in-hands time.
Because of the stoppage time, Hull's game was in its 90th minute when we still had more than quarter of an hour to play. The screen flipped to Hull's game: they had a penalty. Saved! But still, they were 2-1 up. Back to Watford: a chance, another chance. Agh. The screen split to show Hull again. Cardiff had a penalty now. They scored: 2-2. The game finished minutes later. Watford had plenty of time to score and go up in second place but with 10 men and not looking like they could. The fans got behind them, lifted the atmosphere for a push for that goal. There was pressure, there were half-chances. Nothing. We edged closer and closer to the 90th minute. Leeds broke, long ball, player took a weak chip. And our young keeper, what was he doing? It was not clear what he intended but the ball hit his palms and kept going...and into the net. 2-1 down with a few minutes left and no way back.
It was saddening and the poor young keeper will never forget his nightmare. On the way home, though, I was able to appreciate the excitement and drama of the previous two hours and got home to tell my too-young-to-understand-anything-but-the-breathlessness son the story.
We're in the playoffs against Leicester, while Brighton play Palace. No way I'll be able to get a ticket for either leg so just have to hope we make it to the final and there are enough to go around.
I can't remember such an exciting final day and I won't be there. Watford are third, a point behind second-placed Hull with one game each to play. Hull have failed in the last two games to get the points they need to ensure automatic promotion, giving the Horns the opportunity to close a gap that opened up again after we went to their stadium and won. This Saturday, Watford host mid-table nothing-to-play-for Leeds, while Hull are visited by already-champions Cardiff. They have the harder game on paper and have already choked twice but who knows? Watford's game is live on Sky so although I couldn't get one of the tickets (it's sold out) I will be watching as it all plays out. Come on you Horns!
Watford are in third (though Leicester have two games in hand and are only three points behind) after thumping Birmingham 4-0 at St Andrews. The Horns have the best away record in the division and - as the BBC reports below - have scored the most goals.
One of our many loans from Udinese, the Czech international Matej Vydra, is our top scorer with 19 so far this season while Troy Deeney is having a great season and has netted 12 times. I have not been. My little boy is 18 months old and I will have to think carefully about whether I would buy a season ticket if we went up. It's great to have such a dilemma: with 10 points between us and seventh place, a play-off place looks likely with 14 games left.
The Horns aren't doing too bad in Yorkshire. A 6-1 win at Elland Road on 10th of this month was followed up with a 4-1 win at Hillsborough tonight. We've gone undefeated in the month and moved right up to 8th. Not going too bad: the team seems to have gelled.
There have been several games since I posted last but coming from behind to beat Burnley at the Vic, followed by a draw at second-placed West Ham and a victory at Derby's Pride Park has done wonders for our league position. One of our loanees - Alex Kacaniklic from Fulham (the other is ManU's Tomasz Kuszczak) - got assists for both goals on Saturday and scored the week before that. We've now reached a giddy 14th and another season's safety has been ensured.
I stuck a tenner on us today, fancying us to beat a Reading side that are up in the playoff positions. The match was live on Sky Sports 2 so I was able to stream it through EPL site (a bit laggy, but ok). The Horns scored first when Cummings stabbed into his own goal but Reading were back in it before half time and looked likely to get the late goal that the commentator started tempting fate about. Their sub came on and sunk us.
The fourth round tie is on the Friday and you have to have been to another game this season to have a chance of getting ONE ticket. Luckily - I suppose - Virgin gave us a month's free ESPN and they are screening it so I'll be watching a second live match on a screen at home this month. It won't be the feed that lags in that match.
I am back in Britain and made the Vic one of my first stop-offs for the Hull match, which we lost 2-1. Since then we have drawn 2-2 at home to Norwich and an Elland Road game finished the same. On Good Friday, captain John Eustace scored after 43 seconds to win the home game against Barnsley and today we lost 4-2 after twice being ahead at Leicester.
Entrenched firmly in mid-table, there is little for Watford to play for when soon-to-be-champions QPR visit next Saturday. I may go but Joss has now established himself at the back of the ground with some friends and the youngest Watford Boy will not be born for three more months. I warned in the last entry that my football blog may be coming to a close. With Joss' evolution that time seems to be upon me.
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".
