Official site match highlights
Bad day for 10-man Watford as they suffer heavy Bournemouth defeat
Watford vs AFC Bournemouth: Eddie Howe felt Christian Kabasele’s two yellow cards was ‘right call’
Javi Gracia admits it was a ‘bad day’ for Watford in Bournemouth defeat
Watford vs AFC Bournemouth: Christian Kabasele red card put Cherries in control, says Joshua King
Watford vs AFC Bournemouth player ratings: Defenders disappoint in desperate Premier League loss
Pictures from Watford’s heavy Bournemouth defeat
David Brooks opened the scoring for the Cherries before Joshua King converted from the spot after being brought down by Christian Kabasele, who was sent off for a second bookable offence.
The result moves Bournemouth up to fifth in the Premier League after back-to-back wins, while Watford drop to eighth after failing to register a victory in their last four games.
Javi Gracia said Watford must now get down to work to ensure no repeat of their hefty defeat. “It has been the first game where we hadn’t competed at the same level as other games,” the Watford manager said. “Today we have conceded more chances, we’ve made more mistakes than in all the other games put together.”
the first 14 minutes were OK… Bournemouth dropped deep and invited us into congested areas, but we did an encouraging enough job having accepted said invitation. This culminated in Andre Gray’s shot being blocked as he span away on the right hand side of the area, and shortly afterwards the cumulative attritional effect of a series of attacks peeled open a space for Will Hughes to have a go. It was a relatively comfortable ask for Begović, who held the ball down to his right, but as an opening salvo it was perfectly acceptable.
BSAD report: Really, the most enjoyable aspect of yesterday’s victory was that it summarised our successes so well. For the final action of 2003/03 had much in common with its best action, albeit that several of the personnel were less familiar. Some of it was ragged, some of it was a real struggle, much of it wasn’t especially pretty. But the attitude – determined, focused, assertive – overcame all of that in the end, enabling the team to build foundations for a deserved victory. Although we can play better, and we have played better, much of this term’s progress has been based upon performances like this.
