So much for it all being peachy! However Martin Allen speaking on ITV1's The Championship still reckons that we'll be going up as champions. Not something you usually hear from the opposing boss who has just won 4-1.To be honest I couldn't really comment despite being at the Walkers on Saturday. I was in the unfortunate position of being in the very front row. At a concert this would be fine but at a football match I find it probably the worst place to be. Especially directly opposite the corner flag when there isn't a cloud in the sky.
Apart from this unfortunate position (oh and the result) I've only got good things to say about the Leicester experience. I parked easily and nearby, despite all the signs telling you that there was no matchday parking the nearer you got to the ground.
Why, oh why do all councils insist on the doing this sort of thing now? Rather than celebrating the fact they have a football club and encouraging people to come and watch and making it easy to get to, they insist on making it as difficult and unwelcome as possible for the motorist, even at grounds where the parking is okay! Leicester had various business parks around it but you never would have found these had you believed the road signs from the M1.
Wandering around outside before hand I was really impressed at how Leicester were trying to appeal to families. There was loads for kids to do outside including a bucking bronco, a football target practise, face painting and various mascots.
Leicester are fortunate at the amount of room they have outside the ground to do this (I'm not sure we'd be allowed to do it on Vicarage Road) but they should get credit for the fact they do it at all. I certainly don't remember anything like it at Arsenal or Man U last year and they've certainly got the room.
I'd heard the ground was an identikit new stadium but I liked the way Leicester had made it there own with the montage of pictures hanging down from the roof. The facilities were good and there was even a telly showing Sky to watch Sunderland v Liverpool on beforehand. I've also got to give credit to the programme. Usually I buy the programme as a souvenir and spend about 5 minutes skimming through it. However Leicester was rare in that it actually held my attention for a while. It took our idea from around 1999/2000 of having lots of short easy to read questionnaire type features and interviewing fans and players a like. Its was much easier to get through than our current 'long swathes of text' magazine.
Because of the sun I couldn't really tell you much about the first half other than Leicester's goal was fantastic, the stewards didn't really know what they were doing not letting the disabled helpers sit with those they were there to help, Baz Luhrmann knew what he was taking about and I wished I hadn't left my baseball cap in the car.
Half time came and I decided if I didn't want to get sunstroke it would be best to move and so I went and sat right at the back pleased that, once again, we were unable to sell out our ticket allocation.
The downside of this was I was sat nearest to the Leicester fans behind the goal who unsurprisingly got loudly and more exuberant as the second half went on. They even stole our e-i-e-i-e-i-o Marlon King song. However I'm sure most fans would agree that their behaviour was fair enough and only what we would have done had we been winning so convincingly.
I was more offended by the pathetic and bad tempered complaints to the nearby steward made by a couple of middle aged Watford fans near me. If you are going to get wound up by the Leicester fans gesturing at you then don't encourage them by spending more time looking at them than you do actually watching the game!
The two goals shortly after half time both looked unlucky, but we can't complain given some of the deflections we've had go for us over the last few games. Once it was 3-0 the game was pretty much over although it was good to see that Marlon was one of the few who never gave up even when they'd made it 4.
James Chambers got a good reception when he came on (better than the one Jordan got from the Leicester fans) and kindly gave us an undeserved penalty late on. Unsurprisingly there weren't many Watford fans left to see this.So what conclusions can be drawn? Against Wolves and Sheff Utd we never played well but got the result. From what I could tell during the sun baked first half against Leicester we played well and heads understandably dropped in the second half once it was 3-0. The only game I'd say we've played really well was Gillingham in the cup with 10 different players than who started at the Walkers on Saturday.
The one definite I can say so far is that I'm really not sure Mart Poom is the Ben Foster replacement we've been looking for. He seems to have serious communication problems with his back four. This is something that I think is just about forgivable in the first game of the season but by now really should have been sorted out.
He has also inherited the Ben Foster trick of having one seriously dodgy blunder per game although luckily for him none of these so far has resulted in a goal. However it won't be long I fear.
Poor Richard Lee. He was great against Gillingham and was pretty faultless in his Premiership appearances last year. He really really deserves a spell in goal to prove himself to Boothroyd. It seems he is forever judged on the three losses when he was in goal at the very start of the Aidy regime. If the likes of Steve Kabba can come back from the wilderness I feel Rich definitely deserves a go. I hope he has a good one against Southend on Tuesday.
Speaking of Kabba he started. Henderson was nowhere to be seen and I think we can assume he's going to become a Cottager. A front line of King and either Kabba/Priskin isn't quite what I think Aidy had in mind before the season started. It was frustrating to see DJ Campbell play well for Leicester when he could've easily been lining up for us.
Aidy reckons this result might do us some good and I'm inclined to agree. Certainly on the performances so far we haven't deserved the plaudits we've got. Hopefully now we'll see we've got to improve if we are going to to prove Martin Allen even half right.
