Category Archives: Sean Dyche

7th April 2009- Championship, Watford 2 Southampton 2

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4862

Southampton centre-back Jan-Paul Saeijs hit a stunning last-minute equaliser to earn them a point away at Watford.

Having rightly come under considerable fire in his early days, the manager has done a remarkable job of steering the ship away from the rocks since dropping his hardline allegiance to possession football. Bolstered by some extremely timely signings – Mike Williamson and Jack Cork particularly, but Don Cowie too – and aided by a transformation in the likes of Jobi McAnuff and Tamas Priskin, he’s managed to create a perfectly functional, thoroughly mid-table Second Division outfit. And a team that’s suddenly quite easy to like again, that seems comfortable with itself again. As ambition goes, that ain’t Aidy Boothroyd. But it’ll do just fine for now.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2009-04-07

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/07-april-2009/

10th March 2009- Championship, Watford 2 Nottingham Forest 1

Good stuff again. Another goal would have been nice, we were better than Forest but they weren’t so ineffective that a goal on the break was out of the question. And Forest looked too good to go down, obviously. Ha ha.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2009-03-10

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/10-march-2009/

10th December 2008- Championship, Watford 2 Norwich City 1

Tommy Smith’s strike earned Watford boss Brendan Rodgers his first win as manager as they saw off Norwich.

The uncharitable might say that Brendan Rodgers owes his first victory as Watford manager to Norwich’s failings rather than his own side’s strengths. Profound frustration made Glenn Roeder a very uncharitable man. And a confused one. “That was daylight robbery,” said Roeder of this night-time joust. “We dominated from start to finish and gifted them two early Christmas presents. Anyone who puts forward a case for Watford deserving to win that match is in fairyland.”

Yeah, I know. A win. Any win. But good god. Norwich were poor, and yet we were fortunate to come away with three points.

8th May 2005- Championship, Watford 1 West Ham United 2

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4662

Helguson scored his 20th goal of the season but it was not enough to prevent Watford slipping to an eighth home defeat of the season and sending West Ham into the play-offs.

On the last day of the season, the result itself is more often than not largely irrelevant. The last time that the last game of the regular season might have been remotely important was during the game against Grimsby in 1999. We won and made the play-offs… as it turned out, had we lost we’d have made them anyway. In 1998, famously, Jason Lee’s scuffed shot won us the title, but we were already promoted some time earlier. The last time that the final game of the regular season had a direct bearing upon which division we operated in during the following campaign was 1994, when we’d have needed to have lost by two goals to Palace at Selhurst Park to have been relegated.

23rd April 2005- Championship, Watford 0 Sheffield United 0

Watford edged closer to safety in the Championship, after a nil-nil draw at home to Sheffield United.

So, let’s make this quick; in fact, let’s make the next couple of weeks quick, if we can. Let’s get it over with, then forget it all for a couple or three months. Because it deserves to be forgotten about, as much as it deserves to be remembered with a long-lingering bitterness. Amid all of the kerfuffle, there was a fair amount to be praised about this afternoon’s football, and a great deal of spirit evident throughout. We’ll need that spirit, and I’m not merely being churlish when I say that; we’ll need, for instance, the kind of willing, able attitude that saw Dominic Blizzard replace Brynjar Gunnarsson as the teams lined up for kickoff, then turn in a typically willing, able performance in the centre of midfield. That’s what’ll get us somewhere, wherever that might be.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4660

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2005-04-23

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/23-april-2005/

9th April 2005- Championship, Watford 1 Leeds United 2

Aidy Boothroyd’s first programme notes.

BSAD report: I was there, obviously. But less so, much less so. That’s not to suggest that I didn’t fully appreciate that this was a vital match for Watford Football Club, nor that I didn’t applaud a courageous, occasionally inspired, and much less deeply flawed team performance that rose to the occasion and deserved to take more from it than mere encouragement. I saw it all, with nose pressed up against the glass, conscious of everything and yet not part of it. When we scored, I heard myself saying “Yes!” and felt myself rising to my feet; the instincts that would’ve done those things in a reactive blur don’t seem to be working properly. I saw it all, and felt only echoes, remote tremors.

Why? I don’t know. This is new to me, all new. What I do know is that, like so many amazing things that happen in football stadia, the total support demanded by Graham Simpson requires the suspension of disbelief. It needs the conjuring up of an “us” from so much that has so little in common; an “us” that encompasses the stands, the dressing room and the directors’ box to become a football club rather than just a PLC with employees and customers. But you can’t put all of that on hold for three weeks – three weeks of exercising absolute power and authority, of claiming leadership, of seizing complete responsibility – then expect to resume where you left off. “Us” is for fifty-two weeks of the year, or not at all. And you can’t generate genuine belief in a long-term plan for survival and eventual prosperity, then demand the same belief in a new approach when you suddenly change your mind.

English League Championship	Table »
Brighton and Hove A	1-1	Leicester City
Cardiff City	0-2	Wigan Athletic
Derby County	3-1	Stoke City
Gillingham	1-0	Burnley
Millwall	4-3	Crewe Alexandra
Nottingham Forest	0-3	Plymouth Argyle
Rotherham United	1-2	Preston North End
Sheffield United	3-2	Queens Park Rangers
Sunderland	1-2	Reading
Watford	1-2	Leeds United
West Ham United	3-0	Coventry City

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http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4658