Watford Fan View: There’s no such thing as the perfect game

There were a few unusual things about Saturday’s opening fixture at Southampton: The hipster’s pre-match meal of halloumi fritters (yes, I am everything that’s wrong with modern football), the unique sensation of being handed a tenner at the turnstile (a welcome gesture from Virgin Media backing the admirable ‘twenty’s plenty’ campaign for away ticket pricing that also managed to make the club they sponsor look greedy); and Étienne Capoue not only having a shot on target but scoring a goal. It was all slightly bewildering.

But there were some familiar things too. The starting line-up, if not formation, was very Quique Sanchez Flores and almost as if the transfer window had not opened in south west Hertfordshire. The sense of panic (hello, old friend) in the first minute when Heurelho Gomes palmed a fizzing free-kick from Dusan Tadic towards Miguel Britos, and the Uruguayan looked hell-bent on stabbing home the rebound, forcing Gomes to make a second smart save, was palpable.

And so were the shouts from some of the supporters behind us. You know the ones.

‘Second ball!’

‘No, not there, there!’

‘Close him down.’

‘Don’t rush in.’

These often contradictory instructions are bellowed, I suspect, out of anxiety and frustration at the inability to meaningfully influence events on the pitch. And they are always, always wise after the event.

When Jose Holebas got free on the left in the second half, we could all see that what he needed to do was put the ball over with a deft touch, as if throwing a shuttlecock into a wastepaper bin, instead of firing it across, like he was trying to send a watermelon over a high wall using a hammock as a catapult. ‘Noooo, too hard!’

When low crosses flashed across the six-yard box, we could all see that what we needed was either Troy Deeney or Odion Ighalo to slide in at the far post. ‘There’s no one there!’

When Étienne Capoue beat three players in the centre circle, popping the ball through the Southampton player’s legs like he was playing crazy golf in a broom cupboard, only to blaze the ball as high over the bar as it was wide, we all knew that the better option would have been a cool finish into the bottom corner. ‘Get the shot on target!’

When Southampton broke forward or had strength in numbers, we could see that Watford’s players needed to get back behind the ball more quickly. ‘Don’t give them space!’

When Heurelho Gomes came off his line, we all knew that what he needed to do was connect cleanly and punch the ball away, or pluck it from the air, rather than clatter into his team-mate, allowing the ball to fall to Nathan Redmond, who threaded it into the net. ‘Catch it!’

‘Football is a game of mistakes, and whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins.’ That’s a quote attributed to the great Dutch player Johan Cruyff and although whether he actually said it or not is up for debate, it has a ring of truth. However, I’d argue that it’s not necessarily the number of mistakes but the severity of the consequences that really matters.

It was a mistake for Britos to hit the ball straight at his own goal instead of perform Max Whitlock-style gymnastics to hook it over his own head, but he got away with it because of Gomes’ agility. It was also a mistake for Gomes to come charging off his line just before Southampton’s equaliser, but at least the Brazilian goalkeeper is consistent. He’s spent his two years here punching more than catching so it wasn’t unexpected, it was simply the wrong option on that occasion. In the great game of percentages that is goalkeeping, he makes more than his fair share of good decisions. (And by good decisions, we really mean ones that had a good outcome).

The reality is that bad players make mistakes and good players make mistakes. There are serious errors that lead to conceding a goal, and there are seemingly inconsequential ones, but every game we watch is one mistake after another.

And yet, as we watch the season unfold, we are lured into the false belief that each game is a step towards a state of perfection that will eventually be attained if the full-back could just stop firing his crosses off for a throw. That’s not the case. The aim of the game is to make fewer and less costly mistakes, while pressuring the opposition to slip up.

Some time during his first spell as Watford manager, Graham Taylor had heard enough of someone sitting in the Main Stand, just a few yards behind the bench, shouting, ‘Second ball,’ every time there was a loose passage of play.

‘Second ball… Second ball… Second ball…’

Eventually, Taylor turned round and said to Mr Second Ball’s mate: ‘Hey, if you could shout at them to win the first ball, perhaps your friend can rest his voice for a bit?’

The fabled ‘second ball’ is the result of someone failing to win or control the first ball. In a way, the entire game is a succession of second balls. Perhaps this proves our man in the stand behind Graham Taylor correct, but it also renders the shout from the crowd redundant.

However, this column is not intended only to rail against the imprecise, cliché-ridden lexicon of football spouted from the television studios and the terraces, it’s more an observation that, to the fans behind me, and perhaps to many others, it seemed as if Watford had done almost nothing right all afternoon.

Which was peculiar, because Watford played extremely well for 25 minutes, before fading either side of half-time and then digging in to preserve a point that at times looked unlikely, particularly after Ben Watson’s tactical foul and sending off. At the final whistle, half a dozen of them were out on their feet and slumped to the turf. The effort of pressing and trying to maintain Walter Mazzarri’s 3-5-2 formation in both defence and attack on a hot day had clearly told.

Compared to the listless display at St Mary’s on that cold, wet January evening at the start of the year, which perhaps spelled the beginning of the end of the love affair with Quique Sanchez Flores for many, it was night and day.

But there were also signs not to expect an overnight revolution. For all that the opening 25 minutes suggested Watford had been revitalised and unshackled by the summer break and the arrival of a new coach, they managed only one shot on target (Capoue’s goal) in 90 minutes.

Mazzarri was far more animated when his players were out of possession than when they were attacking, suggesting that he’s concerned first with positioning, discipline and containment. And for those supporters who crave game-changing substitutions, the replacements were conservative and like-for-like. As tempting as it was to call for the pace of Matej Vydra or Jerome Sinclair towards the end, the pragmatic approach, particularly once reduced to ten men, was to settle for a very good point.

We can take it as read that Watford are a work in progress (it’s pretty much a permanent state for any team). We know deep down that they’re all trying to win the second ball, and the third, and the fourth, so there’s really no need to shout out.

We know that human beings tire after physical effort and that intensity levels can drop towards the end of a game. And we can assume that when Holebas thumps the cross into the neighbouring postcode, he’s actually trying to land it on Deeney’s head. We also know that there a several new players to come into the side over the next few weeks, although we should be mindful of hailing any of them as ‘The Answer’ because they will also make mistakes.

We can all identify mistakes once they have happened. The harder job is anticipating them and avoiding them down there on the pitch, in the heat of the moment, without the benefit of 360-degree vision, video replay or hindsight. Fortunately that job doesn’t fall to us, it falls to the players. And, tempting though it is to offer our help continually for 90 minutes, it’s worth bearing in mind they can’t hear our individual instructions over all the other individual instructions.

THE NEXT BLOG… will be posted on Thursday and will remember, briefly, when Watford won 5-1 at Chelsea.

Tales from the Vicarage is a series of books about Watford FC. To find out more click here.