Uneventful- Watford 0 Swansea City 1

I hate missing games but due to a family situation tonight I was forced to sit this one out. However, having just checked the OS and seen they've described the game as uneventful, even I feel quite glad to have stayed in the warm.

I think this has to be looked at in the context that Swansea are doing rather well. Lets concentrate on Peterborough and Ipswich, both of whom won tonight and neither of whom will be easy. Both are must wins if we want to stay away from that 22nd spot.

Moons

http://www.watfordfc.com/page/NewsDetail/0,,10400~1988685,00.html

Tommy Mooney is making his debut as a summariser on BBC 3CR tonight. Could Malky name him as one of the seven on the bench just in case we are struggling for goals and need a bit of aggression?

I think there should be a few Mooney chants during quiet moments tonight.

If the point of it is to make people sign up for Watford World it's a good idea as for the first time in a while I'm considering it.

Watford v Swansea City- Previously...(again)

Not much has really changed since the last previously.

Swansea are now 4th with 56 points. On their travels they've won 6, drawn 7 and lost 4. On Saturday they went down 1-0 to Nottingham Forest conceding in injury time. Before that they won 1-0 at home to Peterborough and 1-0 away at Derby.

I had a dream on Saturday night that we'd win 4-0. I'm tempted to put a bet on although the game was played in front of the old Vicarage Road terrace and Luther scored one of our goals so it might have been a retro dream.

6 out of 9- Derby County 2 Watford 0

Depressing result but three games at home gives us a chance to pull away from what looks like being the only undecided relegation spot. Two out of three wins I think is realistic. The toughest test will be the first one on Tuesday.

Derby County v Watford- Previously...

This will be the 15th meeting of Derby County and Watford up in Derbyshire. To avoid being dragged into the relegation dogfight we could really do with a win but the stats do not make kind reading. We've won just 3 times there, drawing 5 and losing 6, scoring 17 and conceding 24.

Last time at Pride Park we went down 1-0 to a late Rob Hulse goal. On the last day of the season they came to the Vic and we won 3-1, however they visited again earlier this season and beat us 1-0.

Derby are currently 16th with 39 points, the same as us but we do have two games in hand over them. They've won 9 of their home games this season, drawing just once and losing 7.

We've not won away since the unlikely victory over Middlesborough on October 17th. Lets hope we can change that today.

Enough of the Foreplay- Watford 1 Newcastle United 2

A game that gave us all a reminder of what it was like to be amongst the elite for two seasons and how, when you're the smaller team, nothing seems to go your way. I find it depressing to think such thoughts but I came away deciding that I prefer it in the Championship playing average Championship teams where, by and large, you have a 50/50 chance of getting a result. Against a team like Newcastle you seem to have a 10/90 chance and not just because of their superior resources.

The officials might as well have taken to the pitch in black and white stripes rather than bright orange. They clearly favoured the big team, looked like they were on first name terms with their players and gave them free kicks every time they fell over. Any similar 'light' challenge on a Watford player went unpunished and we only got something if the foul was particularly nasty. With offsides the linesman on the Rous side ignored most things in the first half but gave everything in the second.

The opposition only really created four chances all afternoon but scored two of them. However, I've no doubt had we managed to get back into the game early enough they would've easily managed to conjure up some more. Its true to say we had the majority of the possession but they seemed content to allow us to pass it between ourselves without ever looking threatening until it was too late.

Sometimes I feel Malky's Watford believe that games are decided on the amount of passes completed rather than goals scored. So often we seem to have the opportunity to break but elect to the hold the ball up, wait for opponents and team mates to catch up and then pass the ball sideways, allowing any advantage we had to disappear.

"Get stuck in" the bloke behind me shouted, for once making perfect sense. "Yeah" said another bloke "enough of the foreplay, just stick it in". Its easy to say in a game against the league leaders and probably not as simple to do, but it applies to all our games this season. Sometimes we'd be much more effective if we just had a shot rather than trying to create the perfect goal.

As a tactic to try and beat a team that can probably create chances at will, scoring late in the game to set up a grandstand finish is probably as good as any. Unfortunately we left it slightly too late. We only managed one more attack after it was 2-1. Had Hoskins scored his goal a few minutes earlier an unlikely point might have been on.

For the record Williamson was booed but didn't get quite the amount of abuse expected. He didn't celebrate either of their goals and even seemed to fall out with his fellow defenders over our goal. Maybe they thought he was letting us score.

All in all an afternoon to forget. I look forward to things returning to normal against Derby next week.

Watford v Newcastle United- Previously...

This will be the 20th time Newcastle have visited Vicarage Road. The first time was back in 1924 when we met them in the FA Cup 3rd Round and lost 1-0. Six of those meetings have been in cup competitions including three played in 1988/9. Our record at home against them reads won 7, drawn 9 and lost 3, scoring 28 and conceding 21. The last time they beat us at home was in 90/91 when we lost 2-1 in the old Division 2.

Back in early December we lost 2-0 in a closely fought game at St.James'. The 'Toon last visited us on the final day of the Premiership season in 2006/7 when we bid goodbye to the top flight with a 1-1 draw. Marlon King equalised with a penalty for us.

