Watford 7 Blackpool 2 (24/01/2015)

1- Superlatives are easy to wave around.  In trying to convey drama, even if you’re not trying to “sell” anything, no vested interest in pumping up a mega hyper Super Duper Sunday (or whatever) the temptation to exaggerate can be overwhelming.  “No, really, it was SO incredible”.  But there’s no overstating this.  On a day of extraordinary results this one didn’t get a mention on 5 Live in the forty-odd minutes it took us to crawl from the Girls Grammar to the Cassiobury estate, under the radar…  and yet few in the stadium will have seen anything like it.

The game started, what feels like eons ago, in much the same fashion as last week’s equally emphatic and yet ultimately more routine and vastly less interesting win over Charlton Athletic; a bright and punchy opening with the critical distinction that whilst we prodded Addicks and they fell open like a chocolate orange,  this time the visitors got the break. A shambles down our right with Paredes – who, like the otherwise impeccable Miguel Layún, occasionally seemed surprised at being closed down  – and Gomes getting into a horrible mess and presenting Orlandi with a straightforward opportunity to put the Seasiders ahead.  A calamity on several levels – not least because it gave our visitors something tangible to hold on to.  They looked limited but disciplined, and we’d acquiesced meekly to their gameplan that would involve standing up to our forwards, keeping their shape and grabbing what they could grab.  We weren’t awful in this period… we had lots of possession and made a few chances, not least when the ever-positive Ighalo found himself in space after his marker lost the ball and punched a shot that Parish clawed out of the top corner.  But we didn’t look terribly like scoring either, light in midfield, too many players looking unconvincing and unconvinced on the fringes of the action.  It was hugely reminiscent of the dying embers of Gianfranco Zola’s reign, when any team with a scout, or a brain, figured out that they could roll up, keep their shape and wait for us to screw up whilst breaking ourselves on their banks of four.  This Blackpool did competently and grabbed a second through the unpleasant Davies, his third goal on visits to Vicarage Road in recent seasons.  Exasperating, but a very real challenge for Slav and the team and therefore interesting.  How much have we learned?  Are we smart enough to counter this yet?

2- Half time was disgruntled, as you might expect.  A pigeon high in the roof of the Rookery summed up the mood by crapping on Felix’s shoulder, perhaps in response to his suggestion that the visitors would crumble as soon as we scored and that it was merely a question of how quickly we would make the breakthrough.  I was with the pigeon; I didn’t see that coming at all. Blackpool weren’t Charlton, a limited side who’d been punching above their weight, gotten unrealistic expectations and were now suffering from the twin challenges of gravity and momentum.  The Seasiders had been bouncing along the bottom all season, there’s no further down to go.  Lee Clark’s side had some shape and some grit, and much as they hadn’t won an away game they’d been scraping together points and had enough about them to make a gift-wrapped two-goal lead away at a side with pretensions something that could be defended by bloody-mindedness, bodies on the line to protect what they had.  Even if they shipped a goal they’d still have a lead.  Even if they shipped two a point would have been a decent result.  I expected us to have to scrap for every inch, I expected it to be frustrating, I wasn’t convinced we were up to it.

3- Boy was I wrong.  We struck back almost immediately, and then hit the visitors like a tidal wave.  They were complicit in their own downfall, lumbering punch drunk after the ball as the scoreline rattled away from them and very much not closing the game up, but take nothing away from the Hornets either on or off the pitch, this was something special.  Slav made a crucial tactical change in bringing off Hoban for debutant Watson, of whom more below…  suddenly we had an extra body in midfield with Vydra, who had looked uncomfortable and constrained in the Abdi position at the front of the midfield, now with more freedom.  Whether, had things not developed as they did, Blackpool would have put more pressure on our full backs we don’t know… but as it was their limited attacking threat in the face of the blistering whirlwind of yellow shirts meant that Paredes and Anya were able to attack as much as they had in the first half without glancing over their shoulders.  As for the goals…  the extraordinary deluge, the concentration of strikes that saw us turn the game around in less than 10 minutes and hit seven in a breathtaking 34 were less individual incidents worthy of distinct dissection than artifacts, bi-products of the performance itself.  Odion Ighalo grabbed four through disciplined forward play, being in the right place, making the run, being positive.  Vydra scored perhaps the best and most vital of the bunch and his play flowered with confidence immediately, linking up dynamically with Anya down the left and then playing in the wickedly delicate ball that made Ighalo’s hat-trick goal.  It could have been more, and the final scoreline once again didn’t flatter us.  All that prevented more goals as the Seasiders continued to leave us wide open spaces was that our feverish running had simply left us without legs.

4- A word for Nyron Nosworthy, so recently of this parish, and Craig Cathcart who have effectively traded places since last season… and one can only conclude that both sides have benefitted from the exchange.  In the first half Nyron was solid, leaving his former teammate Troy Deeney a peripheral figure;  in the second he was blown away with the rest of the debris into which the visitors disintegrated.  And yet the Seasiders, in their current state, will probably find his experience, physique and force of personality of greater immediate value than Craig Cathcart’s more elegant form of defending.  Whereas… it’s difficult to imagine Nyron, for all his qualities, being comfortable with bringing the ball out in the way that all three of our centre-backs were needing and able to do at different stages.  The concern with Cathcart will remain his horribly brittle-sounding injury record, but every on-pitch contribution has been positive.

5- Sitting sixth in the League it’s inappropriate to use the term “turning the corner” whether or not this match has any lasting significance.  And yet one can’t help but feel that this was hugely important in so many ways… the sort of position that we found ourselves in at half time is one that we’ve struggled lamentably to pull ourselves away from  in the past and yet today it looked effortless, even if one forgets about the dramatic margin of victory for the moment.  The scoreline, the second half performance were extraordinary… but coming from two down in such circumstances is worth celebrating on its own.  In looking forward to the closing months of the season one can only be encouraged by the latest addition to the ranks; Ben Watson is hardly a stranger, a frequent opponent over the years and yet in the second half it was encouraging how much part of the machine he looked.  A continuity player, not someone who will do the spectacular things but he’ll combine the Jonathan Hogg trick of always being there to receive a pass with a miserliness with possession.  A real asset, and a good option.  And over time, as the Pozzo squad accumulates, you have to reflect that Hogg himself, and then only arguably, is one of very few to have got away.  We’ve seen a huge turnover of players and yet we’ve retained the cream which has seen us build an extraordinary squad, perhaps unparalleled in the club’s history.  Today suggested that as well as the quality we have the personality and the tactical wit to mount a promotion bid that will be very much more than theoretical.  What comes next, starting with Friday’s trip to Bournemouth, will be fascinating.