Monthly Archives: January 2024

31 January 2024- Championship, Sheffield Wednesday 0 Watford 0

https://www.skysports.com/football/sheffield-wednesday-vs-watford/teams/485047

Sky: Sheffield Wednesday’s winless run extended to three matches as they recorded a 0-0 draw at home to Watford in the Championship.

BBC: Ike Ugbo, making his first start for the Owls, and Watford’s Matheus Martins both hit the post, while the latter also missed the best chance of the first half when he shot wide with the goal gaping.

Watford Observer: RECAP: Sheffield Wednesday 0 Watford 0

The pitch beat both teams on a night of little quality

Ismael felt players tried to adapt to ‘awful’ pitch and deserved rare clean sheet

BHappy: Ben Hamer, most significantly, looks pretty good at pretty much everything you’d want him to – calm, confident with both feet, decent decision making.  Oh, and a good shot stopper obviously, evidenced by twice punching goal-bound shots out of the top corner, by a reflex save to deny our closest call at the end of the first half and by somehow – goodness knows how – sufficiently obstructing an effort that the opposite stand behind the goal believed had crossed the line conveying despair across the pitch by their reaction until the sight of our own midfielders trying to engineer a quick break amid the confusion confirmed otherwise to a relieved away end.  Quite how Hamer has spent so much of his career as a backup is a little difficult to understand.

Fran’s Watford Blog: While a point away from home should not be dismissed, it was disappointing not to have seen a more impressive performance against a poor Wednesday team.  The Hornets may have hit the post and missed an open goal, but they didn’t test the young keeper and Hamer was the busier of the two.  He pulled off a couple of excellent saves, so should be pleased to have kept a clean sheet, which was the first since mid-November.  There were a lot of complaints about the pitch, which was in a terrible condition and made me think that maybe Gino should instal one dreadful pitch at the training ground for the lads to train on before games like this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/table

28th January 2024- FA Cup Fourth Round, Watford 1 Southampton 1

WFC.Net Jon Marks Goal Commentary: 1

Watford Observer: RECAP: Watford 1 Southampton 1

Hornets taken to cup replay after late Saints equaliser

Lack of composure in possession cost Watford says head coach

Sky: Watford and Southampton face a replay for a place in the FA Cup fifth round and a trip to Liverpool, following a 1-1 draw at Vicarage Road.

BBC: Substitute Stuart Armstrong struck late to earn Southampton an FA Cup fourth-round replay with a draw at Championship rivals Watford. Matheus Martins’ early free-kick had looked like being enough for the home side until the Scotland international levelled in the 89th minute.

Fran’s Watford Blog: While it was disappointing to concede so late in the game, the draw was a fair result.  The Hornets had dominated the first hour of the game and had enough chances to ensure the win.  But, once the visitors strengthened on the hour mark, they were much the stronger of the two teams and could have won it in time added on.  The late equaliser meant a check of my calendar to see what I will miss in order to go to Southampton (likely Belinda O’Hooley at the Green Note), although the prospect of a fifth round at Anfield is not filling me with excitement.  The positive on the day was all the young fans around us enjoying supporting their team from the middle of the Rookery.  I hope that they enjoyed the day despite the late opposition goal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023–24_FA_Cup

20th January 2024- Championship, Bristol City 1 Watford 1

Bristol City no longer produce a match day programme.

https://www.skysports.com/football/bristol-city-vs-watford/report/485027

WFC.Net Jon Marks Goal Commentary: 1

Sky: The visitors grabbed a 13th-minute lead when referee Andrew Kitchen spotted a handball by centre-back Rob Dickie after a free-kick had been played into City’s box and Tom Dele-Bashiru fired a right-footed penalty beyond Max O’Leary’s despairing dive.

BBC: Scott Twine marked his Bristol City debut with a goal as they shared the points with Watford at Ashton Gate. Midfielder Twine, signed on loan from Burnley earlier in the week, headed in the equaliser to cancel out Tom Dele-Bashiru’s penalty.

Watford Observer: RECAP: Bristol City 1 Watford 1

Until they stop gifting goals, who Watford sign this month is academic

A good away point but lack of maturity cost Watford chance of more

Fran’s Watford Blog: A draw was a fair result based on the balance of play, it had been a very even game.  The fans that I spoke to on the way out were all quite happy with an away point.  It was certainly a much better showing than against the same opposition on Boxing Day.  I would say that nobody played brilliantly, but nobody played badly.  City defended resolutely which meant that the Hornets were restricted to hopeful efforts from distance that usually had a body in the way.  But, after some horror shows on the road, we have now gone six away games unbeaten with the result that the numbers travelling to support the lads are increasing, there were 2621 at Ashton Gate, and the mood among the travelling fans is positive.  Long may that last.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/table

14th January 2024- Championship, Queens Park Rangers 1 Watford 2

https://www.skysports.com/football/queens-park-rangers-vs-watford/teams/484708

WFC.net Jon Marks Goal Commentary: 1  2

Sky: Jake Livermore scored twice from outside of the area as Watford came from under the cosh to dash QPR’s hopes of easing their relegation fears with a 2-1 win at Loftus Road.

BBC: Sinclair Armstrong carried the main threat for Rangers but it was Lyndon Dykes who reduced the deficit when he poked in substitute Paul Smyth’s cross from close range. They could not, though, find an equaliser – as Ben Hamer brilliantly denied Jimmy Dunne – and remain next to bottom of the table, while Watford climb five places to eighth, just one point short of the play-off spots.

Watford Observer: RECAP: QPR 1 Watford 2

Jake’s match-winning double leaves Watford fans wanting Liver-more

It wasn’t just Watford fans who wanted to see more goal attempts at QPR . . .

Livermore is a ‘great example to our young players’ says Ismael

Bhappy: The game, the ball, the noise…. all of the second half’s madness was blown around the interior of the stadium’s cramped, enclosed space like a carrier bag in a gale.  Fitting, then, that the calmest head in this and so many other matches produced the one clear, true note above the carnage.  The ball came to Jake Livermore twenty-five yards out…  in all honesty he should have been closed down, Rangers had gotten bodies in the way of so much else but if you’re going to give anyone a free hit Livermore’s not a bad pick on previous evidence.  Here, instead, his clipped stroke was that of an artist, a flourish of the right foot reminiscent of Marco Cassetti’s poised ball for Matej Vydra in the Leicester play off eleven years ago except that this one required no further contribution, curling across the face of goal and bending inside the post past a helpless Begović.  The goalscorer’s reaction was almost comically relaxed, theatrical, raising his arms aloft in sanguine fashion as the yellow shirts converged.  Behind the goal there was pandemonium which had scarcely abated five minutes later, despite a wasted QPR chance in the interim, when on receiving the ball in a similar position Livermore dispatched again in a more brutal, industrial manner, hard and low, to sweep up the remains of the match that had been going on and replace it with a brand new one.

6th January 2024- FA Cup Third Round, Watford 2 Chesterfield 1

WFC.Net Jon Marks Goal Commentary: 1  2

BBC: Tom Dele-Bashiru sent Watford into the fourth round of the FA Cup with an injury-time winner against National League leaders Chesterfield. Chesterfield had been on course to upstage a side 63 places above them in the English football pyramid, but late goals from substitute Mileta Rajovic and Dele-Bashiru saved the Hornets.

Watford Observer: RECAP: Watford 2 Chesterfield 1

Hornets survive scare to reach FA Cup fourth round

Ismael had to ‘get loud’ at half-time because ‘players chose to go another way’

‘It was like we were strolling around’ admits Hoedt whose warning went unheeded

BHappy: Chesterfield were never a dull prospect.  Few of us will be overly familiar with the Spireites travails since interrupting 60+ years of bouncing slowly between tiers 3 and 4 to drop out of the League altogether five years ago, but if the margin of their lead at the top of the National League didn’t spark interest, the startling prospect of our visitors capitalising on the FA Cup’s generous rules inflating away allocations by filling the Vicarage Road end will have grabbed everyone’s attention.  A non-league team, even a non-league team that isn’t a non-league team by tradition, even a non-league team that’s the demonstrably the strongest non-league team in the country at the moment doesn’t bring an away following of nearly 4000 with coaches filling Vicarage Road after the game for a nice day out.  Our visitors thought they could get something here, and giddy on the little-risk-high-reward deal described above, were noisy and boisterous throughout.

https://www.thefa.com/competitions/thefacup/results

1st January 2024- Championship, Plymouth Argyle 3 Watford 3

https://www.skysports.com/football/plymouth-argyle-vs-watford/teams/485008

WFC.Net Jon Marks Goal Commentary: 1  2  3

Sky: Ryan Andrews’ second-half equaliser secured Watford a 3-3 Championship draw from a topsy-turvy New Year’s Day thriller at Plymouth.

BBC: Edo Kayembe’s effort into the bottom corner gave the Hornets an early lead, but Finn Azaz’s superb volley levelled the scores soon after. Azaz turned provider as he teed up Morgan Whittaker to blast the Pilgrims ahead before Ismael Kone’s superb effort made it 2-2, only for Ryan Hardie to get a third for Argyle in a pulsating first half.

Watford Observer: RECAP: Plymouth 3 Watford 3

Watford come back twice to take point in a wet, windy and wild game in the west

‘We made a lot of mistakes and errors in defence in first half’ – Ismael

BHappy: The football, then. As already discussed, and whilst bearing in mind once again that probably and definitely aren’t the same thing… this team probablywon’t get promoted and probably won’t get relegated.  This being the case, surely stupid basketball-like end-to-end football with all that this entails is vastly preferable to any alternative that yields a similarly inconsequential haul of points.

Fran’s Watford Blog: The travelling fans were full of smiles on the way out of the ground.  It had been a tremendously entertaining game.  It was one of those days when you would have loved to be a neutral, but we had all enjoyed it just the same.  The Hornets had generally been great going forward, although Rajović had a poor game, but we could not cope with the pace of the Plymouth forwards who seemed to break forward at will needing great last-ditch tackles and excellent saves from Hamer to keep them out.  There had been some wonderful goals, with Koné’s an absolute belter.  Andrews had a great game, and his goal was a thing of beauty.  The nerves had been jangling at the end of the game, but there was a great atmosphere among the Watford fans, much more positive than we have seen at many games this season and they were in good voice cheering the lads on with much less of the negative chanting that I hate so much.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67818354