Middlesbrough 3 Watford 1 (04/05/2024)
05/05/2024 10:54
1- “Fernando Forestieri as Nick Nack!”
It’s 9am. We’re somewhere near Peterborough. The car is full. Dave and I are cutting it fine, but nonetheless honouring a long-standing tradition of one stupid drive per season facilitated by the decision to move final day games to 12.30pm. Sophie happened to be in earshot on Occupation Road as we discussed it and joined the party influenced by the desire to cross off a ground. Daughter 2 is up for anything that involves a football match and the ability to pop in her earpods and tune out.
The immediate objective is an eleven of Watford players past or present who could have appeared in Bond films. Highlights include Ramon Vega (centre back / archvillain, but only in a relatively mundane “planning a cyber-robbery” rather than “taking over the world” kind of way) and Giedrius Arlauskis (goalkeeper / hapless Moscow taxi driver who inadvertently gets sucked into the plot when Bond jumps into the back of his cab and tells him to drive). We fill up the slots, but struggle with the left side of midfield; the answer comes with the epiphany that Neil Smillie could easily have been a croupier in a Roger Moore-era casino.
The answer to a broader question is provided by the entire discussion, along with countless snack stops, a match prediction competition (monkey tennis selection: Hamilton vs Kelty Hearts), a traditional ten minutes of eulogising over John McClelland, a stab at a Pozzo era select eleven which stalls with an unresolved three-way dispute over who partners Craig Cathcart at centre back, a half-time rendez-vous with my brother and his herberts, and two packs of jelly babies. Oh, and a game of football.
The broader question is of course the one that you asked when you saw that I was reporting on this match.
2- It’s not a bad game at all, as it turns out, for all that we lose it and deservedly so in the end, and for all that it is nonetheless unavoidably shaded in the colour scheme of end of season dead rubber. The latter colours our interpretation too, since the same game in January would surely have featured a deal more frustration and rancour than the two lone voices who can’t help themselves but briefly explode into righteous fury at our failure to press high up the pitch in the wake of going behind. And not just because January is wet and cold rather than, as here, finally, relatively mild.
Instead, the away end is incorrigibly boisterous and carries the air of “damn it all I’m going to enjoy this” that you really think ought to be more typical of long distance away crowds than it is… but is in any case guaranteed by today’s exceptional circumstances. Tom Cleverley’s name features frequently, Ismaël Koné finally has a chant of his own and Luton’s travails are celebrated in a now traditional fashion. There’s a degree of bonhomie with the noisy home end to our left (at least for a while, until the posturing, chest thrusting dullards on either side of the divide have their say) – on the 16th minute the away end joins a round of applause in memory of 16 year-old Boro fan Joe Field, whilst later as more critical developments develop elsewhere there’s a touching moment as supporters of both sides unite in revelling in Leeds’ woes.
Even as we go behind, a development which has in all honesty been coming as the home side, and Emmanuel Latte Lath in particular, have been doing a persistent job of tiptoeing through the brambles and protruding roots of our defence before being denied by a well timed limb (most frequently a Dutch limb), or a block, or a boot to a slightly loose piece of control. Around half an hour in there’s a breakthrough, a ball from the right finally allowing Latte Lath to convert (albeit with what looked like an unhelpful deflection off Sierralta). The mood in the away end is perhaps prepared for and in any event relatively robust to this development.
3- The second half sees a better game of football all round, largely because we’ve mobilised some attacking play at last. Our best first half attempt had been very early on, a decent Bayo header that Dieng did well to deny; beyond that it had been suggestions of breaks and half-chances rather than a convincing threat. Mileta Rajović is making his first start since the win at Rotherham in February, but whatever his strengths – and I think most would agree that at the very least there are situations that give you hope that there’s a proper player in there – he’s not suited to a game when we’re deprived of possession in attacking areas. He’s a willing chaser, but not one that either accelerates or changes direction very quickly.
But in the second half our midfield gets hold of the ball, we spend more time in Boro’s final third, and the whole thing looks a bit more convincing. Edo Kayembe has been a force for good throughout, physical and aggressive without giving fouls away, even under the fussy eye of Keith Stroud, but Ismaël Koné has perhaps his best outing since Tom took over, playing his third full ninety on the hop to boot. We’re now trading blows with Boro rather than merely digging in and repelling attacks… Bachmann is required to come out quickly to block as a move expands from right to left on one occasion and pulls off a couple of sharp stops including one that was breathtaking but irrelevant in the wake of an unseen offside flag. But at the attacking end Ryan Andrews picks out Vakoun Bayo through the centre, but rather than slipping the ball sideways to an unmarked Asprilla he hesitates and gives a sliding tackle the opportunity to be relevant. Half time sub Morris gets into good positions but is let down by poor delivery, Asprilla gradually flames on and starts causing mischief.
