29th December 2013- Championship, Watford 0 Queens Park Rangers 0

QPR lost further ground on Championship leaders Leicester after being held to a goalless draw at Watford.

Watford were similarly shot shy, with their best moment coming eight minutes after the interval when Troy Deeney and Diego Fabbrini combined neatly but the latter’s tame shot was dropped on by Robert Green in the Rangers goal. Three minutes earlier the visitors had also gone as close as they would all afternoon, with Matt Phillips drawing a fine save from Manuel Almunia.

Watford are unbeaten in three matches under recently-appointed head coach Giuseppe Sannino and have only conceded one goal since the Italian’s arrival.

Nil-nil draws come in a variety of flavours. There are the ones where a draw suits at least one of the two sides down to the ground, often the away side, such that if it hasn’t quite been the aim at the outset it’s deemed a more than acceptable eventuality. There are those where a lack of quality is the dominant characteristic, a nil-nil by default. There are those much more open games which are nil-nil in name only, by virtue of neither side quite getting around to scoring. And there are, as my co-editor would wish me to recognise in his continuing absence, occasional total aberrations where even a goalless scoreline flatters an encounter so devoid of anything as to sap the collective will to live of those present – Scarborough (A, 1995) the example most frequently cited in textbooks.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2013-12-29

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/29-december-2013/

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