View from the South – Watford vs Birmingham City

I remain a bit of an old-fashioned soul when it comes to football. I like to watch mine on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. but because of the modern day requirements of European football in which Birmingham City are of course involved 😀 it means that the this week at least Sunday was the day. At least, it is one the closest of venues that I will be visiting the season and I was able to take my time to travel the 38 miles or so to Vicarage Road. I managed to find a parking spot in the grounds of Watford Grammar School for Girls who charged the princely sum of £6 for the privilege. I didn’t mind too much as at least I knew the car was safe and I would not be picking up a parking fine out in some side street. The only pub I came across was empty and derelict and that was directly opposite the ground called The Red Lion. I fortified myself with a bap full of bacon from a local vendor and proceeded into the ground in the hope that I might be able to get pre-match drink only to find that only tea or coffee were available 🙁 . I found my seat and read a couple of chapters of a book stored on my iPhone.

This whiled away the time towards kick-off when the teams were announced and I was pleased to see that we were going to set up for 4-4-2 with Wood and Rooney up front with Burke, Beausejour, Spector and Redmond as the midfield quartet. The defence comprised of Carr, Davies, Ridgewell and Murphy with Myhill in goal. The game quickly settled into a pattern with Birmingham enjoying the majority of possession and the attacking play. The Blues forced a series of corners in the first half an hour and the home side did well to parry the threat of the visitors despite living on the edge at times. Watford offered very little in terms of attacking threat and Birmingham’s domination finally told on thirty-nine minutes when Blues took a deserved lead. From one of many corners that had resulted from the continued pressure on the Watford defence throughout the half, Beausejour delivered an excellent ball to the far post for Murphy to cushion a header back for an easy tap in by Adam Rooney. A minute or so later the ball was in the net again from a long throw from Murphy to the unmarked Chris Burke who gleefully headed the ball into an empty net. The travelling faithful’s celebrations were rapidly cut short however when the goal was disallowed for an alleged push by Rooney on the goalkeeper, Loach. No such decision had been forthcoming five minutes earlier when a clear foul on Myhill was ignored allowing Craig Forsyth to claim the rebound. Fortunately, his effort past harmlessly over the bar; Rooney’s misdemeanour was minor in comparison.

Blues went into the half-time break a goal to the good and I expected them to go on and win this game easily. Watford currently lie in the bottom four without a win and without a single point at home and frankly it is clear to see why. The second half started very similarly to the first but it was quite obvious that the Watford manager had had a few choice words for his players and they did at least show a little bit more urgency and energy and enjoy a bit more play. Blues for their turn started to get sloppy and tended to give the ball away too easily and resorted to knocking the ball long rather than playing through midfield as they had done so attractively in the first half. Nevertheless, Birmingham appeared to be in control the game and on 80 minutes Cameron Jerome’s long-awaited first appearance in a Blues shirt this season occurred as he came on for Rooney. The fanfare and loud cheers that greeted this was in total contrast to what happened next within seconds of the striker’s appearance. Blues completely switched off and lost concentration and allowed Marvin Sordell too much room 25 yards out and the Watford player needed no second invitation to shoot and his fine left footed drive found the bottom corner for an equaliser than never looked likely.

Blues woke themselves up from the stupor that they had allowed themselves to get into and when Watford carelessly gave away possession in the midfield Beausejour seized upon their profligacy and delivered a beautiful through ball for Chris Wood who made no mistake with a cross shot from 20 yards. There was now only two minutes left in the game and surely a deserved three points was there for the taking? However, in time added on another fierce shot by Sordell was parried up into the air by Myhill and Tiny Taylor of all people ran onto the rebound to head in an equaliser.

There is no other way of saying this, but Blues threw away two precious points this afternoon from slack defending and concentration at vital moments. This is now eight points that have been lost in only four games from winning positions. Regardless, of matters going on off the pitch, our threadbare squad, our commitments in Europe and our injury list, it is simply inexcusable to allow poor teams like Derby and Watford to take points from us when we have largely dominated games against them. Our start in the league has been relatively poor with only four points out of four games to show for our efforts. If we are to continue conceding soft, avoidable goals such as the two this afternoon the best that we can hope for is a mid-table finish which frankly is where I think we will finish up anyway as I have no high expectations for us in the league this year. This is in no way meant to be a negative, gloomy statement but more a sense of realism given the state of the squad, the number of games that we already are committed to and the inevitable attrition that those games will place upon our players, some of whom are very young. On the upside, the standard of the football from entertainment sense is by far and away much better than we have had to endure over the last three years. The team is worth watching particularly when they get it down and play it on the floor. In fairness, as they tired towards the end of the game they tended to resort to knocking the ball long to Wood and Rooney. As for Cameron Jerome, I did not feel that he was on the pitch the long enough to make much of an impact.

The Good: A very good first half performance that with a bit more fortune would have been rewarded with more than the one goal advantage. It was pleasing that both strikers got on the score sheet. There are some new songs – absolutely brilliant! Loved the one about Cheryl Cole and Scott Dann! 😀

The Bad: Allowing the lead to slip twice when in total control the game. Overall, though the performance was reasonable this was a poor result.

The Ugly: During the second half there was a guy with a longest and spikiest Mohican I have ever seen! He looked like one of those Greek gladiators with feathers sticking out of a helmet! The faithful were not slow in pointing him out! 😀

Watford: Scott Loach 7, Carl Dickinson 7, John Eustace 7, Martin Taylor 8, Adrian Mariappa 6, Mark Yeates 6 (Troy Deeney 72, 7), Craig Forsyth 6, Lloyd Doyley 6, Andi Weimann 6, Marvin Sordell 8, Jonathan Hogg 7.

Subs not used: Rene Gilmartin, Lee Hodson, Ross Jenkins, David Mirfin.

Goals : Sordell (80), Taylor (90+1).

Bookings: Hogg

Blues (4-4-2): Boaz Myhill 6, Stephen Carr 7, Curtis Davies 7, Liam Ridgewell 6, David Murphy 7, Chris Burke 6, Jonathan Spector 6, Jean Beausejour 7, Nathan Redmond 6, Adam Rooney 8 (Cameron Jerome 79, N/A), Chris Wood 8.

Subs not used: Colin Doyle, Luke Hubbins, Keith Fahey, Akwasi Asante.

Goals: Rooney (39), Wood (88),

Bookings: Redmond (27).

Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire) 8 Controlled the game in a competent fashion. I have no real issues with the officials but if Forsythe’s effort had ended up in the net I most certainly would have done. As for the disallowed goal, it was up the other end of the pitch but it didn’t look as if Rooney had done much but there was little protest from the Blues players so I’m sure it was probably a correct call.

Attendance: 11,937 (1,378 Blues fans).

Bazza