Category Archives: March

18th March 2023- Championship, Watford 1 Wigan Athletic 1

WFC.Net Goal Commentary: 1

Attendance: 18,523

BBC Sport: Wigan battled to a point with a rearguard display against Watford but remain six points from safety at the bottom of the Championship as their dismal run extended to just one win in 17 games.

Sky Sports: James McClean’s 51st minute goal earned the visitors a point, after Keinan Davis had given the hosts the lead just before half-time.

Fran’s Watford Blog: It was a very dispirited group that convened back at the West Herts.  Yet again, we had failed to win a game that was there for the taking.  The lively first half had given way to a more nervous second period in which the Hornets played far too many passes around the box and made far too few incursions in.  The game wasn’t helped by an opposition that were time wasting from early in the first half.  But we have played many such teams this season and really have to learn how to deal with these tactics.

14th March 2023- Championship, Watford 3 Birmingham City 0

WFC.Net Goal Commentary: 1  2  3

Attendance: 18,403

BBC Sport: Watford gave new manager Chris Wilder a perfect first night at Vicarage Road with a comfortable win over Birmingham City.

Sky Sports: Imran Louza and Keinan Davis scored within the first 16 minutes of a painful evening for Blues manager John Eustace – a former Hornets captain as a player. Birmingham improved in the second half but could not prevent substitute Britt Assombalonga from adding a third.

Fran’s Watford Blog: Birmingham gaffer (and former Watford captain) John Eustace was welcomed back.  Troy Deeney was out injured but my sister told me that he had taken an age to get from the SEJ to the GT stand as he was stopped by every other person.  Tim then introduced Chris Wilder to the (very sparse) crowd, and he was given a warm welcome. 

11th March 2023- Championship, Queens Park Rangers 1 Watford 0

Attendance: 17,247

BBC Sport: Queens Park Rangers earned their first victory under boss Gareth Ainsworth and ended a 13-game winless run by condemning Watford to defeat in Chris Wilder’s first match in charge.

Sky Sports: Iroegbunam strode forward, rode a weak challenge from Hamza Choudhury and fired a shot beyond Watford keeper Daniel Bachmann and into the bottom corner of the net.

BHappy: This is a monumentally terrible game of football.  The hosts play a full and effective role in this outcome, for all that they deservedly win it…  indeed, it’s not stretching the truth too much to suggest that for all of our failure to look remotely threatening (again), it could have gone a very different way had it been us that pulled a goal out of nowhere rather than Rangers.  Arguing that “If we’d scored and they hadn’t we’d have won the game” doesn’t add much in terms of insight admittedly but… Tim Iroegbunam’s fine finish, abetted fully by hapless non-challenges from Choudhury and Porteous and perhaps by Bachmann’s positioning, was a startling outbreak of competence on an afternoon distinctly lacking in similar from either side. 

4th March 2023- Championship, Watford 0 Preston North End 0

Slaven Bilic’s final game as Head Coach.

Attendance: 19,244

BBC Sport: The Hornets’ best chance came mid-way through the second half as Ismaila Sarr volleyed just wide from a Ken Sema cross.

Sky Sports: The contest had all the excitement of a pre-season friendly for much of the afternoon, with Preston keeper Freddie Woodman producing the only two saves of note during 90 forgettable minutes.

BHappy: After the break as the half time introductions of Davis and Asprilla offer us at least the suggestion of potency, the visitors resort to base thuggery.  Bambo Diaby is a centre back in the Dan Shittu mould… outstanding at anything asking questions of his physical attributes, he does as good a job of standing up to  Keinan Davis as anyone has this season.  Anything that requires defensive nous or, you know, a football however and he’s less effective – he gives the ball away clumsily in midfield on two occasions as the chinks in North End’s considerable armour begin to show, and manages to avoid censure for sacking Ryan Porteous at a corner. 

Fran’s Watford blog: I was in Watford bright and early on Saturday to attend the Match of the Century at the West Herts, which was celebrating 100 years at Vicarage Road for the Hornets and 100 years of local sport at the West Herts.  The two teams were the West Herts football team and a team made up of Watford fans who had bid to be part of the Watford Centurion team.  West Herts wore the yellow, red and green shirts that the club wore in 1901.  The Centurions wore the current third kit that was worn by the club when Vicarage Road opened.  It was a competitive game that West Herts won 3-0, despite a decent performance from Matthew Archer in the Centurions’ goal and a lively cameo from young Alastair Grass.  The defeat for the Centurions was hardly surprising, given that they had only met that morning, but it could not be blamed on Tommy Mooney, their manager, who was taking his role very seriously so could not be approached to sign copies of the Watford Treasury until after the game.

13th March 2022- Premier League, Southampton 1 Watford 2

WFC.net Jon Marks Goal Commentary: 1  2

Attendance: 28,863

BBC Sport: Cucho Hernandez scored twice as Watford boosted their hopes of securing Premier League survival with victory over Southampton at St Mary’s.

Sky Sports: Watford opened the scoring in the 14th minute when Hernandez pounced on Southampton defender Mohammed Salisu’s weak back-pass and found the net from a tight angle after rounding goalkeeper Fraser Forster.

The Guardian: Watford piled down the left and Juraj Kucka’s delicious first-time cross dropped at the back post, where the unmarked Hernández smacked in his second. It could have been 3-0 a few minutes later had Kucka taken the imposing Moussa Sissoko’s pass in his stride.

Fran’s Watford Blog: The celebrations in the away end and among the players were joyous.  Cucho and Kamara took it in turns to get the away stand cheering and many of the players came over to hand their shirts to the Junior Hornets.  Their day out had been a cracker.

10th March 2022- Premier League, Wolverhampton Wanderers 4 Watford 0

Attendance: 29,658

BBC Sport: Roy Hodgson said his Watford team were “running out of time” to preserve their Premier League status after being thrashed at Wolves.

Sky Sports: Three of the goals came in the space of eight first-half minutes with Raul Jimenez and Daniel Podence finding the net either side of Cucho Hernandez’s own goal.

The Guardian: Rúben Neves’s sumptuous chip five minutes from time allowed Wolves to match their 4-0 win over Blackpool in 2011 on a night that Ben Foster will probably want to forget as Watford’s good run on the road came to an abrupt halt. The former West Bromwich Albion goalkeeper, who celebrated Watford’s FA Cup semi-final win over these opponents three years ago with a tweet mentioning Wo1ve5 in memory of the Baggies’ 5-1 win at Molineux in Mick McCarthy’s final game here in 2012, was harangued all evening long by the Wolves fans and gave away the ball for Daniel Podence to make it 3-0 in the 21st minute.

BHappy: Wolves barely need to be paying attention to find themselves 3-0 up.  Kamara is more eye-catchingly exposed for the second scrambling after a neglected opponent before the ball finds its way to Ait-Nouri, similarly neglected on Wolves’ left flank.  He sends a perfunctory ball across the face of goal and Cucho, of all people, inadvertently tucks it inside Ben Foster’s near post.

Fran’s Watford Blog: Don applauded the players at the end, but he is a better person than I am.  That performance had been soul-destroying.  There was just nothing to redeem it.  A lack of ideas, a lack of any cohesion.  A rag-tag group of players who didn’t look like they had met before that evening and certainly couldn’t find a teammate with a pass.  The mistakes for the goals were dreadful.  In all honestly, it was a performance that was characterised by a complete lack of confidence, and I don’t know how you remedy that.  The poor performance on the pitch is met by fury from many in the crowd which, while understandable, just makes the experience worse.