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Debating if play-offs are a possibility make these heady days indeed
It’s an indication of how well the season is going when you leave Vicarage Road and are a bit disappointed Watford didn’t win more handsomely.
Earlier this year we would have taken a scrappy, scabby, scrambled win of any kind to end a drought at Vicarage Road that stretched back into 2023.
Now a thoroughly-deserved 1-0 success over Oxford is enjoyed but with a hint of disappointment that the Hornets didn’t take the three points with greater comfort.
The stats show only fans who have received a congratulations card from the King will remember a better home start to campaign, as the eight wins and a draw witnessed at Vicarage Road this season is the best since 1931/32.
Quite clearly Tom Cleverley has turned things around in WD18.
Fans can attend home games with confidence, and know they will see exciting attacking football, even if it isn’t always for the full 90 minutes.
The first-half showing last night was decidedly average, but was then easily forgotten as Giorgi Chakvetadze, Kwadwo Baah and Imran Louza orchestrated a dazzling second 45 minutes.
Just as at Sheffield Wednesday, the Hornets were slow to start but then were in total control later on.
It’s slightly churlish to point out that patchy beginnings is becoming an unwanted trend, but just as inconsistency from game-to-game needs attention, being on the front foot sooner will also have to be addressed.
Nonetheless, Watford are a totally different proposition at Vicarage Road these days and anyone in the summer predicting they would end their final game before the November international break sitting fourth in the table would probably have been laughed out of town.
Cleverley inherited a team that was sliding down the table. He secured safety quite quickly, shored up the defence and made the Hornets hard to beat.
During the summer he saw Ismael Kone, Yaser Asprilla and Wes Hoedt leave the club, and was able to spend only a tiny fraction of the money those sales realised.
In terms of summer spending, Watford paid out the 21st lowest amount in the Championship.
Yet they are in the play-off mix and, with 15 games played, we have surely gone past the stage of this being an extended honeymoon period.
The Hornets are where they are because they deserve to be. You don’t fluke your way to eight wins from 15 league games.
Only 20 times in the club’s history have they made a better start to a league season – seven of those ended in promotion, two more took the club to the play-offs, and one was when the Hornets finished second in the old First Division.
Of course, that means there are 10 other occasions when a good start didn’t lead to some sort of success – but the foundations are definitely there and what many pundits were predicting would be a scramble to avoid relegation looks set to be anything but.
The win over Oxford ended in somewhat nervous fashion as the visitors, with nothing to lose and only one goal behind, threw caution to the wind in the closing minutes.
That was largely due to Watford not finishing them off when they had the chance to, but they were also aided by a quite remarkable display of refereeing from Anthony Backhouse.
Remarkably awful, that is.
The official’s decisions became increasingly bizarre and infuriating as the second half wore on, and it’s no surprise that Cleverley eventually found his way in Mr Backhouse’s notebook.
Had the game gone on any longer, he may well have started taking the names of home supporters and handing out free-kicks for violent coughing or ungentlemanly exasperation.
When Vakoun Bayo was rugby-tackled to the floor, Mr Backhouse let the game go on. Playing advantage in that situation seemed fair enough, but Watford lost possession quite quickly.
When the ball next went dead, the referee paused the game – not to punish the offender but to show Bayo a yellow for his protestations.
Later he brandished James Morris a yellow card for a perfectly good challenge in front of the dug-outs – a tackle that happened right under the nose of his assistant, who merely signalled for a throw-in.
Then, right at the death, the ball was put wide by an Oxford player who then held his head in his hands.
That clearly wasn’t enough of a clue for Mr Backhouse who paused, and then awarded a corner.
Had the visitors scored from that, the officials would have received an even angrier reception as they headed towards the tunnel than the one they actually encountered.
When the fans of the team that has just won 1-0 interrupt their celebrations to roundly jeer the officials, it’s a pretty good indication of how bad they were.
The lethargic first-half was of Watford’s own making though, and the created very little in a pretty dull 45 minutes.
Oxford didn’t offer much themselves, and it needed one of the two sides to grasp the nettle after the break.
During the interval, Cleverley tweaked his team, moving Edo Kayembe further forward to allow Baah to push up the pitch.
