Monthly Archives: October 2015

31st October 2015- Premier League, Watford 2 West Ham United 0

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Referee:Keith Stroud

Attendance:20,598

clips of Jon Marks BBC 3CR commentary Goals: 1 2

Highlights | Watford 2-0 West Ham

Watford secured their second win in a row with victory over West Ham as Odion Ighalo continued his goalscoring form.

sky The hosts were worthy winners and although Ighalo’s first goal owed a debt of gratitude to a critical touch from Hammers defender Aaron Cresswell, his second was an excellent strike which ended the game as a contest early in the second half.

West Ham, the scourge of the nation’s most revered sides, proved themselves once again the punchbags of the newly promoted as they fell to a first away defeat of the season against a team who were better than them in the first half and, after Slaven Bilic made two substitutions at the interval, even more superior in the second.

Today, everything changed. Up to now we have been gently easing ourselves into the icy water, acclimatising. Quietly settling into our surroundings. Not today. Today we took a great ruddy running leap at it, and landed two-footed with a massive splash. West Ham were underneath us, and sunk without trace.

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17th October 2015- Premier League, Watford 0 Arsenal 3

Referee: Mike Jones
Attendance: 20,721

Arsenal produced a superb second-half display to defeat Watford and move into second place in the Premier League.

Arsenal caught Watford on the counter several times in the second half, and the Hornets fell behind just after the hour mark. Capoue went down on the edge of the Gunners box with Watford committed forward, but the referee was unmoved and Arsenal broke through Cazorla and Ozil.

Watford’s previous games had pointed clearly towards the difficulty of breaking them down and it was soon apparent that a proud record of having not conceded in the Premier League from open play was no fluke. Flores’ system is already well honed and their collective work-rate was evident as Arsenal took a predictable hold on possession.

Watford made Arsenal work for their win, but the Gunners had too much for the Hornets in the second half, and they reclaim second spot in the Premier League table.

Watford approached their four previous home games with such caution that a combined total of two goals were scored in what became a 360-minute improvised symphony of sterility. They played a different tune here and Vicarage Road duly witnessed more attacking action in the opening half-hour than in the previous two months combined. Aaron Ramsey, who clipped the bar after running on to Sánchez’s sublime chipped pass, came closest to scoring but the home side had their chances, with the previously deadeye Odion Ighalo, scorer of their last five Premier League goals, missing the most glaring after half an hour when he was played in by Ikechi Anya. But, having been so conservative against some less daunting opponents, this seemed like a dangerous occasion to start taking risks.

“Oh look, it’s Arsenal!” you think, in the same way you might if you passed, say, Dermot O’Leary in the street. Except I get the impression that Dermot O’Leary is a reasonably good egg who might not mind if you smiled and said hello*, whereas Arsenal have long since transcended those kind of everyday niceties and would undoubtedly consider any acknowledgement of your existence beneath them. They’re very much, you know, in the cloud. They’re a football club in the same way that U2 at Wembley is a rock’n’roll gig…that is, very much so or not at all, depending on your point of view. (Go on, have a guess.) Except that they aren’t U2, obviously. They’re some b-list stadium atrocity, overwrought and overblown. They’re Muse.

3rd October 2015- Premier League, AFC Bournemouth 1 Watford 1

Highlights | Bournemouth 1-1 Watford

Glenn Murray scored and had a late penalty saved as Bournemouth were held to a home draw by Watford.

After the break the game opened up, and Ben Watson rattled the crossbar for Watford with a half-volley from 10 yards on 51 minutes. The Hornets were much improved in the second half, with Ikechi Anya heavily involved after a quiet first 45 minutes.

Watford, who had not created a single chance of their own, were handed one a minute before time. Boruc gathered a routine back pass from Sylvain Distin, but as he attempted to play it back to the defender Ighalo intercepted, skipped past Boruc and rolled the ball into an empty net, for his fifth goal of the season.

It’s been seventeeen years since I came to Dean Court. That was a very different time, a different set of circumstances altogether. Everything’s changed since then, the teams, the sport, the profile of the fixture. Hell, even Dean Court itself has been picked up, rotated ninety degrees and plonked down again. It’s small, of course… small for it’s current lofty status. Half the capacity of the Vic, which is hardly a colosseum in this environment itself. And as such it feels almost as if it belongs in 1997, back when we played at stadiums this size, nestled into a well to do area of large houses and shady avenues as a sort of afterthought, a discarded multi-vehicle garage abandoned between the houses. Bournemouth aren’t above their station…

It was a classic game of two halves. We had been completely woeful in the first period, Bournemouth having most of the possession and any time that Watford did pass the ball forward, it was swept up by the Bournemouth defence. In the second half, we were snapping in to tackles and not allowing the opposition to have any time on the ball while our balls upfield were finding their men with Ighalo and Deeney finally having some success in holding the ball up. Bournemouth won’t have won any more friends among the Watford faithful as they lived up to their reputation for theatrics. But a draw was a fair result and I was more than happy to leave with a point.