Watford 1 Sheffield Wednesday 0 (21/10/2023)

1- Netflix is, on balance, a good thing.  Easy access to lots of stuff is difficult to object to.  I’ve no problem with an algorithm that helps recommend me stuff to watch, particularly if it isolates my watching habits from those of my offspring and it was a godsend to many during the pandemic.  No problems at all.

You’ve got to be careful with a made-for-Netflix series, though.  Or at least…  go into them with your eyes open.  Some are good and some are less so of course, that’s a given.  But altogether more consistent than quality is a format that prizes a cliff-hanger over a satisfactory conclusion.  Expect to want to come back for more, don’t expect everything to be wrapped up nicely at the end of it, or to feel as if this was working to a master plan other than the need to keep people watching.  All hook and no punchline, that’s the risk.

This wasn’t that type of game at all.  Far from it.  The anti-Netflix.  There were no hooks in this game; nothing but inertia, a sense of perhaps misplaced obligation and the persistent rain keeping most in their seats and nobody but nobody was desperate for more.  The conclusion, however, was more than adequate.

2- The game started with a flawlessly observed minute’s silence, the careful wording of the prelude to which emphasised the delicacy of the moment.  This proved to be the highlight of the first half by some distance, a barren, windswept and drizzle-driven wasteland of a 45 minutes that befitted any dystopian, post-apocalyptic “drama”.  

Sheffield Wednesday are hardly on a roll themselves of course, new manager or otherwise. As an aside, Danny Röhl may or may not turn out to be a decent appointment but you’d question the judgment of a chairman who, whatever the backstory to the odd departure of Darren Moore in the summer chose to entrust his team to Xisco, a man whose only managerial successes have come as a cheerleader for a squad high on quality by the standards of the division he’s been in.  This was never likely to be the case for a side promoted via the League One play-offs and banking on Ashley Fletcher for goals as much as sometimes.

But Watford aren’t high on belief at the moment either, and with both of our retained central attacking options once again demonstrating here their total inability to hold a forward line together we are vulnerable.  An unavoidable disadvantage of our current set-up, building from the back and using inverted wingers to cut inside, is that when it doesn’t work it looks impossibly slow and ponderous; this in turn offered encouragement to the visitors, who found that exercising little more than a reasonably competent high press was getting them quite a long way in terms of forcing their hosts back into a bog of introspection.  The “little more” was generally Barry Bannan, simultaneously always in the right place and always playing the right pass, a proper leader in the middle of the pitch the likes of whom and so on.

Nonetheless.  Unspeakably turgid, as Wednesday’s growing belief didn’t really develop into anything resembling pressure.  “This is the most boring thing I’ve ever seen!” protested Daughter 2, “and I’ve sat through double Physics!”.

3- Were this a Netflix drama, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was set up for Wednesday to heroically take advantage of the invitation being offered them and record their first victory of the season.  As we’ve already established however, this wasn’t a Netflix drama and it was already plenty clear that however unconvincing we looked, this wasn’t going to be the visitors’ afternoon.

Jeremy Ngakia presents a conundrum, having not nearly enough the what but a disproportionate amount of the how.  We’ve had players in similar positions in the past of course, though I do fear that in this case the former incumbrance will outweigh the latter positive in the end. In the first half Ngakia stood out for simply having a bit of welly about him, a willingness to try things, to risk things and to expose himself but his limitations were evidenced in him twice selling himself, once in each half, to present his opponent with a free run in behind him.  The first of these instances resulted in a deep ball to the far post;  it was too deep to be immediately dangerous, but as Musaba attempted to turn towards its path the fistful of his shirt with which Jamal Lewis restrained him was visible to the Rookery, if impossible for the officials to spot.

Not long afterwards we got away with Ryan Porteous executing a shove on his marker as a corner came in;  once again, not visible to the referee, once again probably inconsequential in its effect on the passage of play.  Once again, probably should have been a penalty.  Then towards the end of the half, a miscued and optimistic Bannan shot rebounded off a defender’s turned back to leave Daniel Bachmann stranded on the wrong side of the goalmouth, watching in relief as the ball span outside his far post.

The suggestion that this wasn’t Wednesday’s day was confirmed by the fallout to Jamal Lewis’ tackle on Musaba ten minutes into the second period.  Not only have you “seen them given”, you’ve seen this one given, since the referee pointed to the spot before reversing his decision on consulting his linesman.  In this instance this turned out to be the correct decision – though we had no real means of judging this from the Rookery – and much needed evidence that Lewis’ lacklustre performances are something to be persevered with since the tackle was perfect.  But you’re not going to get your first win of the season on a day when a referee, and Dean Whitestone was excellent in his “get on with it lads” approach to all but the most brutal of challenges, is confident enough to admit such an error and overturn a penalty award in your favour on the advice of his assistant despite being within spitting distance of a packed and noisy away end.

