Watford 1 Sunderland 0 (27/04/2024)
28/04/2024 14:54
1- So. Decision made, then. Earlier than expected which suggests, whilst acknowledging the encouragement of recent performances, a desire to make a statement of faith before the reassurance of a home win. A “he’s the guy”, rather than a “well, OK, go on then”.
Which is a Good Thing. Not since GT took over the team for what was effectively the third time in 1997 have we appointed someone with quite such a local history. Not since then, with nods to Quique’s miserable second coming, Malky, Dyche have we appointed someone who we want to succeed as much for their own sake, not just because they happen to be managing Watford.
And therein lies a risk. You hope for something, cross your fingers, want something badly and… as soon as it happens you start worrying. What if it doesn’t work out? What if he doesn’t get backed. What if his lack of experience means that he’s just not ready… something will come along that he doesn’t know how to handle, yet, and it capsizes everything? What if Jimmy Gilligan, now heading back to the academy, was the catalyst behind our better performances? What if Tom isn’t actually cut out for this after all?
Here’s a confession. I was worried when GT came back, too. The second time… at least until the Ipswich game and the reassurance of seeing that it was all real, for all that we lost. Not identical concerns perhaps… Jimmy Gilligan was only three years retired as a player, albeit already coaching youngsters at Watford in 1996 so wasn’t perhaps at the front of anyone’s thinking. But concerns. The risk of his reputation being tarnished not least.
That turned out OK. Which isn’t to say that this must… but there are already reasons to be positive, on and off the pitch. Visiting supporters may scoff at this revelation, but the atmosphere yesterday was the best for a while, Cleverley the first manager to have his name sung since ?Xisco? (remember him?) and a boisterousness, even if only occasional, in defiance of another nil nil scoreline. Jeopardy, after all, is a prerequisite for real excitement.
2- But the game was dreadful once again. This despite a statement of an opening play that saw half the team hurtle for the Sunderland penalty area with a big up-and-under hoisted at them. It came to nothing, and any momentum quickly dissipated… I was reminded of the Douglas Adams’ account of a ferocious alien attack on Earth, “where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.”. Oh.
What followed was various ebbs and flows of a match-up with a lot of things not going for it. Two average-to-mediocre Championship sides with not an awful lot to play for in in constipated form… three of our last four games had finished nil-nil, Sunderland’s last four had featured a grand total of two goals. We hadn’t won here since November, Sunderland were on a run of two wins in fourteen. It was never likely to be a classic.
Each side desperately missed a focal point for their attack. Sunderland’s approach to this problem seemed to involve Jack Clarke running at the penalty area a lot; it wasn’t a dreadful plan and on a luckier day for the visitors might have yielded something but on the odd occasions when both our centre-backs and our fortune were found wanting, Daniel Bachmann’s propensity for hurtling out at high speed served him and us well.
Our own forward line comprised Vakoun Bayo and Emmanuel Dennis. Bayo has developed a single-minded approach to his hurtling around and closing down which he did here assiduously and effectively, but for all the occasional decent touches he’s not a target man. Dennis, meanwhile, continues to irritate… disappointment has ceased to be the right word, since that implies expectation. To whatever degree his performances are influenced by the injury that Tom reports, his departure at the end of the season is unlikely to be mourned. He contributed next to nothing here. “Come back Ismaël, all his forgiven” whined a voice from behind us as we laboured, its source mistaking petulance for humour.
3- There were bright spots, even if most of them didn’t have much to do with the afternoon’s football. The much trailed and much welcomed full debut for Jack Grieves was a fine thing, even if it only lasted 45 minutes and saw him pitched in an unfamiliar position (in as much as we know what his preferred position is) on the same flank as Sunderland’s star man. He did well enough; it seems likely that the half time switch was planned, but he had been increasingly scrutinised by the visitor’s attack and perhaps his preoccupation with the less natural job of defending limited our attacking threat down the right.
No doubt we’ll see more of him, extending a celebrated family dynasty yet further. Hurrah for that. There was also the opportunity to commemorate the passing of Sunderland legend Charlie Hurley; decent that we’re attentive and considerate enough to doff our caps on instances like this. I approve.
