Then, we seemed afraid to ask questions in case the answers contained things we didn’t want to hear. Last night, we rewarded the bravery of the manager’s team selection – because not making sweeping changes can be brave too – with a much higher tempo from the start, pulsing out from the centre of midfield to all parts and pressing Ipswich into oppressively tight corners. It was far from flawless, but that’s the point: a result is never far away in this division, as long as you play with just a little bit of confidence in your own strengths.

2. Of course, it very much helped that Ipswich were a pleasantly fragrant waft of a football team in the first half, bland and nondescript in precisely the way that doesn’t get you anywhere at our level. We were perhaps fortunate to escape relatively lightly from the second half backlash, but fortunate will do nicely between now and May. It still feels as if we won’t have much to spare by then.

Ipswich will stay up, I imagine. Woohoo. Somewhere along the line, they’ve become hugely expensive and hugely dull, like one of those modern art sculptures that gets the Daily Mail all cross: a piece involving two breezeblocks, a tin of sardines, one old shoe and a broken egg-whisk, accompanied by improvised performance art from a bellowing Irishman in a raincoat. If I were them, I suspect I’d just want it to stop.

3. Yes, yes, Will Hoskins. We’ll come to him in a moment, for we must first pause to salute Lord Doyley. The bravura pirouette in the first half, followed by splendid left-footed cross onto the head of Heidar Helguson at the far post, was the stuff of ten minute standing ovations. But the defending often deserved a similar response: one early Ipswich attack bounded eagerly over the halfway line, discovered Jay Demerit too far forward, threatened to burst dangerously into the penalty area…and then found itself quietly shepherded to somewhere near the corner flag, any spark of danger suffocated by a gigantic, inescapable wet blanket. He must be utterly miserable to play against, ninety minutes of having your bright ideas tied up in red tape by the local health and safety officer.

4. Yes, yes, Will Hoskins. There’s something of Lee Nogan about him, for me: the suggestion that he might just have a run of goals in him at some point, probably somewhere around the time that his contract expires. The best kid in the playground, he remains the most frustrating of players, abundant talent without any sense of focus or application…but we know all of that already, and so we should confine ourselves to some simple facts: a) he’s scored more goals than anyone else lately, b) we’re not in a position to be fussy and c) the combination with Danny Graham, much of a muchness on paper, looked surprisingly incisive. Oh, and d) that was a very tidy little finish. Now, do it next week as well.

1 – Worth remembering, first of all, that this is what this season was supposed to be like from the start. Or from the end of August, at any rate. Having sold off our most sellable assets in August the real surprise is not that we stumble to a clumsy defeat against Peterborough but that this season has lifted expectation levels to an extent that made this look like a home banker beforehand, even given our recent form.

2 – All of which makes the manner of the defeat and the gradual, desperate erosion of the side’s belief all the more galling. We know that they’re better than this. We know that much as talk of the play-offs was always fanciful, we really shouldn’t be troubling the relegation places either – to Malky’s great credit (see 1). But the recent home fixtures have served to accentuate our limitations, to bring them into focus. Today for the first time we looked lifeless rather than merely a bit limited.

3 – The greatest limitation is the lack of options. We’ve done well to fashion a Plan A that has delivered excitement and a reasonable amount of success for much of the season, but have very little to throw in from the bench (the first person to mention Will Hoskins in dispatches gets three minutes on the naughty spot…) and critically neither brawn nor pace with which to vary our approach. If there is any scope to bring in some such options on loan then one hopes we’ll be exploiting it.

4 – Peterborough, for all our failings, look somewhat better than a side cast adrift at the foot of the table. That said, the sight of Exodus Geohaghan thundering into view as a sort of special-team expert, lumbering around midfield and doing what he could in between the monstrous throws that were his one reason for being was one of several factors grimly reminiscent of much of Kenny Jackett’s season. We flailed haplessly along, unable to make much of our strengths or overcome our limitations during that campaign, too.

5 – One wonders, in the circumstances, how many of our painfully small squad are fully fit. Mariappa and Demerit were two reported to have picked up and subsequently overcome knocks at Derby, and both have struggled since (albeit Mariappa’s relentless positiveness is to be cherished for as long as those who’ve singled him out as the next boo boy allow him to retain it). With the games still coming thick and fast, such considerations may be put more sharply into focus.

