Travelling fans the heroes at a game you'd not watch in your own garden
After sitting through the wretched drudgery of last night’s 1-1 at Cardiff, someone said “I would have shut the curtains if that was in the back garden.”
Not one of the small but incredible number of travelling Watford fans who surely gave more to the cause than many of those they came to watch.
Not any of the journalists covering either side, using some gallows humour to sum up a match so miserable to watch it made the thought of writing about it equally painful.
No, those were the words of Watford head coach Tom Cleverley talking about a first-half the like of which, mercifully, only comes along once or twice a season.
Indeed those first 45 minutes were so soporific that the second half, which was at best average, appeared thrilling and highly-skilled in comparison.
Here we had a team digging in for a fight against relegation up against a side that started the season so brightly but has been on the slide for a few weeks, a skid that as yet hasn’t seen the brakes applied by virtue of a new signing or two.
Cleverley shouldered much of the blame, admitting he set his side up in an attempt to try and stop the run of defeats and claim a first away clean sheet since April.
In doing so, his players paid so much attention to the need not to lose that they apparently forgot to do anything about trying to win the game.
One other comment the Watford head coach made in his post-match assessment also stuck in the mind.
When talking about trying to find the balance between being attack-minded enough to look like scoring with having a solid base that doesn’t crumble easily, Cleverley questioned “how much information the players can absorb”.
That feels very pertinent, as this is still the same group of players that hoisted the Hornets above the level of mid-table mediocrity that many had – perhaps optimistically in their minds – predicted for this season and got them in and around the top six.
However, while bobbing in and around the play-off places made us all feel a bit giddy, in the cold light of day it always felt like we were witnessing massive over-achievement.
The season started with a squad shorn of Hoedt, Asprilla and Kone – you can’t expect to replace that level of quality and experience when you spend £3m, especially if most of that is on three players who between then have played 275 minutes of first-team football.
While the recent run of performances are probably below par for the squad, the truth lies somewhere between this current series of meagre offerings and the feasts we devoured before the Christmas decorations went up.
This Watford squad, in its current iteration, is mid-table fayre.
A combination of Cleverley’s coaching, players finding form and levels we’d not seen before, confidence built on an excellent start and a slice of luck in the right places put the play-offs in view.
There is only so far you can go, though, before all of the above fail to cover the cracks that were there back in August.
The Hornets have a limited deck of cards, Cleverley has shuffled them, rearranged them and used them in different ways – but his hand is markedly poorer than those of Michael Carrick, John Eustace et al.
There are a few groans that the head coach has repeatedly referred publicly to needing new signings a lot in the last few weeks – but surely it’s refreshing that he is honest enough to say what we’re all thinking?
Last season, Valerien Isamel was regularly berated for telling anyone in earshot how pleased he was with this squad, and then somewhat stubbornly refused to add to it in January when the exact players he wanted couldn’t be brought in.
Cleverley, however, is simply saying what we can all see – whether ‘all’ includes those in charge of recruiting will be revealed in the next 16 days.
There is a school of thought that signing players in January means paying over the odds and gives limited time for them to have an effect.
Both statements may be true, but if that recruitment happens as part of a joined-up plan which looks further ahead than the next three months and is with next season in mind, then doing some business now and some more in the summer is cost-effective and forward thinking.
Last night showed, and Cleverley’s comments post-match comments confirmed, that the group of players Watford have now will not be involved in the play-off battle.
They ought not be sucked into any danger at the other end of the table, but as things stand the Hornets are what they looked before a ball was kicked – a squad with some potential but lacking the depth and options to end the season inside the top eight.
The first 45 minutes showed the dilemma the head coach has with the players currently at his disposal.
Tell them to be solid, compact and keep it tight, and they can do that – but they can’t also offer any sort of threat.
Earlier in the season, when Watford were lining up with much more cavalier intentions, they looked capable of scoring in nearly every attack but equally likely to ship one down the other end.
Remember that little game your grandparents used to play with you – pat your head and rub your belly at same time?
Oh how we chuckled as we realised that if we concentrated on patting our head then the hand meant to be rubbing our belly was actually patting it.
Switch to focussing on rubbing your belly and soon you realised you were no longer patting your head but instead rubbing it.
That’s Watford – they can do one, they can do the other, but ask them to do the two different things at the same time and they end up having one overtake the other.
Of course, there were always those who could pat and rub at the same time – in Championship terms, that’s the top four.
As with the game at Hull, Watford’s reticence to offer too much going forward was met with opponents that looked a little worried themselves about attacking, which led to the pitifully low standard of the first half.