Finally, on 73 minutes we’re level… a fine Asprilla corner, Hoedt propels himself forward under attention at the near post and directs a header back over his head and into a waiting net. The away end is jubilant, the goalscorer, on review, surprisingly reserved. A minute later Koné is floating towards the box and forces Semy Dieng into his best save of his afternoon, pushing the shot wide. Briefly it looks as if the tables may turn.
4- Team selection was always going to be of at least moderate interest here given the summer’s likely departures. Loanees Dennis and Lewis were completely absent… the former decision telegraphed by the head coach but largely unmourned absences in both cases. Lewis, for me, did no worse than OK (if little better) but the decision to bring Dennis back has proven to be an unsuccessful one, despite and in some ways because of the occasional sparks of light. We know what he can do, after all. He just didn’t do it nearly often enough, and the expectation that he would only have been re-signed with surety of a leaf-turned was ill founded.
Also missing were Ryan Porteous and Giorgi Chakvetadze, mothballed for the Euros, the presumably also exiting Tom Ince and the fragile Tom Dele-Bashiru. Lined up on the bench were all of the kids that have been named in squads over recent fixtures, plus one new “next cab off the rank” in midfielder Leo Ramírez-Espain.
Three of them would take to the field. Jack Grieves got the longest, fifteen-minutes odd in a central attacking position which he started tentatively before seemingly being wound up by the passage of events around him and snarling after the ball with the focused aggression that characterised his brief outings last season. The highlight was a bullish run with skittles tumbling around him that saw him release Zavier Massiah-Edwards to his right, the young winger underhitting his rolled cross before admonishing himself furiously.
Massiah-Edwards and Albert Eames had both made the briefest of appearances in injury time, the first academy kids to debut this season for all the new names filling spaces on the bench from time to time. This is of course a Good Thing, particularly if they prove to be any cop. Getting them involved and inconsequentially over the bump of making their first outing won’t hurt at all. In the concourse before the game Fran had gushed with excitement of her optimism following the recent youth-based “At Your Place” event. As a fellow statistician I can only have confidence that her conclusions are based on a most robust analysis of the data at hand. Hurrah for that.
5- By the time Grieves had come on, of course, we were behind again… some more tiptoeing around the box from Greenwood before a ball across the face of goal found sub Bangura. His finish was precise but not powerful, Bachmann may have been partly unsighted but should have done rather better nonetheless. Within minutes, and having just rejigged with Grieves having entered the fray for defender Pollock, Boro took advantage of now wide open spaces to convert a third. Like the previous two it had come down Boro’s right, no chance for the goalkeeper this time.
A fittingly meh end to the season perhaps, the third disappointing season in succession. Personally however I’ve enjoyed it far more than the preceding two… much more than 2021/22. a season of being inadequate in the top flight is never fun. More too than last season, where we may have had slightly more quality but where we underperformed our potential to a far greater extent and failed to take advantage of a lamentably weak division… though perhaps promotion merely by dint of being slightly better than the rest is a mixed blessing, as the current Premier League table suggests. This season we’ve been rather irrelevant, impotent too often. Not a great watch, as the empty patches in the stands betray. But little worse than we had a right to expect from this squad I think.
Meanwhile one of the surprising number of benefits of the earlier kick-off to which we might need to become accustomed – the mental block of getting up early the only real negative – was the ability to spend time in the Boro fanzone chewing the cud with similarly phlegmatic home supporters before heading home in daylight. Not having made the playoffs in the end, or done anything of great consequence didn’t seem to be an impediment to pride in their shirt, quite right too. Neither side boasts even the qualified successes of promotions and cup runs often enough for this to be the defining metric of enjoyment – let alone actually winning anything, for all that the Copa de Ibiza still stands proudly in the Watford Museum.
A few more wins wouldn’t hurt though, obviously. Next season, maybe. See you then… there’ll be all the usual summer guff here in the meantime.
Yooorns.
Bachmann 3, Andrews 3, Sema 2, Pollock 3, Sierralta 3, *Hoedt 4*, Koné 4, Kayembe 4, Asprilla 3, Bayo 2, Rajović 2
Subs: Morris (for Sema, 45) 2, Martins (for Rajović , 55) 2, Grieves (for Pollock, 79) NA, Eames (for Andrews, 92) NA, Massiah-Edwards (for Asprilla, 92) NA, Nabizada, Ramírez-Espain, Livermore, Hamer
