Bristol City 0 Watford 0 (12/11/2022)

13/11/2022 14:57

1- We’d been driving for half an hour before I remembered that the tickets were still pinned to my noticeboard. The reaction of the car’s two passengers was more sanguine than my own… patience from Paul, indifference from Daughter 2 who is getting used to such displays of incompetence.  The last time Something Like This happened it was insulin that had been forgotten prompting similar dead time as we turned around and headed home then back.  We’d only had the relatively short drive to Vicarage Road in front of us on that occasion though.   As a consequence of that one, all diabetes-related planning for this trip had been impeccable to the extent that my wife stuck her head out of the door to needlessly check on her 49 year-old husband’s memory.  Instead, five minutes away from the parked car in Bristol I remembered that my insulin pump had been beeping at me for more than an hour and wasn’t going to last the game.  I left the same two passengers rolling their eyes at the side of the road while I trotted back and did the necessary. Sometimes the world is trying to tell you something. 2- We arrive at the ground in good time for the football, but without the cushion that the experienced traveller builds in to an away day as a matter of course to protect it from the vagaries of what happens on the pitch.   Ashton Gate didn’t look like this the last time I was here, for a drawn FA Cup tie under Beppe Sannino nearly nine years ago.  There was no fanzone then for starters – we don’t get to enjoy it this time either, obvs.  Two stands have been replaced, converting a ground that could previously have been described as “homely”, and then only generously, into an impressive stadium. The pies are splendid too and the vendors adopt the preferred “treat them like adults” approach to bottle tops. The only real minus is a critical lack of chocolate. Simon’s here too, and has brought nine year-old Adam to that most significant of events, his First Game.  This is not, of course, Simon’s first game… he’s a veteran of many terrible football matches up and down the country, several of them with me and several of those on Watford visits to Oakwell in the early nineties when we were housemates in Leeds.  Simon is having trouble getting his head around the presence of Dan Gosling, bearing scars as he does of a teenage Gosling deciding a Merseyside derby in the dim and distant past so profound that I remember their existence before he mentions it.  I’m having similar issues with Andi Weimann, who made his first starts and scored his first senior goals whilst on loan at Vicarage Road several lifetimes ago but is somehow only 31 (and City’s captain to boot). 3- It’s a turd of a game. Shorn of Sarr, João Pedro and Asprilla on top of Louza we lack any verve whatsoever and all the cracks that their presence renders ignorable are painfully exposed.  Those four aren’t… an unfair advantage of course, for all that they are each surely destined to return to playing at the top level with or without Watford.  You’re allowedto have good players. Had we sold Sarr and/or JP over the summer as we surely expected to, we’d have invested in some Polyfilla (other brands are available) to fill some of those cracks. But without them we have a stodgy team, and this was a stodgy performance from the off.  Ugly, clunky, unable to retain possession, unable to even find a pass.  I’ve been in favour of giving Mario Gaspar time to adapt… we’ve seen glimpses of a fine right foot and of course his pedigree is exceptional.  He can have as much pedigree as he likes on this evidence, lumbering around like someone’s uncle tasked with looking after the kids but unable to keep up with them and realising that, given his duties today, going for a cheeky curry after the pub closed last night probably wasn’t a good idea. Keinan Davis is quite tremendous though, receiving the ball, holding people off, looking for a lay off that isn’t there and getting no favours out of referee David Webb who lets quite a lot go in general.  There’s just nothing going on around him for much of the game… Samuel Kalu’s directness that has been so helpful off the bench never gets going here.  Ken plugs away but gets nowhere.  The midfield is congested… for all that Dan Gosling is nominally in JP’s place we effectively have three defensive midfielders, even if one did learn how to attack the box off Tim Cahill once upon a time.   The big guns are brought on early in the second half… or at least the two that we have on the bench, or whatever shadows of them their ailments – be they knocks, viruses, or World Cup considerations – permit.  To disappointing effect really… we do look more fluid, the away end is briefly energised at the prospect of nicking something (an outcome that Simon says he’d be fearing were he a home fan, negating the possibility of this transpiring by doing so) but we aren’t noticeably more threatening until Vakoun Bayo’s cameo, which is conspicuous for having a bit of energy about it.  