Tag Archives: Feb25

25th February 2023- Championship, Sheffield United 1 Watford 0

Attendance: 29,132

BBC Sport: Sheffield United restored a seven-point cushion in the race for automatic promotion after an own goal from Ryan Porteous sealed victory against Championship play-off hopefuls Watford.

Sky Sports: After 73 minutes, United finally found the net for what proved to be the winner. Norwood’s corner found McBurnie at the far post, whose header back across goal caused an unfortunate Porteous to turn the ball into his own net.

BHappy: For all that we’re going to leave Bramall Lane far grumpier than we walked into it, there are positives to take from the afternoon. The first is that whilst Ferreira and Kamara are perhaps the two of the remaining absentees most obviously candidates for a swift return to the starting eleven, both deputy full-backs excelled again here and will take some displacing. Mario Gaspar suddenly looks very far from the busted flush that we feared we’d been lumbered with earlier in the season, whilst James Morris has lost all of his tentativeness and is confident enough to play himself out of trouble with his weaker foot at one point. He also hammers up and down the left flank relentlessly, frequently the source of the ball into the box displaying an aggression in attacking areas that we need rather more of. His wonderful ball from the touchline on the sprint in the second half finds Davis at the far post, who chests the ball lamely at Foderingham. This is a dreadful miss – dumping in a far post header like this should be food and drink to a big centre forward.

Fran’s Watford Blog: As we reflected on the day, and the season so far, there was a lack of enthusiasm for the play-offs or for us to get promoted. We are not strong enough and another season of consolidation and growth would be preferable to getting beaten every week. Anyway, most of us old folk quite like going to games in the Championship.

25th February 2017-Premier League, Watford 1 West Ham United 1

clips of Jon Marks BBC 3CR commentary

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Relive the game as Watford draw with West Ham

Hornets held in Hammers draw

Hornets boss Mazzarri says Zarate was in tears after injury against Hammers

Bilic felt Hammers deserved victory but highlights shortcomings

Watford v West Ham ratings: Gomes on form in Hammers draw

Zarate reveals seriousness of knee ligament injury

Kaboul rues lack of second goal in West Ham draw

Substitute Andre Ayew scored a second-half equaliser to earn West Ham a Premier League point against Watford.

Watford missed the chance to do the double over West Ham for the first time as Andre Ayew’s second-half strike secured a 1-1 draw at Vicarage Road.

West Ham grabbed a deserved point through Andre Ayew after Troy Deeney’s penalty gave Watford an early lead

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Neither Watford nor West Ham are bad enough to get drawn into a relegation battle this season, but they are certainly not good enough to make any sort of push for Europe, either. It is not even March, but it is hard to avoid the feeling that mid-table obscurity beckons for both these sides in the coming months.

BHappy image

After a two week break, and notwithstanding a defeat at Old Trafford that was disappointing but far from humiliating, perspective on games like this has changed. The two wins against Arsenal and Burnley reversed the gentle downwards slide and we are now by general consensus a Mid Table Club… not that relegation is impossible, but we’d have to work pretty hard to achieve it.

As the half wound down, my gaze was drawn to the TV studio to our left where the pundits were having their hair and make-up done, the first time that I have seen beauty treatments in a football ground.

I’m happy to take a point from this game. West Ham were by far the better side but we continually played right into their hands with our ‘lump it up to Deeney and see what happens’ tactic.

25th February 2012- Championship, Watford 0 Southampton 3

Rickie Lambert scored a hat-trick to send Southampton back to the top of the Championship table with a comfortable victory at Watford.

Today is bloody awful. The more so for miserable indifference to the sense of anticipation that the arrivals of Kuszczak and Trotta, two big fillips for areas of the team that neeeded fillips. Yes, OK, we may have been dicked by Crystal-effing-Palace last week but we’re at home, and new striker and new goalkeeper, and it’s all going to be fine.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2012-02-25

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/25-february-2012/

25th February 2006- Championship, Watford 2 Cardiff City 1

http://watford.fcdb.info/index.php?page=matches

Ricardo Scimeca’s late blunder gifted Watford the win against visiting promotion rivals Cardiff City.

We started smartly and very positively, no punting to the touchline this week, just some neat simple passes which reaped almost instant rewards – though not from Eagles’ first touch forty-five yards out, despite this being greeted with cries of “Shoot!” Our first attack won a corner and led to the Hammer’s best effort of the whole match, which whistled past the far post after less than a minute’s play. But almost for the next eighty-nine, it seemed, the ball avoided the muddy pitch as much as possible, and was thus at the wind’s mercy. Despite spending most of the first half in the Cardiff penalty area, it also avoided the net, despite us forcing corner after corner, and some great crosses coming in from Eagles on the right. Cardiff’s defending was frantic early on, the ball even winding up near my old seat in the Upper Rous, which is more than it ever managed when I sat there week after week a few years ago. Where Darius would normally be alongside Marlon, up stepped Malky Mackay, and his was the eleventh minute header that first looked like breaking the deadlock. It beat Cardiff keeper Alexander, unlike many later efforts, but rebounded off the bar and Demerit couldn’t get his own header past Alexander’s impressive reach.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2006-02-25

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/25-february-2006/

25th February 1997- New Division Two, Watford 2 Shrewsbury Town 0

After Saturday’s shambles, you’d have got pretty good odds on the likelihood of two Watford players ever managing to pass the ball to each other, yet we chalked up a competent, calm victory last night. A huge improvement, basically, and something that not even I could find reason to grumble about.

More games from 25th February at https://oldwatford.com/tag/feb25

25th February 1984-Division One, Watford 4 Everton 4

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https://oldwatford.com/2014/03/01/1st-march-2014-championship-watford-4-blackpool-0/