2. And that’s a shame: before Swansea shut us down completely in the latter stages of the second half, this was very far from hopeless. The reality was that a great deal of blood, sweat and tears went into the creation of any chances, whereas our opponents appeared able to glide effortlessly over the halfway line whenever they could be bothered and absent-mindedly missed a whole bunch of absolute sitters (apart from one, sadly) in the early minutes. Nevertheless, the response to going behind was terrific, a clear sign for those of an optimistic leaning that we’re not just going to slump into abject self-pity.

We remain frustratingly short of ruthlessness in front of goal…but we could justifiably claim to have been unfortunate by half-time, a genuine team effort having pushed Swansea right back onto their goalline. We will be fine if we can summon up more of that. Although it’d be nice to do it without the windswept open spaces in the defence….

3. It’d be such a disappointment if a bright, positive season were to end with a frantic scrap for survival. We’ve managed to build a team from bits and pieces…and it’s a team with deficiencies that grow more obvious as pressure is applied. But it’s also a team that’s delivered a whole load of really rather splendid football, played with wonderful spirit: that I seem to have spent a large part of my time at Vicarage Road this term worrying about whether we’ll score a third to secure the points speaks volumes.

The mood seems to have soured significantly in the last couple of weeks, perhaps understandably…but narrow-ish defeats to Newcastle and Swansea do not mean that our home form has gone the way of our results on the road. The next two fixtures are critical, obviously. To my mind, we keep faith with a settled side rather than wasting energy on pointless re-shuffling; we keep our heads, above all.

4. And we try to avoid a situation where our right-back is hounded from the pitch by a tetchy crowd for the heinous crime of shinning a couple of passes into the East Stand, despite the fact that he’s the only player prepared to pick up the ball and run at pace at the massed defences, an approach that yields what appears to be a very reasonable penalty claim at a stage when everyone else has completely run out of ideas. That’s just daft.

5. Finally, the pitch. Lordy. Earlier in the season, constructing a side to play neat, incisive pass-and-move football seemed like a pleasantly pragmatic, innovative approach; now, when every attempt at a first time pass results in injured spectators or an opposition counter, it seems just a little unwise. There is, of course, nothing that can be done about it now. Perhaps a little patience, though, when passes go astray and first touches come multiplied by the half dozen; perhaps a little understanding too when we’re tempted to belt the ball through the smooth, undivoted air rather than try to coax it through the ragged wasteland. That’s our opponents’ twelfth man, that is…

1- The overriding emotion is one of frustration; dominance in the middle of the park is of limited value if you can’t defend a set piece, and don’t have the guile to unpick a defence. Enormously frustrating to see whatever neat passing we could fashion on what is suddenly a hugely unhelpful surface labour to create chances whilst free headers were being offered to Newcastle in our own box.

2- Newcastle came as advertised, only more so. After so long hankering for a return to the cavalier side of the mid-nineties, the Toon Army currently “enjoys” a team that is as close to the antithesis of that as it is possible to imagine; pragmatism over style, what over how, a kick up the arse over a quick pass, a team of enormous blokes, defensively resolute, aggressive and unpleasant in midfield, crude and direct in attack. A recipe for escape from this division to be sure… and an approach that seemed to have been deliberately exaggerated to intimidate our young and (still) lightweight side. It worked too, until the last five or ten minutes when we got stuck in a bit more, nicked a goal and immediately had United’s charmless goons bickering at the back. There’s a lesson there, I think.

3- Lloyd Doyley. You’d sooner have a defender of Lloydinho’s character and application who didn’t occasionally pass the ball inexplicably into touch, to be sure. But I will happily take Lloydy’s failings in return for his indefatigable readiness to try again next time, his willingness to have a go at Newcastle when others seemed to cower. That over a better player who is at our level because he can’t always be bothered. Every day of the week. I’m hugely heartened to be (apparently) in the majority too – difficult to think of many players past or present whose errors would be greeted with such encouragement and enthusiasm.