Newcastle are currently top with 66 points from 32 games. Their away record for this season is won 6, drawn 5, lost 4. The losses were at Blackpool, Scunny, Forest and Derby. In their last away match they drew 1-1 with Swansea. Last Saturday they beat Preston 3-0 at home.

Hopefully Mike Williamson will decide that he is fit enough to face us given that last time he was involved in a Hornets fixture he self-diagnosed he wasn't up to the job thus forcing a move to Pompey. What a shame he managed to escape instead of Smudger. He's told the Newcastle website that he'll put his goodwill to one side for the afternoon. I'm sure we'll all do the same.

O'Connor Banned

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/5022936.Irons_midfielder_banned_for_Cleverley_reaction/?ref=mr

Turns out I was wrong. O'Connor has been banned for three games as well. Nigel Adkins rather went down in my estimation when he tried to make out that O'Connor had simply been pushing Cleverley away. Good that justice has been done.

Musical Chairs- Scunthorpe United 2 Watford 2

Here's a great game you can have with unsuspecting away fans. Firstly, print on your tickets 'Please sit in your allocated seat'. Then tell half the fans who enter that actually they can sit wherever they like. Only tell half of them 'cos otherwise the game isn't nearly as much fun. Cordon off just enough of the stand so that there aren't quite enough seats for the amount of tickets you've sold. Finally play some loud music, most of it featuring Cheryl Cole, and intersperse it with farting noises as your sound system slowly packs up. Stand back and watch the ensuing chaos. No-one wins but its great fun.

Welcome to the world of Glanford Park. Actually, apart from this organised chaos its a great little ground. It seems really old fashioned considering it was built in 1988 with some pillars in the way and the seats all crammed close together. But its got more character in one row of seats than some of the new grounds have in their entirety. I'd happily go back time and again. Its also got those rare vital elements that make the matchday experience hassle free. Its very easy to find being just off the end of the M181, it has bags of parking and there are plenty of food options nearby.

The game was quite difficult to follow as the seat I ended up with after musical chairs was directly behind the goal so I saw 90% of the game through the mesh of the net. For the whole game we looked far more dangerous than they did and definitely deserved all three points. Our defence got caught out once by the sort of slick move we're so good at pulling off to go one down. However the only surprise when Danny Graham got the equaliser was how long it had taken us to find the net. He looked so pleased to have got on the scoresheet and those of us in the front rows got to celebrate with him which was nice.

The ref had had an odd game pleasing neither set of fans. However, having seen Cleverley's not so clever challenge I think he was probably right to show the red card. What he definitely got wrong was not to show the Scunthorpe player red as well for the two punches he then threw at Tom as they got back up from the challenge. He was too busy enjoying the theatrics of immediately pulling out his red card to notice that a common assault was going on two feet in front of him.

Even with ten we looked better than them and when Eustace headed us into the lead with just minutes left our end went mad. I never thought I'd use these words in the same sentence but John's celebration was one of the campest I've ever seen by a footballer. I probably wouldn't say that to his face though.

It was the man in black who'd have the last word giving a penalty in dying throws of the game when the ball was kicked into Jay DeMerits face. Even behind the mesh it was apparent this wasn't a deliberate handball and 9 times out of 10 a corner would've been the result. Not for Mr.Theatrics however and although Loach went the right way he couldn't reach the spotkick. There was time for one final bit of controversy as the penalty taker tried to prevent Loach getting the ball out of the goal quickly which resulted in our goalkeeper being floored. Yet, he was the one who got a yellow card.

Both this and the punches on Cleverley can clearly be seen on The Football League Show. It would be nice to think some retrospective action might be taken but I'm sure this would be a pointless waste of a thought.

Scunthorpe United v Watford- Previously...

I'm slightly hesitant to write this as some recent previews seem to have been followed by atrocious localised weather conditions at the ground in question. However if the game survives the snowstorms, hurricanes or heatwaves that may now be on their way to Glanford Park this will be the 11th game Watford have played away at Scunthorpe United. We've won 5, drawn 3 and lost 2, scoring 11 and conceding 6.

All but one of our away games against The Iron took place at The Old Showground, where Scunthorpe played before Glanford Park was built in 1988. Our only visit to their current stadium was back in 2007/8 in the Championship when Aidy Boothroyd's Watford won 3-1. Adam Johnson, Darius Henderson and Marlon got our goals.

This season we met back in November at the Vic where we won 3-0 with two H goals and one from Danny Graham, which was the last time he scored for us.

Scunny are currently 17th, two places behind us. They've got 36 points from 31 games compared to our 38 from 29 games. At home this season their record reads won 7, drawn 3 and lost 5. So far in February they've lost to Palace, West Brom and Leicester but beat Barnsley at home 2-1 on Tuesday night scoring a winner 5 minutes into injury time.

We could do with starting to win away games again. It was unfortunate that the golden opportunity to start was taken away from us on Tuesday night and that we'll have to wait until late April now for that particular opponent. However tomorrow's is certainly a game we should be able to win if we can just start replicating some of our home form on the road.