Monthly Archives: December 2014

26th December 2014- Championship, Watford 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1

BBC: Wolves moved to within four points of the Championship’s top six after Nouha Dicko’s winner at Watford.

Sky: The Hornets had gone into the contest seeking a fourth straight success, but they were completely outplayed in the first half as the visitors spurned numerous opportunities to gain the upper hand.

BHappy: Wolves weren’t anything special, but they were more than good enough to merit a win against another perfunctory effort from far too many of those in yellow.  Debates in previous years have challenged, not unreasonably, the tradition of such a high stock being placed in mere effort… but effort, or rather spirit buys such a lot of goodwill (seasonal or otherwise) and there was precious little spirit about this performance.  Contrast with the performance of Wolves’ centre-half Danny Batth, whose brutal, one-dimensional and thoroughly effective approach to the central defender’s art saw him take precisely one touch of the ball (and as much collateral damage as required) to deal with each incident that he was involved in.  Other of Wolves’ tactics, such as their taking advantage of the officials’ tolerance of timewasting, kicking the ball away and so on were altogether less charming, but a(nother) irritant rather than something that affected the course of events.

Fran’s Watford Blog: The visitors threatened early in the second half as a corner was punched out by Gomes, it was headed back in by Price but the keeper was able to gather.  Watford had their first shot on target as Vydra received a cross from Paredes but Ikeme caught the ball.  A lovely passing move featuring Deeney, Vydra and Anya finished with a low shot from Tözsér which was caught by Ikeme.  It felt like we were punished for finally showing a moment of quality as van La Parra immediately broke upfield and crossed for Dicko to hit the ball past Gomes.  After the keeper’s first half heroics, it was a terrible shame that he was beaten by what was rather a poor effort.  Another ball into the Watford box, this time by Sako, was met with a weak overhead kick from Edwards that went wide of the near post.  Just after the hour Jokanovic made two changes bringing Ighalo on for Vydra and replacing Munari with Forestieri.  Stearman was the first Wolves player to be booked as he handled to stop a Watford break.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/30543482