A word for keeper Jonathan Bond, who has come into the team in place of one of the more unpopular players and gone about his business quietly, calmy and confidently.
His save in the first half from Callum Willock denied a goal, although the manner with which Moussa Sissoko was beaten in the tackle by Callum Chambers in the build-up has probably cemented him as supporter enemy number one now Dan Bachmann is out of action.
There’s always hope that after such brutal viewing, the second half would come alive. That hope was dashed pretty early as the pattern of the game was very similar.
However, once again as at Hull, the home side started to cotton on to the fact that they could actually win the game.
It needed the combination of Mattie Pollock and Francisco Sierralta to head a goalbound flick from a corner off the line, and then Bond excelled again to push away a volley from Perry Ng.
If, by now, you’re wondering why there are no mentions of anything happening around the Cardiff goal, it’s because there wasn’t a single note made. No exaggeration, there was not even something that happened coincidentally.
The hopes of clinging on for a goalless draw disappeared in the 65th minute, and it was once again a goal that will make several squirm when the video is reviewed at London Colney.
Pollock played a firm pass towards Bayo, but Chambers nipped in and stole the ball, prodding it forward towards Alex Robertson.
His attempt to turn was blocked by Sierralta but Chambers was first to the loose ball, although his heavy touch meant the ball ran away from.
Cian Ashford was being marked by Yasser Larouci but his momentum simply carried him past the wing-back and behind Pollock, whereupon he ran onto the ball and lifted a shot over Bond.
Anyone witnessing the first 65 minutes would surely have felt a 1-0 home win was nailed on at that point, if for no other reasons than in the absence of an on-target goal attempt Watford were not going to equalise.
Cleverley changed shape and went to a flat back back four, and while that combined with Cardiff understandably thinking one goal was enough to give Watford more of the ball, they did not look like scoring.
Then, in the 87th minute, Cardiff showed why they are near the foot of the table in the same moment as the Hornets gave an all-too-fleeting glimpse of what had got them into the top six.
Callum O’Dowda could have cleared the ball downfield or deep into the stands when he was on the edge of his own box, but in trying to take a touch he allowed Edo Kayembe to reach in and stab the ball back into the area.
Baah then displayed a customary burst of power and pace that carried him between two defenders and to the by-line.
His cross was met by the unmarked Bayo, three yards out in the centre of goal, and he headed home to take him to double figures for the season.
Great from Watford, awful from Cardiff.
Incredibly, having waited 87 minutes for an on-target effort, there was still time for another one as Rocco Vata gathered a half-cleared free-kick on the left, took a touch and then curled a shot that Jak Alnwick had to dive and tip round the post.
It would have been another dramatic winner, though had it gone in then the lads behind the Hatton Garden jewellery heist might have been in touch for tips on how to pull off such a steal.
Vata could surely count himself unlucky to be back on the bench after his performance at Fulham, and Cleverley’s comments afterwards echoed that sentiment.
The head coach quite pointedly said he didn’t enjoy watching the ‘give nothing away’ Watford and would rather be on the front foot.
Those words, and his praise for the impact Vata had, must be a strong hint that the Irish Under-21 international starts at Derby on Saturday.
Goalscorer Bayo, another who is low down the list of fan popularity, deserved his goal last night simply for his persistence, hard work and resilience.
Of course, giving 100% should not even need to be asked for, but such were his efforts it underlined that one or two others in yellow maybe didn’t put in a similar shift.
In all truth, it was a night when it took very little to rise above the general malaise of both sides.
There was little doubt the best performance inside the Cardiff City stadium came from the hardy, admirable contingent of Watford fans – most of whom would have had a long journey and a late night to witness a game which, as Cleverley said, you’d not want to watch if it was happening in your garden.
As journalists, we don’t pay to get in. We are provided with complimentary refreshments, our expenses are paid and in the case of this particular scribe, we can break up the journey with an overnight stay.
Travelling fans don’t just give up time and effort, they also pay for the privilege of doing so, and looking across at them as the equaliser went it there was a definite feeling that they deserved it so much.
Watford have been on a bad run, but there is a stronger sense of togetherness and support between fans and team/staff than there has been for quite some time.
However, total unity involves support from all quarters for the cause, and evidence that everyone has the same plan and is pulling in the same direction.
Derby on Saturday, Preston on Tuesday – surely any club that truly believes in its coach and his ability to build a team that can, this season or next, seriously challenge for promotion quickly provides him with the additional tools he needs to continue the job he started only 10 months ago?