Watford romped past Reading 3-0 on Saturday to ensure Championship survival in what every fan hopes was their nadir season. Danny Graham scored either side of a Heidar Helgusson left-footer. The Sheffield Wednesday v Crystal Palace match this Saturday will decide which of those two drops with Peterborough and Plymouth. Watford´s result at Coventry will be irrelevant for both teams.
As the manager and local paper have emphasised over and over, "survival" was all we hoped for this season as the mismanagement of the funds from an-always-going-to-be-one season in the Premiership with which this blog began left us worse off than if we had never won the single most lucrative game in world football. How the fuck does that work? Ask Graham Simpson.
Colleagues of mine who shared Friday drinks from the few years before I left London will know that I am an arrogant pedant who is too keen on the invitation “Wanna bet on it?”. My favourite win until recently was against a Russian friend who told us that she had been to the Kazakhstani capital. I won a couple of quid telling her that she hadn´t.
Watford´s guarantee of Championship football in 2010-11 along with a poor season for Oldham in League 1 means that I have won a two-and-a-half-year old wager with Luke that the Latics would (not) be in a higher league positon than the Hornets on 7th December 2010. I was sweating on it for a while but – good sport that he is – I received a congratulatory message from him following our victory.
Oh, and a hundred pounds is not to be sneezed at by someone who hasn´t had a full time job for two years.
I may have been at South America´s largest market (Otavalo, Ecuador) but despite the multi-hued blankets, belts, bags, bracelets and bowls, my mind was focussed on just one colour.
In three weeks, Watford have lost two six-pointers (at Hillsborough and home to Palace) and drawn our other three games: two home points against Boro and Brom, one brought back from Deepdale. Three points in five is relegation form so today´s Vic victory against second-bottom Plymouth only brings temporary relief (whilst sealing Argyle´s fate). Our three main companions in the fight against ending twenty-second in the Championship (the two mentioned first, and Scunthorpe) all lost today. QPR, by beating Palace, are now probably safe on 51 points, barring some significant form-breaking results.
The bottom looks like this:
Team
Pld
GD
Pts
Fixtures
Watford
42
-10
48
QPR (a) Leicester (a) Reading (h) Coventry (a)
Scunthorpe
42
-24
47
Bristol C (h) Reading (h) Donc (a) Forest (h)
Crystal Palace
43
-3
46
Derby (a) West Brom (h) Sheffield Wed (a)
Sheffield Wed
43
-19
45
Sheffield United (h) Cardiff (a) Palace (h)
Plymouth
43
-19
41
Peterborough
43
-28
31
Watford have three away games in their final four matches while Scunthorpe have three home ones out of four. Cystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday each only have three matches left, with Palace travelling twice and Wednesday once. Palace are only where they are because of a 10-point administration deduction but it is already clear that the final relegation position will only be decided on the final day, when they travel to Sheffield. I am not going to make a prediction. I just hope my fingernails hold out. How do the words go? “For you I bleed myself dry”...
The Nobel Prize winning Danish physicist Niels Bohr famously stated “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future”. I cannot better that, but would like to add that it is made that little more difficult by inconsistency in the elements that you are basing that prediction on.
Sportingo writer Donna Gee was a little hard on herself in claiming that she had been foolish with her assertion that the Championship was the most competitive league in Europe (shortly before seeing Newcastle and West Bromwich Albion begin to run away with things at the top, much in the manner of the boring Chelsea and Manchester United domination of the Premiership).
With her beloved Cardiff beating West Brom at the the Hawthorns yesterday (shortly after a run of one point in four matches had ended), they are back up to third just three days after she was bemoaning them dropping out of the play-off positions. Meanwhile, Leicester, who had suffered only one defeat in ten games to see them enter December in third place, lost two on the trot to immediate rivals, conceding eight goals in the process and dropping to seventh.
It seems clear that the best prediction concerning the play-off positions of the Championship (at this stage at least) is that it will remain unpredictable. Indeed, the only element at the top of the table with a degree of consistency is Newcastle´s home record. They are not too poor away, either, and I would not be surprised to see them dominate this league the same way Wigan and Reading did when they were Champions.
Although West Brom are a good footballing side, three defeats at home already this season indicates that they are not going to maintain a steady challenge to the Magpies. They might well end up second, but I reckon there will be fewer points between them and third than there are between them and Newcastle.
Hmmm, this prediction lark is fun, isn´t it?
For further unpredictability, however, look no further than Middlesborough, who thrashed QPR 5-1 at Loftus Road on Saturday only to lose at home 3-0 to Blackpool days later, with the Tangerines just getting over their first home defeat of the season, and this by mid-table Barnsley.
