Watford 2 Ipswich Town 1 (24/03/2012)

1. By my reckoning, we’re second in the league. Not that league, obviously…but if you crudely divide the division into those with, at minimum, playoff aspirations and those, like us, with “Aliquid Sed Relegatio”* as an unofficial club motto, only Derby (arguably) sit above us. An awkward, cumbersome season has resolved itself very satisfactorily indeed.

I’ve been absent for a while, for various reasons, good and bad. When I last saw us, we were stumbling haplessly…no question that we’d be pulled back into the relegation fight, but absolutely nothing within comprehensive defeats to Palace and Southampton to suggest that we’d finish the campaign on a high note either. We haven’t lost since then, of course. I’ve missed the good bit; I’ve missed every single one of Sean Murray’s goals, the reputed revival in Chris Iwelumo’s form, the positive impact of Tomasz Kuszczak.

We walk to the ground in warm spring sunshine amid the kind of careless end-of-season haze which seemed so distant barely a few weeks ago and so utterly implausible before Christmas. Along the row, Daz is wearing shorts and flip-flops; you half-expect to be hit on the head by a beachball at any moment. It’s not even April yet, for heaven’s sake. We’d do well to remember that we’ve achieved all of this primarily through being not terrible; that gets you an awfully long way at this level. It’s all we have to do.

2. A lot of fun, except for most of it. We began with an open, broad swagger and briefly laid siege to the visitors’ goal, McCarthy saving brilliantly when Deeney seemed certain to open the scoring. Then Ipswich asserted themselves, effectively containing the threat of Murray and Kacaniklic, totally isolating Deeney and Garner, and taking complete control of proceedings.

It took a defensive calamity to gift them the lead – no communication between Kuszczak and Dickinson, both equally culpable – but they might’ve had several more, Murphy glancing a header inches wide from a corner and Chopra somehow missing an open goal from barely three yards. We were a disorganised mess at the back (which is uncharacteristic) and a non-event further forward (which isn’t). Apart from an incident involving Harry the Hornet and a xylophone – it’d take too long – the half drifted sleepily towards the break.

3. But where there was once a grim, rigid inevitability to it all, born of a chronic lack of effective creative options and frustrating caution in using those we had, we’re no longer so easily discouraged. The substitutions turned this game around: it’s hard to recall Prince Buaben having a vital touch of the ball, but his assertive presence further up the field gradually dragged the whole contest forward a crucial twenty yards.

And then, after ten post-interval minutes in which nothing much happened, there was Chris Iwelumo for the lightweight Garner…and there was suddenly someone to do the stuff which Deeney’s wasted on. One towering flick-on…leading arm, shining bald head, defender flailing…that’s the image you had in your mind’s eye when his name appeared back in July. That’s what we’ve waited to see.

4. The extra spring in your step on the way home, though, came from the knowledge that you’d seen something special, something very reminiscent of memories which you hold very dear. Because the game was won by Troy Deeney, by a refusal to let exhausted legs and aching lungs prevent one more chase after a lost cause, by a failure to accept that you’re not going to score from there.

In truth, Deeney was barely involved for much of these ninety minutes. Sometimes, playing up front is like playing in goal: you’ve got to remain alive to all possibilities, you’ve got to concentrate even harder when the play’s elsewhere. Danny Graham always knew that…switched on, alert and aware, ever ready for the break that everyone else would take just a split second longer to react to. Like a sea anemone, Deeney stuck doggedly to a rock while the tide went out…and then came to life, all stinging tentacles, when it eventually came back in.

You can demand no more of a centre forward than that, I think. I love the first goal…football is rarely so simple, but he plainly just wants it more than Delaney, all over the back of the defender in pursuit of an inaccurate pass, provoking the chaos in which Murray calmly levels.

5. The comparison with Mooney has been more hopeful than anything else…until now. When people talk about changing the shape of games, they’re usually referring to elegantly Messianic sculpting and squeezing. Tommy Mooney changed the shape of games by smacking them repeatedly with a very large shovel, sheer arrogant force of will overcoming everyday nonsense like gravity and time. You remember those goals because they were everything that football should be, everything that football needs to be, everything that normal life isn’t. Because they were goals that grabbed the world by the throat and damn well demanded to be remembered, even as they were scored.

So, Troy Deeney’s already been flat out on the turf a couple of times, Britt Assombalonga’s warming up on the sidelines. But then the backpass falls marginally short, and he’s hurling that exhausted body in ahead of the keeper…and as defenders gather all around, he’s turning in a slow circle in search of an option…and you assume that he’s spotted someone to square the ball to…and you realise that he’s gone for goal, absurdly…and there’s a defender on the line…and he can’t reach it…and the best goals are the ones that hang in the balance until the net ripples, everyone holding their breath and then letting it explode out of them…

DEENEY. DEENEY. DEENEY. DEENEY. DEENEY.

* “Anything But Relegation”, if Google Translate is to be believed.