4- Joe, Pat and Cathal were over for one of their rare but always welcome visits from Ireland.  “What do you think of the line-up?”, Pat had asked pre-match.  I’d shrugged.  With few exceptions, so many of the options seem interchangeable to little great loss or benefit…   what’s more, with the benefit of hindsight, we always seem to get it wrong with the starting eleven and dramatically improve things off the bench.  Or… maybe Ismaël is extraordinarily good at altering a game once he’s seen it take shape.  Or maybe the very high number of not great but not terrible players mean that we can always maintain a mediocre standard with stamina by bringing on fresh legs.

Either way, and for all that the retraction of the penalty award was pivotal, the real change in the balance of play was achieved by our substitutions.  Even Mileta Rajović managed a significant improvement on his horror show against Boro last time out here whilst still resembling a wardrobe playing at centre forward.  His manager’s exaggerated praise of his battling performance suggests a striker whose confidence is in need of a rebuild;  certainly, whatever his limitations, his early outings suggest that he’s capable of better than we’ve seen recently.

But the other four changes were each transformative. Ismaël Koné, for whom the distance between good days and bad days is surely the starkest, came on at the break for the relatively blameless Tom Dele-Bashiru and set a stark contrast to what had gone before by swaggering all over the midfield in the second half.  Ken Sema’s very welcome return after what feels like more than half a dozen games out was also significant; he remains not only one of our remaining high quality footballers by the standards of the division but also a high quality person whose single-minded barrelling down the left, even if Wednesday generally stood up to it well, was instrumental in us beginning to overwhelm the visitors for the first time.  And Giorgi Chakvetadze, whose Watford career to date has consisted entirely of kind of vaguely promising cameos, put in probably his strongest half hour for the club by oiling the midfield and, with increased mobility suddenly creating runners ahead of him, finding that playing through balls into space between the markers closing him down that had until then been cutting off angles fairly well, was bypassing the press repeatedly.

By the middle of the half we were on top, the first time either side had executed sustained pressure.  The ball was being moved quickly from side to side.  Sema was getting in down the left, Chakvetadze sidestepping challenges in the middle.  A low ball from the left saw a vital defensive touch deny Tom Ince, closing in on the far post in an incident echoing our closest call, such as it was, at the other end in the first period.  The Watford crowd were rocked from their stupor.  Stuff was Happening.

5- Yáser Asprilla was the last of the subs, to predictable rejoicing in the Rookery.  If we can’t be good then let’s at least have fun, after all.  Or at least… retain the possibility of fun, since Asprilla’s promise and sparkle hasn’t always delivered very much.  No criticism intended really, he’s a young man very far from home, small in stature in a buffeting division who is in and out of the team.

But here he scored the goal that we’ve been waiting for him to score, and it was a fine thing, a goal worthy of winning the best of games let alone this one and resulting by from some distance the best move either side put together.  Koné, inevitably, was at the heart of it, spinning away from challenges deep in our half and hooking a quite brilliant pass into the path of the galloping but overlooked Asprilla wide on the right flank.  As an aside, it’s a concern that the only reliable means of scoring that we have in the absence of a striker who can hold the ball up is via an inverted winger cutting inside, but that’s not a reason not to enjoy it when it happens, particularly when it’s as sublime as this… Asprilla’s wriggling run across the front of the box concludes with him heading slightly away from goal, but spinning to rifle a shot through scattered opponents and beyond Cameron Dawson’s left hand and into the bottom corner. 

After so long of everything being shit, suddenly everything is brilliant.  Roars that you didn’t know were there emerge from deep inside.  Asprilla’s off towards one corner flag, Koné is engaged in a two fisted primal scream facing the lower GT stand.  Catharsis is oozing all over the pitch.  When the game resumes with fifteen minutes including added time still to go Wednesday send Dawson up for a late corner but it never feels under threat.  The defining memory of this period is Jake Livermore, who has been patrolling relatively inconspicuously in front of the defence, suddenly unleashed and roaring into challenges all over the park that stamp on the meekest dissent.  

We’re not a great side.  But we’re not terrible either.  We are five points off the relegation zone and six off the play-offs.  We are every inch a mid-table side, but that’s kind of OK if we’re on an albeit steady path to somewhere more convincing.  And this win was absolutely vital.

Yoorns.

Bachmann 3, Ngakia 3, Lewis 2, Porteous 2, Hoedt 3, Livermore 3, Dele-Bashiru 3, Louza 2, Ince 2, Martins 2, Bayo 2

Subs: Rajović (for Bayo, 45) 2, *Koné (for Dele-Bashiru, 46) 4*, Sema (for Lewis, 55) 4, Chakvetadze (for Louza, 62) 4, Asprilla (for Ince, 78) NA, Healey, Kayembe, Sierralta, Hamer