Those two alterations were predicated upon Louza being able to control the centre of the park on his own.
He did that exceptionally well, leaving well behind the recent performances that have made him largely anonymous.
The Moroccan undoubtedly has a great degree of skill and vision, but last night was the first time he has shown it in a good while.
His pass, early in the second half, which sent Festy Ebosele clear through the middle was one which few among the squad could either see or deliver.
The Irish international should have done better with it but paused when he got into the box and the chance was gone.
It was, though, the sort of pass Louza was spraying around regularly 18 months ago. A return to that form over a long period will make him hard to leave out.
Not long after, Watford scored the decisive goal.
A fine interception from Ryan Andrews enabled him to send Baah running one-on-one against Ciaron Brown.
It was an unfair foot-race as Baah started five yards one side of the defender and simply sped past him into the box, whereupon he played a very smart cut-back.
Bayo was there and although Jamie Cumming saved his first well-struck effort, the striker managed to force the follow-up past the keeper.
It capped a great week for Bayo, who was the toast of the town following his four goals last Saturday and has been called up by the Ivory Coast for the first time in six years.
He may never be the most natural and prolific scorer – even his winner yesterday only just found its way into the net – but Bayo is a tireless and willing worker.
Unlike Premier League sides who can afford the likes of a Haaland or have the squad to play different shapes, in the Championship and below clubs have to compromise.
Mileta Rajovic is probably a more likely goalscorer, and obviously that is a key feature for a striker.
But he was contributing very little else outside the box before he went out on loan.
Bayo is roughly a one-in-four scorer during his career, a ratio that is improved if you factor in more than a third of his appearances have been as a substitute.
Right now, it feels that Bayo has more to offer in the system Watford are playing than Rajovic could.
The key to if sending the Dane out on loan was a wise move is whether Daniel Jebbison can, at some point, provide Cleverley with a viable option when the goals dry up for Bayo.
Bayo should have put the game to bed when he smartly dropped back to meet Yasser Larouci’s cross.
Again, Cumming saved Oxford with an outstretched leg and, while it’s easy to castigate Bayo, the keeper made a very good stop.
We’ve managed to get this far with only fleeting references to Chakvetadze and, while enthusing about him too much feels like it’s leading towards an uncomfortable January transfer window, it would be doing the Georgian a massive disservice not to talk about quite how exceptional he was – again.
Watford fans have been treated to being able to enjoy the skills of many great players, both recently and through the decades.
Younger supporters will obviously remember Joao Pedro, Ismaila Sarr and Richarlison.
Those of an older vintage will reel off names like John Barnes, Nigel Callaghan and Stewart Scullion.
All of the aforementioned have played top-flight football in England, and surely Chakvetadze will do the same at some point.
He is already one of the Championship’s stand-out performers as his ability to find pockets of space to collect the ball and turn before accelerating and weaving his way towards the box has caused problems for every team Watford have faced.
Hopefully, even if as seems likely some big-money offers are received for Chakvetadze, the owner will at least allow Watford the chance to keep hold of him beyond January.
The value of a player with such mercurial skills is unlikely to drop between January and the end of the season, and should having him in the squad be the decisive factor in getting Watford into the play-offs or promotion, then the money the club would receive would comfortably replace any fee they might forego.
Chakvetadze is an individual that opponents have to stop and think about, one that will require special attention and some plans rather than just rocking up and not preparing for what he can do.
It’s those players who can be the difference between achievement and also-ran.
Keeping hold of Chakvetadze in January, come what may, would show the club putting on-field aspirations ahead of off-field budgetary considerations.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves now.
After the international break comes perhaps the most gruelling batch of fixtures all season.
Watford face 11 Championship games in 44 days, including long away-trips to Plymouth, Cardiff, Hull and Burnley.
If this first 15 games is a fair point at which to assess things and perhaps agree that Watford could be a play-off contender, then when 26 league fixtures have been completed at the end of January 4 we’ll be in a position to decide if ‘could be’ can be replaced with ‘are’.
Having finished 15th last season, won once at home in the second half of the campaign and sold £30m+ of players during the summer, these are lovely and surprising debates to be having.