He’s responsible for our two efforts at goal, neither of which are particularly close to the target let alone troubling Max O’Leary. 4- City are much the brighter side, if only in the manner of young rabbits frolicking in a field that would be polished off pretty quickly if a bird of prey with a bit of self-respect happened past.  No birds of prey in evidence today – just fat wood pigeons, stupid bastards that they are. City have dug up Nakhi Wells from somewhere.  Even in the days of inflated transfer fees, the fact that someone paid five million for him once baffles me.  He must be such a frustration to watch… ability evidenced by a fine early cross from the right that Tommy Conway does well to get on the end of (and having done so should have directed his header below the bar).  But then on seeing a newly relegated team (and therefore a prize, presumably) flailing around and desperately asking to be put out of its misery spends the game throwing himself around looking for penalties that only exist in his head.  The closest he comes is when Gosling injudiciously waves his boot around but Wells is ducking his head himself to get near it and no contact is made.  “You’ve seen them given”, but wrongly. Conway and Weimann are more acute threats.  The former escapes after Davis is harshly denied a free kick following his latest “World’s Strongest Man” audition, this time dragging only one marker along with him. The young Bristol striker rolls his shot past Daniel Bachmann but wide of the far post, thus avoiding the potential for outrage in an away end still smarting at that lack of chocolate. Weimann comes much closer… a fine cross from the left is met by the head of the Austrian provoking a tremendous save from his compatriot in the Watford goal. 5- That City’s energy, and the mood of a home crowd that must surely have smelt blood, only resulted in this one effort on target worthy of note is one of the plusses to take from the afternoon.  Certainly Hamza Choudhury and particularly Edo Kayembe continue to shield the defence, whatever the deficiencies of the pair as a unit.  Kayembe’s oblong stance makes him look clumsy and immobile, but he was one of our more dynamic and determined weapons here. The result, too, and a fourth clean sheet in six games (though we’re going to need to go some to match Coventry’s 10 in 13 and counting, definitely a rival to be aware of coming up in the fast lane with home games in hand).  Keinan Davis getting through his first full ninety minutes without pulling any punches.  Any away point is a good one, fourth going into the break is the most that we deserve and gives us a platform.  And of course Adam survived his debut free of any expectations as regards What This Can Be Like (not like if he’d debuted with, I don’t know, a 4-0 win over Burnley a couple of seasons into the club’s golden era, for instance). There’s a big “but” coming, and it’s painful to write about, the more so because you have to acknowledge it and yet words are moot because you all know this already.  Nonetheless… Dan Gosling was signed two years ago as one of a number of experienced heads to bolster the squad and get us over the line.  That done, including a surely pivotal winner at Carrow Road and a bravura show at Dean Court, he stuck around whilst the likes of Carlos Sánchez and Achraf Lazaar were released.  Since then he’s been in and out of the squad, all but ostracised for a year, asked to fill in all over the place most recently and most effectively at right back.  All of this he’s done with professionalism and gritted teeth, even when things haven’t quite gone to plan.  An absolute diamond.   So to see him go down as if he’d been shot, far from any opponent, punching the ground in pain and fury, was heartbreaking.  A ruptured achilles tendon isn’t something you’d wish on anyone, least of all a pro with six months on his contract who will be 33 when it expires.  Just so, so sad. (As an aside, the muppets in the home stands – stronger choices of noun are available – who chose to jeer his exit on a stretcher are welcome to lock themselves in a room, preferably with the muppets in the away end – again, stronger words available – who saw fit to interrupt the Last Post, and merrily screw themselves.  We’ll let you know when you’re needed again, really we will.  A minority in the home stands admittedly, there were plenty of decent human beings responding more appropriately visible too). And so we go into this odd month “off” in reasonable shape all things considered.  Enjoy whatever you do with it – it might be worth keeping half an eye on this blog in the meantime.  I’ll see you for the Hull game. Yoooorns. Bachmann 3, Mario Gaspar 1, Kamara 2, Kabasele 2, Troost-Ekong 3, Choudhury 3, Kayembe 3, Kalu 2, Gosling 3, Sema 2, *Davis 3*Subs: João Pedro (for Mario Gaspar, 56) 2, Sarr (for Kalu, 56) 2, Bayo (for Sema, 75) 3, Cathcart (for Gosling, 83) NA, Dele-Bashiru, Sierralta, Okoye