Watford 4 Chelsea 1 (05/02/2018)

1.

9. Chelsea next. That might be fun.

Ian Grant, BHaPPY Stoke Report

I went down on the train. Sally (#notafootballfan) had dropped me off at the station. Her track record’s pretty good, Arsenal (A) last season was her previous drop-off. She left me with a promise to put money on Troy as first goalscorer as I grabbed the clockwork shuttle across from Bedford to Bletchley.

The route home was slightly easier; Dad dropped me at St Albans, I made the train waiting at the platform, grabbed the only cab on the rank at Bedford, home at not-quite-silly’o’clock.

And then lay in bed, staring upwards in the dark. For hours.  Completely wired.

2- A long time ago, Ian compared trying to describe the last 20 minutes of a particular game as being akin to trying to trap a hurricane a matchbox. 19 years on, another game that defies description, defies all attempts at meaningful summary. Appropriate, perhaps, that it was under the lights… Vicarage Road takes on a different feel at night, the dark seems to suck itself into the old quarry, claustrophobic in the way that sunlit games just aren’t.

There will have been intakes of breath at 7pm when the teams came up. No evidence of Tom Cleverley despite optimistic portents. No Christian Kabasele either, another hamstring victim. A 3-4-3 it seemed, with Holebas as a left-sided centre-back… but much as it’s easy to be smart after the event there was a lot to like about what Gracia had patched together. Janmaat and Zeegelaar as wing backs, for one thing. Following Bournemouth’s successful lead in matching Chelsea’s shape was another. As Chelsea launched an early attack and Janmaat was exposed on our right requiring Mariappa to sweep up I was briefly reminded of Sam Allardyce’s graceless deflection of blame onto his own team for their failure to follow Swansea’s blueprint for beating Arsenal. Would we suffer from aping someone else’s successful plan? No. This was very much not to be the tone of the evening.

Because we were brilliant. Have I not mentioned this yet? And of all the things to reflect on with glee, all the things and people to praise, surely the new head coach is at the top of the list. What a way to make an entrance. Not only did he cobble together a side, a team of all things, capable of thrashing the League champions, he injected a vim and vigour such as hadn’t been seen since, arguably, November. Gone was the nervous, hesitant, unconvinced shambles of recent weeks. Gone was the rigid adherence to a certain way of playing – we’ve played three different formations in three games. And throughout the first half – Christ, there were no goals until the 41st minute – we were on the front foot. Deeney sliced a chance wide as it came quickly across him, Richarlíson committed people, Deulofeu slammed a shot into the side netting. Chelsea didn’t have a shot on target in the first half.
They were nowhere.

3- It would be wrong to pretend that this was all down to Watford. The visitors looked as unlike defending League champions as its possible to look. Blunt, yes, without a focal point, this accentuated by our flooding of the midfield and forcing Chelsea into wide positions for the first half hour from which they couldn’t hurt us. But limp, too. Uncommitted, unconvincing and unconvinced. Eyes down, negative body language. Not unfamiliar, in other words, but if we’re honest it was latter day Silva Watford turned up to eleven by expectation and the nothing-to-loseness of their opponents’ circumstances.

Tiemoué Bakayoko’s hapless half hour is prominent in assassinations of Chelsea’s performance; from the Rookery, where even Chelsea are just a collection of Their Lot (plus David Luiz) it was less straightforward to highlight his culpability but certainly we stomped all over the midfield. Twice his loose control necessitated recovering challenges, twice he was penalised. You boss the midfield like that and you force such situations, impose them. At least one of those was soft, it turns out. Fine. We thank Lady Luck and maybe remember this next time an Eric Dier handball is missed. Nonetheless, as exhaling faces emerged from the concourse at half time reporting the generous decision you could help but worry that Mike Dean might seek to even the score in the second half.

He didn’t. Perhaps he would have penalised David Luiz more harshly for his kick at Doucouré in other circumstances but Dean had an excellent game and we never gave him the opportunity to even the score. By then, in any case, we were a goal up… Janmaat released Deulofeu, Courtois came bundling out and took out the winger. As an aside, if I could have wished for an extra cherry it would have been a red card for the odious Fabregas, not that he did anything to earn one beyond existing. But Thibault Courtois’ plaintive bleating about the penalty was a decent next best, and Jamie Carragher calling him out in uncompromising terms for having utterly messed up and taken Deulofeu out was an enjoyable part of the denouement. Troy smashed home the penalty, of course, the fallout from which was recorded on Sally (#notafootballfan)’s voicemail but in vain. She hadn’t placed the bet.

4- It would, equally, be wrong to pretend that this was all down to Chelsea. Of particular note is the number of individuals whose contributions were simultaneously ramped up significantly on recent showings. Least surprisingly perhaps Sebastian Prödl looked infinitely more comfortable in a three, more akin to his imperious best than the nervous giraffe of as recently as Stoke on Wednesday night. Daryl Janmaat, also in a more suitable position, was a rampaging rhinoceros on the flank rather than the rather clumsy, sedate animal of recent weeks. Abdoulaye Doucouré’s form had dipped to merely adequate levels but here he was again best at everything… passing, movement, awareness, tackling, driving the team on, big thumping twonks towards the top corner (we’ll come to that). Richarlíson was to be withdrawn in the second half as the visitors succeeded in prickling him but his flame was back on too, direct and uncontainable. Étienne Capoue… we’ve seen this before of course, but we thought this version of Capoue had left the building for good. Not so. A storming performance from the Frenchman worthy of pairing his compatriot in the middle. And Troy. Obviously Troy. For the first time in all the transfer windows where he’s been the subject of attention it felt as if he might actually be on his way this time. That the draw with Southampton was his sign-off, a reminder of what we were losing. Here he was magnificent, every inch the focal point that our forward line has been screaming out for all season even when he’s been in it. He murdered David Luiz, and led the line superbly… Jonathan Lieuw in the Independent summed up his contribution most appropriately:

“Troy Deeney scored a first half penalty and performed an essential role up front, part battering ram, part talisman, like the carving on the bow of a warship”

Jonathan Lieuw, The Independent

5- The second half, and more of the same. Except… from the moment when Chelsea went down to ten we were doing The Stuff That You’re Supposed To Do in such circumstances. Suddenly it was us getting it wide, switching it, making our opponents move. And as they were forced to push on bluntly we galloped back on the break… Deulofeu shot narrowly wide, Doucouré seized possession and hammered down the centre of the pitch before twonking it towards the top corner. Courtois, a better goalkeeper than he is interviewee, adjudicator or analyst, flung himself at it to paw it away. Chelsea still hadn’t had a shot on target.

The balance shifted when Giroud came on. This was preceded by some more fine refereeing by Dean, playing advantage despite Fabregas’ characteristically sulky, disruptive foul, ignoring Pedro collapsing in a heap under no challenge and then when Janmaat screwed the resultant effort wide booking the former and allowing treatment and ultimately replacement of the latter. And suddenly Chelsea had a focal point. Even the most exalted teams benefit now and again from a big lad up front and Chelsea’s threat was no longer theoretical. Perhaps conscious of it we looked a little deliberate for the first time. Sitting back, smothering the space. In fairness whilst we looked nervous there was still limited evidence of a threat… it was going to take either a rare lapse of concentration or something unprecedented and brilliant. Ultimately it took both… Janmaat afforded Hazard too much space, Hazard gobbled it up and slung an extraordinary shot past the blameless Karnezis. We’d have gotten away with that against anyone else. Olivier Giroud hared after the ball to retrieve it and the memory of late defeats to the Blues in each of our last three encounters loomed large.

6- The last ten minutes were ridiculous. They were what kept me awake last night such that I’m too tired to type as I write now, why this didn’t get written at lunchtime as a parade of visitors to the office wanted to discuss them.

But the turning point wasn’t Janmaat’s goal, magnificent and significant as it was. The critical moment, as called out by my brother watching dazed and exalted and frustrated in the distant northern wastes was slightly earlier… as Hazard was rudely dispossessed as he edged Chelsea towards their inevitable winner and Capoue, who we’ve so often screamed at to impose himself like this, changed the script again. He surged upfield leaving Chelsea defenders reeling in shock… memories of Arsenal’s hapless Tony Adams chasing Luther in 1987. This wasn’t the script. Capoue released Deulofeu’s brilliant run, the Spaniard clipped the ball over Courtois and wide but… we were still in this, boys and girls. No rolling over here.

And in our next attack Janmaat is careering into the Chelsea area, reminiscent of his pinball goal at Stamford Bridge last season but with the added bonus of an exquisite 1-2 with Roberto Pereyra (another who suddenly looked like the player in our heads) around the Chelsea bollards. A fabulous finish and the roof came off because now it was definitively All Going To Be OK. Not just this game, but the rest of the season, the rest of our lives, all sorted. All concerns blown away… the game, your job, your money concerns, whatever’s in your head tattered and blowing in the wind. In the Rookery, absolute carnage. On the pitch, Richarlíson has bombed down the wing from the bench to pile into the celebrations.

Then Doucouré’s doing this delicate dance around Chelsea tackles in the middle of the park and gets the ball out and somehow, who knows how, finds Deulofeu escaping down the right. His number’s up and he knows it, Andre Carrillo is stripped off and ready. So he keeps running, and keeps running, pointing either to Deeney or merely to confuse his marker who doesn’t need any help in that department. Troy’s run drags the defence apart, ties their shoelaces together and Deulofeu keeps going and again we get a break, a scuff of Cahill’s boot and Courtois looks a pratt as it rolls past him which is a shame but our luck is IN and you almost feel sorry for our opponents except it’s Chelsea. Deulofeu stands in exalted exhaustion, his last touch to roll the ball into the net.

And we’re not finished, because in the sixth minute of injury time Bobby Pereyra turns Azpilicueta inside out. That’s César Azpilicueta, not Jack Hobbs or Liam Fontaine or Darren bloody Purse. And Azpilicueta having been turned inside out he slams a ridiculous shot past Courtois and it really is all over. “We want five” shouts the Rookery. “Barcelona, we’re coming for you” replies what’s left of the away end.

7- Hugely significant, obviously. Changes the outlook, changes the mood… no, screws the mood up and drop kicks it into the nearest bin with a click of the heels. But in isolation, out of context, this is why you watch football. Nights like this, which are completely brilliant and really don’t come along that often. Not like this. Bring on the rest of the season. Bring on the returns of Kaboul, Femenia, Chalobah, Hughes and the rest. Bring on, suddenly, improbably anything…

Yoorns.

Karnezis 5, Mariappa 5, Prödl 5, Holebas 5, Janmaat 5, *Doucouré 5*, Capoue 5, Zeegelaar 5, Deulofeu 5, Richarlíson 5, Deeney 5
Subs: Pereyra (for Richarlíson, 65) 5, Carrillo (for Deulofeu, 89) 5, Gray (for Deeney, 93) 5, Ndong, Lukebakio, Bachmann, Mukena