QPR, like Leicester, also conceded eight goals in two defeats and have dropped to twelfth from fifth. So now Swansea and Nottingham Forest, who each took a mediocre four points from the last six, seem to be on the front foot, while a meagre one win in three matches has taken Blackpool back into the play-off places.
The pattern of unpredictability in the bigger picture can be broken down. Just about any team who goes on a good run of four or five games (let´s say winning ten or twelve points from them) will likely have a place in the play-off positions at the end of it.
Even Watford, who have consistently lost one match for each win since the end of September, briefly found themselves in a giddy sixth position after beating QPR 3-1 on Monday night. When your average point rate is less than one and a half per game (as the Hornets´ is since back to back wins in early September), you should not really find yourself moving upwards in the league.
Not, unless, this is indeed a competitive league where most teams have the potential to beat each other, precluding consistency and defying prediction.
Look at Reading, who appear to be withering away hopelessly in nineteenth position in the league until you realise that there are as many points (eleven) between them and sixth place as there are between sixth and top of the table. It may not seem any comfort for them at the moment, but that gap is bridgable, though whether Brendan Rogers is the man to provide the results to span it is another question.
I think Newcastle will take this league at a canter but as for the positions immediately below them, I think it is fair to assume that there will be lots more comings and goings yet. And if I am wrong? Donna, I hope you will stick up for me.
After our 3-1 victory over Derby in our final game, WFC finished 13th in the table. Tommy Smith predictably retained his Player of the Season award, Grzegorz Rasiak won Goal of the Season while Lloyd Doyley was players` player. I texted Kerry to see if Joss wanted a season ticket for next year and my reply took the form of photo without text. A picture is worth 1000 words, they say, though in this case maybe just the one.
Tommy Smith is a shoo-in for Player of the Season (again). Today the Horns won 3-2at Coventry, Smith getting his sixteenth goal of the season while Tamas Priskin scored his thirteenth and Grzegorz Rasiak netted his seventh. This was our first victory after two defeats and two draws previous to those. Brendan Rodgers has proved himself more than a worthy successor for Aidy Boothroyd.
The Golden Boys got a fantastic three points at Darlington on Saturday to take us above them, Don Cowie getting his third WFC goal a few minutes after they scored a 13th minute own goal. Tonight, though, we let in another late one to draw 2-2 with second from bottom Southampton. Another new boy, Aleksandrs Cauna, put us equal in the first half and Tamas Priskin looked to have sealed it in the second. We`re in a safe looking 15th now, though with no games in hand.
I have been able to try beer from five different local breweries here in Bariloche and there are a few I have yet to partake of. Had Yeska in bottles from the supermarket, have been to the Antares bar and tried small glasses of each of their 8 beers (mine´s the Imperial Stout), tried a Diuka stout in a "natural comida" restaurant visited the Linea Sur microbrewery last night and popped into the Blest cevezeriatoday, though Jun suffered from her (less than) half a frambuesa.
Meanwhile, WFC conceded another after-hours penalty at Cardiff on Wednesday and went down 2-1 but got a point at Ipswich yesterday in a goalless draw. Still 16th, which I´ll drink to.
In our recent season in the Premiership, Watford conceded the latest goal of the entire season (96th minute) in their away game at Bolton to lose the match. Today, the ref has gone a minute better and Sheffield Wednesday have equalised at the Vic three minutes from the ton. What with the phantom goal against Reading, surely the Horns have a claim to be the unluckiest side in the land? The younger Watford Boy - and doubtless thousands others - saw it differently. His text, which was as succinct as ever, in its entirety: "2-2 ref not fit 2 ref". Anyway, Derby lost 4-2 so we moved up a place in the table on goal difference. It`s not all bad...
No text from the younger Watford Boy to let me know last night so I checked the BBC today to see we had got another three home points in our relegation clash with Forest. Tanas Priskin and Grzegorz Rasiak again did the business and, unlike last season, it is the home record this year that is so much better than the teams around us. 2-1 and another place up in the table.
Joss texted me to let me know the Horns had triumphed at the Valley. After Don Cowie had got his second goal for WFC, Charlton scored twice to be ahead at the break but second half goals from Grzegorz Rasiak and Tamas Priskin must give us confidence for the home game against Notts Forest.