4- Experience tells us that you have to be pretty poor to be relegated from this division. You don’t need to be good to stay up, just less poor than three other teams and we don’t look a poor side. You can go down through being unlucky however, by being the mug without a chair when the music stops (witness Leicester two years ago), and with a small squad, a packed schedule and a heavy pitch that no longer permits us to impose our game on opponents as it has done in the past we kinda need to hope that our main men stay fit.

5- If that’s what a mid-season break would feel like, you can stuff it. Sure, we’ve had a couple of midweeks and there have been the away games, but being back at Vicarage Road on a Saturday for the first time since Boxing Day felt somewhat first-day-of-the-seasonish. Apart from the rain, obviously.

1- We are seriously going to need everyone uninjured, and the likes of McGinn and Buckley up to speed sharpish if we’re to cope with our March fixture list on that evidence. A deserved three points… but impressive particularly because we kept City largely at arms length in the second half despite their improvement and our utter exhaustion. Saturday being free is probably welcome, but we’re down to play eight times next month.

2- City’s first half was abominable, bearing comparison with QPR’s chaotic visit in December. Flat, low on confidence and ideas, and looking rather stroppy and fed-up all told. The QPR-comparison was sealed by Patrick Agyemang’s reprise, to limited effect.

3- That City’s second half improvement yielded so little was thanks in no small part to our sudden defensive resilience. It’s too early to award Martin Taylor the accolade of having the same dramatic impact as Mike Williamson’s signing had a year ago, but so far so very good; Jay Demerit looks a whole lot more confident and reliable, Adrian Mariappa has been released into a buckaneering right-back, and the challenges just bounce off Taylor, who is immediately an asset at set pieces. We’re not completely watertight, there were nervy moments when a livelier forward line might have capitalised. But a dramatic improvement all told.

4- Liam Henderson. There’s something physically not quite right about him. It might be so obvious that I’ve missed it… maybe he’s got no neck or an extra shoulder or something, but he just looks… wrong. His appearance off the bench was clumsily ineffective; clearly short on pace, it’s difficult to see how he can make a sustained impact without everything else in his game coming together. His continued involvement speaks volumes about both our limited options and Will Hoskins’ low stock. And I’d better credit RW with input into this thunk or he’ll only go all mardy on me again…

5- However desperately short on goals Danny Graham is, we do look a better side with him in it…

1- How very badly did we need to play against a side as accommodating as the Blades. For twenty minutes we looked quite tentative, and then… it wasn’t merely a matter of noting that our opponents weren’t as good as their position suggested. More that a United side comprised of a pick-and-mix of second tier journeymen (many of them ours…) scrawled this in large, difficult to miss paint-spray all over their penalty area every time a ball went anywhere near it. Nonetheless, it took an unchallenged flap from Mark Bunn and a couple of unexploited free headers before we realised that this was there for the taking, and took it increasingly confidently. In the second half United’s penalty area was a coconut shy… the only slight concern being that we didn’t do more damage than three goals all of which, as Kevin Blackwell noted, owed something to United’s defensive deficiencies.

2- Key point of the game was Scott Loach’s fine save from Chris Morgan’s header. That goes in, it’s a different game. It didn’t, so it wasn’t…

3- Compare and contrast our new Premiership-reserve centre-back to theirs. Martin Taylor looked a little rusty, but was essentially just what the doctor ordered. Large, uncomplicated, aggressive and effective merely in his presence… He didn’t NEED to get his head to our attacking set pieces, in attracting two or three markers he was already causing havoc. Nyron Nosworthy in contrast looked like he hadn’t played for twelve months, although a nervous goalkeeper behind him probably didn’t help. He’ll want to improve on a quite comical debut. The only concern re Taylor was an apparent hamstring injury picked up late in the game…

4- Doris and Jordan haven’t changed much. It’s a bit much to chide Doris for his aggressive style, we benefitted from it for long enough; he was at least restrained in his conduct in what threatened to be an inflammatory first half. Meanwhile we saw the best and worst of Stewart… a fabulous, clearing, covering header as a ball came over from the left in the second half, but petulance, misplaced 9-iron passes and the highlight, a flicked backheel past that went straight to a yellow shirt. Don’t think he was worth the half-hearted booing that he got, but can’t say I miss him.

