Tag Archives: Oct5

5th October 2022- Championship, Watford 1 Swansea City 2

WFC.Net Goal Commentary:   1

Attendance: 17,231

BBC Sport: Ben Cabango’s header in time added on saw Slaven Bilic suffer a defeat in his first home game as Watford boss. Watford led at the interval thanks to Ismaila Sarr’s 34th-minute opener as he finished from close range. The visitors equalised on 52 minutes when Olivier Ntcham’s deflected effort from 20 yards gave Swansea parity.

Sky Sports: The defender headed home Ryan Manning’s free-kick eight minutes into a total of 20 added on after the officials’ communication equipment failed, leading to the players having to leave the pitch.

Official Site: The Vicarage Road faithful were dismayed when match official Tim Robinson refused to award a spot-kick for what the Hornets’ players believed to be a handball with the clock deep into the red, and the final whistle soon sounded to condemn Watford to their third defeat of the campaign.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63056517

5th October 2019- Premier League, Watford 0 Sheffield United 0

Referee:Andre Marriner
Attendance: 20,811

Match Report: Watford 0-0 Sheffield United

Watford earn their first clean sheet in 20 league matches with goalless game against Sheffield United

Watford record clean sheet but unable to beat Sheffield United in draw

Quique Sanchez Flores feels a more confident Watford would have beaten Sheffield United

Watford head coach explains Etienne Capoue’s absence against Sheffield United and sends a ‘message’ to his squad

Watford players rated after Sheffield United draw

Sebastian Prodl claims to have suffered a lot during Watford absence

Christian Kabasele thinks Watford have too much quality for relegation

Watford manager Quique Sanchez Flores said his team are “on the road to finding” their first win of the season after they were held to a forgettable goalless draw by Sheffield United.

Despite having just 39 per cent of the ball and registering just two shots on target, Watford created the big opportunities in the match but Andre Gray, Danny Welbeck and Craig Dawson were denied as Blades goalkeeper Dean Henderson redeemed himself after last weekend’s error against Liverpool.

Gray’s horrific miss came following a 10th-minute counter-attack, as Pereyra cut in from the right and crossed to the back post, where the striker somehow shot over.

Watford’s teamsheet read like a classified ad: Desperately Seeking Solidity. Their manager, Quique Sánchez Flores, tried to repair a defence that had conceded 20 goals in their previous seven league matches by changing formation and giving Sebastian Prödl a first league start for 17 months, putting him in the heart of a five-man rearguard. Flores later denied it was his intention to sit deep and hope for counterattacks at home to a newly promoted team; but that is how things panned out. The Blades had most of the ball but were unable to unpick the Watford padlock.

Six months ago, as we entertained realistic hopes of European competition, it would not have seemed credible that we’d go into a match at home to a newly promoted side, even a Sheffield United who have started the season in decent form, not being strong favourites to win.

The main positive from the afternoon was that this was the first clean sheet since February.  Our defence has been dreadfully leaky and we looked much stronger with three at the back, although this improvement at the back may have been helped by the opposition being Sheffield United.  Still, Prödl had a great game, he is much more of a commanding presence at the back than either Cathcart or Dawson.  Kabasele was immense and was named man of the match by the sponsors and thoroughly deserved it.

This week, Mike and Colin have two very different reactions to the draw against the blades. Regular listeners will be able to guess who took a positive and who took a negative perspective of the game.

5th October 2002- New Division One, Watford 1 Brighton & Hove Albion 0

This was the first home game since the players agreed to a voluntary 12% wage deferral to prevent the club going into administration.  The collapse of ITV Digital left many Football League clubs struggling financially but Watford’s situation was particularly grim after the failed gamble of trying to achieve promotion the previous season by appointing Gianluca Vialli and investing heavily in new players.

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BSAD imageBSAD report: We’d beaten the bottom side by a single goal. Big deal. The result and, while it was thoroughly entertaining, the game itself won’t live long in the memory. But there was more to it than that. So much more. Whatever else we lacked – and we know that we can play a great deal better – it’s hard to imagine a more committed, determined, bloody-minded Watford performance than this. It was absolutely monumental, a great surge of stubborn, blinkered effort that simply swamped everything else – we approached the game like a fifty mile route-march, ploughing onwards regardless of hills and valleys, pain and fatigue. It was brilliant.

When the Fatboys’ supporters (I’ve tried other nicknames – the Slims, the Normans, the Zoës, the Remixers – but Fatboys just feels most apt to replace Seagulls) responded to our chant of “Going down, going down, going down” with a chorus of “Going bust, going bust, going bust”, I felt my blood rise to fight-level for the first time in the past two weeks. The feelings of resignation swiftly followed by resolve that greeted our financial announcements of the past fortnight were gone, and I became angry for this club, and no longer angry at it. I wasn’t prepared to take anyone else’s word for it, least of all a beered-up posse of seaside hooligans (with due respect to ig who actually has to live down there). Their side had given no indication of bringing anything useful to the party, and it was just our bad timing and bad luck which combined to keep the score at 0-0 for so long, and then 1-0 for the rest of the game.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4518
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