Watford 1 Leeds United 0 (20/02/2016)

1- There’s been a lot of guff about the FA Cup this week.  The cup’s dying.  Replays should be scrapped.  The cup should move to midweek.  And so forth.  And I can’t help but feel that we’re talking ourselves out of it somewhat.  Because much as the money has inflated everything and made top flight status and Champions League qualification so much more consequential financially, there was never a point where the League didn’t matter.  Where anyone would have chosen the possibility of Cup glory over preserving their top flight status.  The next TV deal, when the Premier League sells itself to Mars or Atlantis or whatever and the numbers roll upwards again, doesn’t make the pot now any smaller.  And yet the FA Cup was still a big thing, once.  What has changed is the Champions’ League.   The number of games means that fixture lists are grotesquely overloaded… but only for the senior clubs involved.  As for the likes of us… I haven’t noticed our fixture list being overloaded.  Indeed, we’ve not had as few fixtures since… well, last time we were in the top flight, I expect.

It’s about slicing yet more of the pie for the elite clubs, one effect being denying sometimes hugely consequential replays to smaller sides; this endless quest was betrayed by Karl-Heinz Rummenigge’s quotes in conjunction with the perverse suggestions that the Champions League should guarantee places for the “big brand” clubs – “There’s a limit to how much more money can be made”.  It’s depressing that lower league club’s futures can be secured by the privilege of playing Manchester United or whoever, but more depressing that the disposal of replays is being discussed at all.  Ditto rendering the FA Cup a midweek tournament and rendering the big cup away day facilitated by big away allocations a thing of the past. My view:  if you want to stuff your snout in the Champions’ League trough then your squad ought to be strong enough to cope with the FA Cup.  If you’re that fussed about replays, you could maybe pick a strong side in the first place.

2- There’s a distinct lack of Cup fever at Vicarage Road for this one, it has to be said, where the more gormless of Watford’s support betray their long-standing desire to be Premier League wankers by trotting out the “One-nil on your big day out” chant, and gurning “who?” at Leeds subs, including Alex Mowatt who anyone paying any level of attention will have heard of.  That trick was moronic when Birmingham City were doing it to us 15 years ago, it’s now both moronic and old.

On the pitch there’s a strong Hornets side out with only Gomes and Ighalo plus, more debatably, Behrami, Aké and Jurado missing from whatever our strongest eleven is.  We start convincingly and dominate possession, threatening from set pieces of which we have a fair few… but Leeds are no pushover.  They’re sort of half-flashback half-tribute act; the former in the sense that they’re every inch a mid-table second tier side, the sort that we’ve played for ever.  Good enough at some things… defensively solid, switch from defence to attack pretty effectively… but with limitations that mean that they’re in the bottom half of the championship…. minimal attacking threat, and critically no pace at all with which to capitalise on those breaks.  The tribute act in the sense that… well, they’re Dirty Leeds.  Daughter Two has been using this monicker all week, as innocently as if she were saying “Leeds United”… I explained the basis, she’s not disappointed.  Leeds aren’t violent but they’re cheap, clumsy thugs.  By the end of the half the game is more even, our superiority somewhat lost in an increasingly sludgy match, but Leeds are an ogre with frostbite trying to thread a needle.  We’re never in danger.

3- Of particular interest are new boys Nordin Amrabat and Mario Suárez, both of whom making a first home start. The Moroccan reiterated this week that he sees the wing as his natural position… here he was deployed as the most advanced striker.  He worked hard and made some decent runs, but it’s not quite clicking yet…  early days of course, but whilst he looked mobile and willing this was a less effective, less impressive outing than his full debut in the previous round at the City Ground.  Suárez however lasted the full ninety, and looked very tidy.  Not flawless,  caught in possession once or twice, but elegant, aware, pinging accurate passes… but hard as nails as well, not afraid of a challenge.  A highlight that will no doubt delight my absent co-editor was an upgraded reprise of a Vicarage Road classic, the “Coxy into the wall” free kick..  Suárez’s late tribute, strictly speaking a shot following a lay-off from a free-kick, was fierce enough to provide assurance that even if it doesn’t reach the target it will render whichever opponent is in the way collateral damage for the remainder of the attack.

4- We’re much, much brighter and punchier in the second half.  More aggressive, more determined. Our superiority is realised within ten minutes;  the magnificent Ben Watson whips a Beckham cross in as the ball breaks from a corner and Troy scores the goal without touching it, Wootton turning the ball neatly into the net in fear of the buccaneering centre-forward coming in behind him.  As it happens Troy wasn’t there at all, largely because Bridcutt – who had just gone into the book for a nasty stamping challenge on Capoue – had hauled him over.  Instant karma for Dirty Leeds.

We briefly threaten to run riot.  Almen Abdi, a force for good throughout, scythes straight through the middle of Leeds’ defence before shovelling his shot into the Rookery.  Capoue does find the net, converting neatly only to be denied by, ostensibly, a harsh call against Troy by Michael Oliver whose bizarre afternoon would we worthy of more lines were it of any consequence. Ultimately the score stays as it is, and it’s due in part to us getting irritatingly ahead of ourselves, Capoue and the rampaging Holebas both chasing debut goals with better options open, the sort of indulgence that would have been forgivable at 3-0 but would have been far less so had Leeds accidentally scored to level the tie.  They didn’t; we recorded a relatively inconspicuous victory, no bad thing, which despite Steve Evans’ rather bizarre appraisal was never less than comfortable.

5- There’s a line the gets trotted out on the radio occasionally, a non-statement used to lazily summarise supporters into one glib cliché.  “Supporters just want to watch their team win “.  Winds me up every time.  You’re being paid for this, right?  If it were true, it would be of no value in helping this listener appreciate any situation (in other news, bear shits in wood).  But I’m not sure this is all supporters want.  It’s not even the most important thing.

Over recent weeks the club have gently started to publicise plans to expand the corporate seating facility in the upper tier of the Graham Taylor stand.  This will have the consequence of 220 supporters in the two blocks either side of the black seats up to the entrance to the concourse being “relocated”.  Many of those supporters have been there for decades… some since the stand was built.  All are owed more by the club than this sort of treatment, so utterly out of keeping with the considered and well-judged decisions of this administration.  Put simply, an increase in corporate seating is only likely to be considered whilst we remain in the top flight… given which the TV monies incoming render a moderate increase in corporate sales an irrelevance, certainly not justifying alienating even a small element of the support.  And their friends.  And their friends.  Are these supporters supposed to move elsewhere and continue to rock up without bitterness as the prawn sandwich brigade shuffle into their old seats ten minutes after half time?

When you support a football club actively you’re not buying a product, you’re buying belonging… even as top flight club (if that’s what we’re to be).  It is hugely surprising and disappointing that the club have made such an uncharacteristically insensitive decision.  The most important thing to supporters is not to “watch their team win”.  More important even than that, is to simply watch their team.