5- Lloydy, through on goal on the penalty spot. Yes, really. Getting your head to a cross/shot was once thing, but that would have been truly mighty. Although the keeper’s reaction and a slightly heavy touch saw the chance disappear, the incident confirmed that the second goal won’t be any less fun than the first…

1- It seems somewhat churlish to complain. We knew the limitations that we were operating under this season; Malky Mackay has achieved wondrous things in the circumstances and expectations consequently need to be consciously kept in check. Nonetheless, this was disappointing; a deserved defeat against a tidy enough Donny side, but a Donny side that only ever looked like being put under pressure in the closing minutes.

2- Most concerning perhaps, given that this was with the possible exception of McGinn our full armoury, was our impotence in turning a reasonable amount of possession into chances. Donny had done their research, and played us to a tee… a disciplined, high defensive line exploited our lack of pace in attack, and robustly got their head to things when balls came into the box leaving us looking short of ideas. The introduction of Bryan, a hopeful punt in this sort of game, spoke volumes – it didn’t work, Bryan never got the ball in dangerous positions, but our need for something different was painfully evident.

3- In central midfield we were particularly disappointing. Henri Lansbury took 60 minutes to make any kind of contribution (albeit then testing the keeper with a fine rising shot from distance, like an adult playing with kids who had finally lost his restraint and let rip). The result was that whilst we made bringing the ball forward look difficult, Doncaster passed through our midfield effortlessly. Only Cowie’s industry, Doyley’s diligence and Loach’s brilliance (in a game where only his shot-stopping, rather than decision-making, were tested) relieved the gloom.

4- We discussed on the way up that Donny boss O’Driscoll’s curtailed dalliance with Burnley could work for us (the failed attempt to move on unsettling the home side) or against us (relief in the manager staying). The answer appeared to be provided by the wild celebration to what proved to be the winning goal, Donny’s squad (including the surely-he-must-be-dead-by-now John Oster and the ever-reliable James Chambers) bundling their boss on the touch line.

5- A word, finally, for referee Andy Hall; he booked three players and will have harder games to referee, but frankly I barely noticed him and don’t remember a single contribution. Good work, that man. Looking back over the history books, only a late penalty conceded at Cardiff last season, which I wasn’t at so can’t comment, blots his record. Having refereed the monumental clash at Bramall Lane in 2006, and tolerated the Steve Palmer “dodgy keeper” incident against Bournemouth in 1998 do not. Being churlish, he could have been harsher on Donny’s aggressive defending, particularly that of the impressive Shackell, but today’s result was nothing to do with him.

1- I think the most concise way to sum up the afternoon on the pitch is to echo my co-editor’s reflection that we’d have taken the then-existing scoreline with both hands at any point over the course of the ninety-plus minutes. That’s all you need to know really. There was a brief flurry of something akin to looking like making a fight of it at the start of the second half… we even stood up at one point. Didn’t last long though.

2- Whilst it’s easy enough to be smart with the benefit of hindsight, it’s difficult to remember a Watford squad as ill-equipped to handle a match like this. That’s not a comment intended to downplay the very great achievements of the squad this season… but any recipe for a cup upset against any senior opposition (let alone the league leaders) really does demand a bit of physical presence and a bit of pace, and we have neither – quite apart from the superior quality, each Chelsea player was a good three inches and half a stone bigger than their opposite number. Our biggest asset (minus the sorely missed Helguson) is the movement and interplay of our midfield, but Chelsea are far more used to this sort of thing than our regular opponents and more adept at dealing with it.

3- That said, there’s little excuse for affording opponents of this calibre quite this much space and time; gulf in quality or not – and there’s no doubt Chelsea could have had more had they really wanted to – at least three of the goals were of our own invitation. Chelsea didn’t really have to do very much. Most infuriating of all was Henri Lansbury’s booking at the end of the first half… the men in yellow having displayed a dogged refusal to put in a tackle in the first half, Lansbury’s first on ?Zhirkov? was a good few seconds after the ball had gone. As play continued, Belletti earned a yellow for a revenge-hack, but Lansbury rightly went into the book also. If you’re going to stand off, don’t bloody jump in after the ball has gone you numpty.

4- Good to see Ross Jenkins back. If there’s one slim positive to grasp it’s that yer man got 45 minutes of match action in a game that was already lost… we may be relatively well covered in centre-mid, and Jenkins’ form before his injury may not have hit last season’s heights, but he offers more for me than the persistently nondescript Severin, and is a better long-term bet than Eustace.

