8th August 2022- Championship, West Bromwich Albion 1 Watford 1 https://www.watfordfc.com/post-match/west-bromwich-albion-first-team-watford-mens-team-2022-08-08 Attendance: 22,365 BBC: Ismaila Sarr scored a spectacular David Beckham-style chip from his own half but then had a late penalty saved as Watford drew with West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns. Sky: A moment of inspiration from Sarr illuminated a game that the home side dominated, firing Watford ahead against the run of play, with Daniel Bachmann’s trio of astounding saves immediately upstaged by the brilliance of the game’s opening goal. The Guardian: Albion manager Steve Bruce admitted he was torn between applauding Sarr’s wonder goal and criticising Button. “Like everybody in the ground, did I want to applaud it or look at my goalkeeper, thinking ‘where are you?!”’ said Bruce. “It’s a wonderful piece of skill by a very good player. I think he looked to see where my goalkeeper was and he [Sarr] executed it. Fran’s Watford Blog: It had been a dreadful performance from the Hornets. The problems stemmed from the midfield, which was completely overrun. There had been waves and waves of West Brom attacks and only a sterling performance from Bachmann in goal stopped it being a cricket score. After his impressive showing against United, Dennis was back to his poor form. Sarr came in for a lot of criticism for the poor penalty, but his goal was a thing of beauty, and he was very close to scoring the winner. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/scores-fixtures/2022-08?filter=results Share this: Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
1st August 2022- Championship, Watford 1 Sheffield United 0 https://www.watfordfc.com/post-match/watford-mens-team-sheffield-united-first-team-2022-08-01/statistics Attendance:19,536 BBC Sport: Rob Edwards made a winning start to life as Watford manager as Joao Pedro’s goal proved enough to beat Sheffield United in a highly-competitive Championship game at Vicarage Road. BHappy: After six largely untroubled added minutes the game ends. Not without concerns… this is surely the dying embers of last year’s model, what could have been, and yet we only managed one goal for all that. But a first win for Rob Edwards, getting that monkey off our backs at the earliest opportunity, was priceless and a jammy one-nil would have been just fine. This wasn’t jammy; we fully deserved it, even if we might not have gotten away with it with an unfavourable wind. Fran’s Watford Blog: Last season was soul destroying, so I am very happy to be reporting on a very entertaining performance. My first reaction was that it was nice to see a team who appeared to have met each other. I was particularly impressed with the organisation throughout the team. Every player had a job and they all stuck to it. Passes generally found another player in a yellow shirt. They fought for every ball and refused to see any cause as lost. Energy and passion were what we were crying out for last season, it was so good to see them back. Sarr, Dennis and João Pedro were unplayable up front. Let’s hope that we can keep them and that they continue to play like that. They will be giving Championship defences nightmares. Equally, much as there has been much moaning about our defence on social media, I thought they were well organised and really restricted the chances for Sheffield United. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/scores-fixtures/2022-07 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/table Share this: Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook