Watford 2 Blackpool 2 (22/08/2009)

1. After a relatively quiet start, a really tremendous game of Championship football, culminating in a breathless, nerve-wracking final twenty minutes of end-to-end mayhem. None of which should distract the coaching staff from taking a clear, sober look at the reasons why we didn’t win it…and that isn’t to ignore the part played by an enterprising Blackpool side with chances a-plenty, merely to recall that there was a point when it looked like we were going to put them to the sword. And it was exactly then that we conceded a scrappy, incomprehensible-from-the-other-end, oh-for-heaven’s-sake equaliser. That kind of nonsense will get us into a lot of trouble if we’re not careful.

2. A very enjoyable home debut for young Tom Cleverley, not least because of his complete refusal to be bullied or intimidated by the physical stuff that came his way. One walloping challenge under the Rous in the second half was something that many would’ve thought better of, preferring to keep all of their limbs intact; he won that and many others too, scrapping wholeheartedly throughout. And that’s the point about sending your players down to this level: you find out whether they can stand up for themselves, whether they can turn that training ground talent into something tangible.

Oh, and I’ll always love a wide player who’s prepared to make a lung-bursting run to the far post to get on the end of a cross from the other side. A splendid moment, that one, as you realised that Tommy Smith’s cross wasn’t just going to whistle through an empty penalty area, Danny Graham having been drawn wide in the build-up. More of that, please.

3. Of the recent acquisitions, it’s Scott Severin who continues to struggle. The post-Premiership conundrum was neatly summed up by a very decent cameo from John Eustace, who did the basic stuff rather well and added some of his old-fashioned, oddly slow-motioned bootery too. The absurdity is that you have to buy players to replace those you can’t afford to keep…and yet you might have to keep them anyway if nobody else wants to pay their wages, in which case you didn’t need to replace them. Regardless, it’s hard not to like Eustace…and it would’ve been even easier if that last-ditch drive had drifted into the roof of the net rather than against the underside of the bar. It was a game good enough to deserve an ending like that.

4. And it contained some of our best attacking football for a considerable time. A delight to watch four intelligent, bright players moving so well around the final third: Danny Graham as the fulcrum for it all, Tommy Smith darting into the spaces around the centre forward, Tom Cleverley and Don Cowie offering a genuine threat from the flanks. We were mobile, positive and really rather lovely to watch, and we should’ve made it count for more. It was that kind of afternoon, I suppose, summed up by Don Cowie’s one-two with Tommy Smith and glorious chip from twenty yards, hitting that spot on the underside of the crossbar for the first time. That would’ve been goal of the season, right there.

5. Of course, there was more than a hint of sadness as you watched those four link together so beautifully and so effectively. We won’t get to see that come to fruition: the meal’s been served up, the silver cover’s been lifted from the plate, we’ve picked up our cutlery and inhaled the mouth-watering aroma…but the waiter’s about to come along and tell us that we’ve been given someone else’s meal by mistake. Your bread and water is on its way, sir.

There are lots of things to say about Tommy Smith’s second spell with the club, but the key one is this: that he’s been an utter credit to himself. It seemed like a curious move at the time, but he’s made it work better than anyone could’ve imagined. The player who always struggled for a defined, established role as he emerged from the youth set-up – neither productive winger nor reliable goal-scorer, often lost in the grey areas in between – is now so influential that he can career around wherever he bloody well likes, making his mark above and beyond that defined role. I’ll freely admit that I hadn’t ever been convinced by Tommy Smith; no malice, no real criticism to make, just a feeling that there’d always be someone more useful, if less talented, ahead of him in whatever queue he’d lined up in. He’s changed all of that…and he’s done it himself, by force of will as much as anything else.

You’ll be sorely missed, Tommy.

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