5- I have to confess to having slumped from a peak of attending every away game on the way to Cardiff in 2005/06… regular readers may have noted the lack of away thunks, this caused by this being only my second away trip of the season (I resolve to go to Doncaster in two weeks which, weather permitting, will be my 900th ‘orns fixture. Yes I am sad enough to know this). However by 3.05 I was wondering why I’d bothered. Not only had Daniel Sturridge, aided and abetted by our defending, mapped out the afternoon’s course, but it became evident that behind us was someone clearly persecuted by something akin to the Master’s tap-tap-tap-tapping in the head in Doctor Who. “Oh bloody hell Cowie you’re ****! I used to like you Graham but now you’re ****ing useless! Jenkins is doing alright. Oh ****ing hell Jenkins you ****!”. And so forth. Not sure my Mum will be braving another away trip for a while…

1- First off, one should perhaps (in the absence of Peterboro thunks) acknowledge that it’s rather good to actually have a club to trundle out to watch at silly’o'clock on Boxing Day. However genuine or otherwise the threat to the club’s future presented by Russo’s disgusting posturing in the wake of the AGM, it felt real enough. We’re here, watching football. That will do for starters; the future comes later.

2- Nottingham Forest. This incarnation of the “Tricky Trees” is hewn entirely in their manager’s image… peevish, miserable and charmless. Chief protagonists were pantomime dame Lee Camp, and the remarkable Chris Gunter. A note, Chris… if you’re going to feign injury to get an opponent booked, best bet is to time your yelp of pain as the tackle arrives rather than a minute or so before it. You’ve a better chance of success if the opponent doesn’t take the ball cleanly, too, but see also (3). And then Billy Davies himself, celebrating a nil-nil away from home as if he’d secured promotion, despite watching his left back get away with a save on the line that his keeper would have been proud of (if he’d got anywhere near Lansbury’s shot) seconds earlier. Class? Never heard of it.

3- Andy D’Urso. Almost a parody of himself… a quite extraordinary combination of pedantry and utter inability to keep up with play. Rous Stand onlookers were, I am advised, able to hear Gunter’s comedy yelp, divert attention to D’Urso to confirm that, no, he wasn’t paying attention and then look back at the ball to see Helguson’s tackle win it cleanly. A referee ought to be able to keep up with that I think. At times he was almost a tribute act, too cornily like D’Urso to be credible… his incompetence was largely incidental until the final few minutes…

4- An open game, one of those that it was difficult to reconcile with a nil-nil scoreline. Equally difficult to understand is Forest’s ongoing unbeaten away record… a decent side with plenty of attacking options, but neither infallible enough to steamroller all comers nor defensive enough to stifle games. For our own performance… one has to worry about the sudden tentativeness in front of goal. Four blanks in six games now, and whilst the build up is still good – by the end of the second half we were well worth three points, as Davies’ reaction demonstrates – we no longer have the conviction or the end product enough of the time. The magnificent Cleverley (see 5) is a reliable source of something, but Graham’s workrate and touch rather than his sharpness in front of goal are what’s keeping him in the side. That and lack of alternatives, natch.

5- With four loans (originally) due to end at the end of the year, it makes sense to review at this point. Cleverley is already secured for the rest of the season of course, and here again he was terrific; our lack of confidence is evidenced by his being the sole outlet however, reliable as he is. And opponents are wise to him, witness the excellent McKenna’s disciplined call to arms whenever Cleverley wandered infield. Cathcart, it seems, has already gone back; whether his loan would have been extended in the absence of injury now a moot point, but at best it seems fair to suggest that he hadn’t been wholly convincing. As with many of our centrebacks, one imagines that he’d look better alongside a more dominant figure, a Williamson; brought in to add competition, he at least covered Demerit’s absence better than we might otherwise have done. Helguson… well if this was to be his last outing at Vicarage Road in yellow (which seems likely with a halfway intelligent veteran of Championship management now in at QPR) it went sadly unmarked and unrecognised. All his performance lacked was a trademark lunatic far post header. Finally Lansbury, whose performance today epitomised the frustration. Clearly he has ability, on his good days he has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Cleverley. But some days he just doesn’t look that bothered, and this was one of those. The most intriguing of the decisions regarding loanees, then; Cleverley and Cathcart decisions made and clear, H we’d like to keep but one suspsects won’t be able to, Lansbury… without him we’re short of an attacking central midfielder. But you’d prefer someone you could rely on to turn up…

