Category Archives: Gianfranco Zola

1st January 2013- Championship, Watford 3 Charlton Athletic 4

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22nd December 2012- Championship, Watford 2 Nottingham Forest 0

Watford moved into the Championship play-off places thanks to Matej Vydra’s double against Nottingham Forest at Vicarage Road.

The double took his tally for the season to 10, with the goals coming either side of Daniel Ayala being sent off for the visitors before the break.

It wasn’t necessarily going to end up this way. Virtually the first opening of the game saw Danny Collins afforded a free header from a set piece, he should have done far more than glance it wide. Joel Ekstrand was asleep as a ball from the right reached Sharp at the far post, he shanked clumsily past the post. Simon Cox snuck in behind a static defence at another set piece… everyone froze in confusion, including Cox who screwed a header back across the face of goal. Hoban and Ekstrand both looked uncomfortable and slightly precarious to the point that we briefly glanced at the bench (and remembered that Neuton was hardly an option to bring on to tighten things up again and rapidly returned our attention to the pitch). That’s not to say that Forest were ever on top of us – for the 90 minutes we were never less than holding our own – but we rode our luck early on, mobile front men Cox and Sharp both looking like causing us problems whenever they received the ball to feet.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2012-12-22

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/22-december-2012/

8th December 2012- Championship, Watford 1 Hull City 2

Hull won at Watford for a third straight away victory that moves them up to fourth in the Championship.

If we’re being as demanding of ourselves as we ought to be, then we should conclude that we were sloppy and complacent for much of the game against Barnsley…and that we got away with it because our opponents weren’t good enough to take advantage. None of that here: Hull set themselves out to stick a spanner into every single one of our stock passing moves, while remaining patient and watchful and quietly potent when possession came their way. They were far too much for us, and that made for a fascinating tussle between what we are and what we might yet be, a revealing insight into how close we are to being the finished article.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=42285&id=5038

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1st December 2012- Championship, Watford 4 Barnsley 1

Troy Deeney’s brace in his 100th game for Watford helped the Hornets win their fifth Championship game in seven, and leave Barnsley winless in nine.

Deeney headed in after just 10 minutes, and after midfielder Mark Yeates had produced a slide-rule finish from a tight angle just before the hour mark, Deeney struck again seven minutes later to take his season’s goal tally to eight.

Watford 17 Yorkshire 5. The latest instalment…

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=40867&id=5037

17th November 2012-Championship, Watford 2 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1

report:There’s no disputing that the first half dismissal of Christophe Berra changed the game irrevocably.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=37924&id=5034

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6th November 2012- Championship, Watford 0 Millwall 0

I confess, I’ve found all of this a little difficult. In truth, I have a natural resistance to change that’s perfectly willing to defy sense if needs be: no matter how absurd it might seem, there’s part of me that’d prefer the comfortable, flawed, everyday familiarity of Carl Dickinson to the altogether more continental, polished and exotic Daniel Pudil. There’s part of me that hasn’t really got the hang of Manuel Almunia, no matter how fine and handsome and musketeery he might be; part of me that’s desperately eager to damn Fernando Forestieri for being a cheating little fraudster rather than gasp at his magic tricks. There’s part of me that simply doesn’t believe in Neuton, that tries to picture him and then gets lost in the same impenetrable brow-furrowing fog occupied by things like quantum physics, Jupiter’s moons and Sarah Palin. And if we really get to the heart of the matter, there’s an awful lot of me that just wanted Ray Lewington to be the manager forever and hasn’t entirely let go of the idea, even now.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=36337&id=5032