Finally, the latest approach to the handing out of the End of Year awards by, this year, sprinkling them between pre-match, half-time and post-match with the assistance of a well-picked set of special guests, perhaps attracted by Tom’s appointment, in Lloydy , Troy and Tommy Smith. This worked well, the only slight hiccup being the delay for the the loop of the pitch before the big awards which made the former feel like more of a chore than it should have done. All worthy winners though – Wes for both Player of the Season and Young Player of the Season, Yáser for Young Player of the Season and Sarah Priestley as Supporter of the Season. Hurrahs all round, and a nod too to an accidental highlight of the season in the ongoing failure of anyone to get anywhere near hitting the centre-spot from the penalty spot and thus winning £10k in the half time challenge. Mr Q’s main man seemed embarrassed enough by the difficulty of the thing to arbitrarily change the rules and give some money away anyway at the last, but the farce has been essential viewing all season and a good lack-of-need-for-investment for the sponsor.
4- As for Sunderland, they looked a sorry shadow of the punchy side that we faced at their place in, similarly, the penultimate fixture of last season. We only see a snapshot of our opponents of course, there’s plenty of narrative that goes on in between and before, and anyone who listens to the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcasts will have heard Barry Glendenning’s non-specific grumbles about the running of his club and be under few illusions. The chants of “we want our club back” from the away end that peppered the second half were more than mere childish tantrumming in the wake of a disappointing season.
Like us, like pretty much every side in the middle of the Championship, there are positive bits amongst the dross. Dan Ballard looks a solid centre-half; he came as close as anyone in a first half low on attempts on goal, a sort-of-threat from set pieces suggested by his far post header to Clarke’s free kick, headed away by Porteous as it wandered towards the goal-line. Ekwah, Alese and the absent Dan Neil are useful youngsters and Luke O’Nien has developed from his ball-juggling days at Vicarage Road into an arch-shithouse of a captain, the sort of captain every struggling side needs. Here, he happily took the only yellow of the game for his team with a stretching two-handed block to a Koné through ball that would have sent Matheus Martins through on goal. Sunderland need more like him, more structure since a team of kids is a necessarily flaky thing… Sunderland are all baubles with no Christmas tree to pin them to at the moment.
5- They could, and perhaps should still have taken something from this game, since they made creating chances look a lot easier than we did. Our back line did a good job of making things difficult, the visitors didn’t spurn clear-cut openings but had they been able to finish we wouldn’t have come away with the points.
So it should be a source of great encouragement that we did. The home win was everything of course, the need to get that monkey off our back before the summer break absolutely paramount. But having struggled more, in Tom’s nascent management career, against obstructive opponents like this (see also Preston), to get away with standing our ground whilst fashioning the best of the games clear chances and grabbing the points irrespective of merit builds on the suggestion that Tom has something about him.
The first of these came from a move down the left that saw a rare contribution from the disappointing Sema. He dummied Callum Styles and put in a ball that found its way to Kayembe who lashed a first-time shot as the ball dropped requiring an urgent, frantic block on the line. Ten minutes later – and the other side of the O’Nien booking that resulted from the denial of surely another clear chance – we got the winner. Good, too, that it was Ryan Andrews who got it… the pendulum has swung between the unreasonable extremes of him being the best thing since sliced bread and Not Good Enough in the wake of some flakier performances, but here another fine Koné pass popped the lock on Sunderland’s defence. Andrews’ acceleration and willingness from right wingback are to be cherished, but more than that it was a hell of a finish at speed and across the face of the goalkeeper, the effect only slightly spoiled by Patterson getting a forlorn glove on it. The relief around the ground was audible.
And so we look to next season with some of the reasons for optimism that Tom spoke of when he arrived. A support uniting around a head coach, one who speaks candidly about his team’s strengths and failings and has already displayed versatility in addressing very different challenges.
It won’t be easy of course, plenty of challenges remain to hold us back… Yáser Asprilla made a show of acknowledging all four sides at length as he was subbed in the second half (before, slightly confusingly, expressing through translator Wesley Hoedt how much he enjoys being here and what sounded like optimism for next season).
Either way, it’s not supposed to be easy. Without jeopardy, where’s the excitment?
Will be going to Boro, and hope to fit in a report. If not, there’ll be more Stuff as usual over the summer. Enjoy.
Yooorns.
Bachmann 4, Grieves 2, Sema 2, Porteous 4, *Hoedt 4*, Pollock 3, Koné 3, Kayembe 3, Asprilla 3, Bayo 3, Dennis 2
Subs: Andrews (for Grieves, 45) 3, Martins (for Dennis, 45) 3, Lewis (for Sema, 69) 3, Rajović (for Bayo, 80) NA, Livermore (for Asprilla, 91) NA, Ince, Sierralta, Morris, Hamer