Sorry, bit of a long thunk there. Have a good New Year, and see you for the shit-or-bust at Stamford Bridge…

With a line-up featuring Robbie Savage, Lee Hendrie and Paul Dickov – a Sports Personality of the Year shortlist in an alternate, much more tetchy universe, possibly one in which Craig Bellamy is prime minister – and a formation built from concrete and asbestos, it’s actually quite hard to believe that we didn’t lose to Coventry yesterday. Derby are dreary, ugly industry in an old Coventry kit. But we’d do well to remember our ambitions weren’t exactly sky-high in August either.

2. As churlish as it always seems to whine about the referee after a defeat, an already cold, dull afternoon wasn’t exactly improved by Mr K Stroud. One of those officials who sets daft precedents: a couple of innocuous fouls early on requiring him to blow his whistle for every bit of physical contact thereafter; an early booking for Jon Harley when a lecture would’ve sufficed, leading to a rash of yellow cards for nothings and somethings alike. The inevitable result is that the rest of the ninety minutes turns into an administrative chore, like spending two hours in the spectators’ gallery of a magistrate’s court in a rural village.

3. So, anyway, let’s not put it off any longer: Derby completely out-witted us. As tempting as it always is to blame our own failings – of which there were some, but probably no more than on several occasions when we’ve emerged with beaming smiles – the match was mainly about the little bit of turf in front of their back four. There, Robbie Savage was nailed to a post like a scarecrow, barely moving more than twenty yards during the entire game; he did exactly the same job, and to the same effect, as John Eustace on his debut against Wolves a couple of years ago.

Aware that most of our attacking interchanges – the sly balls into Danny Graham, the bursts from Tom Cleverley, the cross-field switching of Don Cowie – take place in that area, Derby simply occupied that crucial space from first to last and effectively eliminated the threat of all three in the process. Add some tight pressing in other areas – particularly out wide, where, with Cleverley placed elsewhere, we lack anyone who’ll take on and beat an opponent – and you’ve got a perfect recipe for containment. We were trying to play expansive football in a broom cupboard. A rite of passage for a young side, in many ways; challenges they won’t have faced before.

4. And for a young manager too. Because in a game that always looked like to be settled by a set piece, there was no obvious change to be made: the most keenly-felt absence was that of Henri Lansbury, someone to provide the option of an extra body in midfield, an occasional unexpected charge forward, and a bit more height at corners and free kicks. Needing to bypass a midfield that we couldn’t play through, we found ourselves in a contest that played to very few of our strengths; even then, even as the defeat seemed utterly inevitable, a couple of the hopeful lobs towards the penalty area nearly fell for us late on. A game of small margins.

5. Let’s not be downhearted, then. A season ticket to Vicarage Road has thus far offered quite fantastic entertainment, even allowing for intermittent reminders that we’re not the finished product. And that there will never be a finished product, given that we’ve borrowed several cups of sugar from the neighbours. This, on the other hand, was cold and brutal, a dry Ryvita after we’ve got used to buttered crumpets with raspberry jam. It was a defeat born of our opponents’ pragmatism, their clinical and cynical determination to prevent us from doing what we do best; that’s to their credit, much as it was also to our immense frustration.

But there’s a healthy pragmatism in our dressing room too, it seems to me. Without any pompous pronouncements about how football should be played, we’ve attacked with dazzling, inspiring, thrilling verve much of the time; it’s hard to recall a Watford side capable of quite so much excitement without invoking Graham Taylor’s name. The previous manager’s dogmatism has fallen away: the point is that we’re playing like this because there are enough teams in the division who won’t get tight enough, who won’t have Robbie Savage patrolling that bit of space, who won’t concentrate all of their energy on denying us any room in the final third. It’s our best bet, with what we have available. It’s got us to tenth at Christmas-ish, which is not far short of a miracle. We just have to persevere, nothing else for it.