clips of Jon Marks BBC 3CR commentary Goals:1 2 3
Match Report: Watford 3-0 Huddersfield Town
Success: “It’s The Time For Me To Give Everything To The Team”
Gracia: “It’s Our Mentality To Be Demanding”
Highlights: Watford 3-0 Huddersfield Town
Femenía: “We Need To Keep Down To Earth”
Affleck’s Angle: Huddersfield Hit For Three
Gallery: Watford v Huddersfield Town
Another Angle: Huddersfield Town
Watford vs Huddersfield Town: Javi Gracia still seeking improvements after Terriers success
PICTURES: A selection of images as Watford see off Huddersfield Town
Will Hughes: Entire Watford squad benefitting from Roberto Pereyra and Gerard Deulofeu’s quality
Isaac Success: Will Hughes hails hard working Watford forward after impressive Huddersfield display
Watford: Isaac Success keen to build on goalscoring turn against Huddersfield Town
Watford defender Adrian Mariappa praised for being ‘always ready’ to play
Kiko Femenia believes Watford need to maintain high performance levels
Two sublime individual goals from Roberto Pereyra and Gerard Deulofeu helped Watford secure their best start to a top-flight season and send Huddersfield to the foot of the table.
Watford now boast 19 points from 10 games – bettering their 17 at the same stage of the 1982-83 campaign, where they finished second.
The current Watford manager could not be happier with his squad, but does not expect them to emulate Leicester’s shock title of 2015-16. “This is the best squad in the Premier League,” he said. “I don’t think we’d be able to achieve to win the championship. But we are going to try to enjoy every game, and try to do that for our supporters, help them enjoy it with us.
“It wasn’t our best game. We need many things to improve. Our first two goals were fine, but I preferred the last one when Isaac Success scored his first goal of the season from something we had trained for.”
Nonetheless, here was a challenge we’ve rarely experienced before, certainly since the 1980s. That of being the side… not just favourites but comprehensive favourites, odds-on favourites, expected to win in a top flight game. As with all unfamiliar things it doesn’t feel altogether comfortable, as positive an indicator as it may be of the status to which we’ve elevated ourselves. You’re much less open to disappointment – and pressure – as the underdog. Nor had this edginess been improved by finding ourselves placed at exactly the same spot in Wagamama as we had been pre-Bournemouth. Or by discovering, now as then, that it was much bloody colder than anticipated necessitating hat purchase for the second home game on the trot. (Or, as an aside, that the hat was too small. The costume fitters of the Adhoc theatre group will roll their eyes, full of complaints at the the prohibitive size of my head. Nonetheless… a one size fits all hat shouldn’t be too small…).
A comfortable victory in the end for the ‘Orns and it could have been so much more had we put on our shooting boots for the second half but we can’t complain.
The joy was tempered somewhat by the worrying news of Glenn Hoddle’s collapse. Then, when I returned home, I heard of the Leicester owner’s helicopter crashing and the death of a Brighton fan after their game. The Leicester owners have been such a boon to both the club and the town, when something so awful happens, all football fans share the pain. My thoughts are with the family and friends of all affected this weekend.
Two goals in 58 first-half seconds saw a dominant Watford seal their first win since September and end Wolves’ six-game unbeaten run.
The Hornets produced a perfect response after losing 4-0 to Bournemouth two weeks ago, and there was less than a minute between Etienne Capoue (20) and Roberto Pereyra’s (21) strikes that sealed the win for the visitors.
There was no Troy Deeney, owing to a hamstring injury, meaning Javi Gracia handed opportunities to Gerard Deulofeu and Isaac Success in attack, while the Italian Adam Masina made his first league start at left-back. It all pointed to another home victory for a team who have been described as the best promoted side in Premier League history by Jamie Redknapp, but, in Pereyra and Abdoulaye Doucouré, Watford have players who would grace almost any team in the division.
After an even start that had been short on chances, Watford took the lead on 20 minutes. The move started with some really good work from Deulofeu before Doucouré played the ball out to Capoue who blasted a low shot from distance into the Wolves net. There was a momentary delay before the celebration as we couldn’t quite believe what we had seen. It was a terrific strike. We had hardly stopped bouncing when the second goal went in. Straight from the restart, the ball found its way to Pereyra on the left from where he effortlessly curled a shot over the keeper and into the opposite corner. Well, that was unexpected!
David Brooks opened the scoring for the Cherries before Joshua King converted from the spot after being brought down by Christian Kabasele, who was sent off for a second bookable offence.
The result moves Bournemouth up to fifth in the Premier League after back-to-back wins, while Watford drop to eighth after failing to register a victory in their last four games.
Javi Gracia said Watford must now get down to work to ensure no repeat of their hefty defeat. “It has been the first game where we hadn’t competed at the same level as other games,” the Watford manager said. “Today we have conceded more chances, we’ve made more mistakes than in all the other games put together.”
the first 14 minutes were OK… Bournemouth dropped deep and invited us into congested areas, but we did an encouraging enough job having accepted said invitation. This culminated in Andre Gray’s shot being blocked as he span away on the right hand side of the area, and shortly afterwards the cumulative attritional effect of a series of attacks peeled open a space for Will Hughes to have a go. It was a relatively comfortable ask for Begović, who held the ball down to his right, but as an opening salvo it was perfectly acceptable.
