Tonight was definitely more like it. BR is getting to know us. He's realised 4-4-2 is the way to go, Jay DeMerit is having a mare at the minute and you can't trust us to just sit on a lead and defend.
We were lucky not to be a goal down straight from the off as Scott Loach made a mess of a clearance but then we broke rapidly playing beautiful football until McAnuff ballooned his shot but managed to make contact with it again to put us one up in the first minute.
But after that for 65 minutes we were the same old BR Watford. Keeping possession, lacking much penetration and looking for all the world that if Burnley equalised our heads would drop and we'd be fortunate to escape with a point.
Luckily though this was a completely knackered looking Burnley who clearly had been partying too much with the big boys. Martin Paterson gets a special mention for spending the whole evening adopting the character of a mouthy 7 year old who is up way past his bedtime. Even so, Chris Eagles, phew. What we wouldn't give to have him back in a yellow shirt. He didn't have the best of nights but, despite this, just has that constant aura of being able to make things happen every time he gets the ball. Its a quality our side just misses out on at the moment. Tommy has it a bit, but not quite in the same way that an Eagles or an Adam Johnson has.
Therefore huge plaudits should go the way of Mr. Lloyd Doyley who did such a good job keeping Eagles at bay all night. It was a man of the match performance. Doyley is by no means our best player and there are some things he gets wrong time and again. But those things he does well, he does really really well. He gives 110% every time he plays and I reckon he'd bleed yellow, red and black. I'd say he's a contender for Player of the Season, although I might be saying that just to wind the bloke behind me up who hates him.
He also hates Priskin and greeted the Hungarian with a shout of 'Sharpen Up Priskin' before he'd even got on the pitch. So it was with great glee that all of us who hate the man behind us celebrated Priskin's first neatly taken goal.
At 2-0 Burnley looked like they'd given up in the same way we did against Sheffield United. We also looked ready to leave things the way they were, but not Priskin who scored an excellent second, holding the ball up and picking the narrowest angle to squeeze it home in.
Wow. 3-0. A totally unexpected result. I'm no convert yet. Just as BR has argued our heavy defeats could've gone either way, I think the same thing could be levelled by Owen Coyle at us tonight. But this was the most I've enjoyed myself since BR took over and there were more good performances than bad. Notably Mike Williamson seems to be the no-nonsense man we've been looking for at the back and Jack Cork continues to put in calm assured performances in the middle. Only Scott Loach had a truly iffy night. His kicking is becoming like Richard Lee's and he seems to make as many blunders as he does good saves. Luckily none went punished tonight.
Maybe we've just got to get to know Brendan in the same way he's getting to know us. Under him the majority of the match will be tense and evenly matched with some frustrating lows where the ball does go all the way back to the keeper from an attacking position. But there will be sudden, unexpected tremendous highs as we 'push on in' and everything does come together like tonight. The trick is to keep conjuring up more highs than lows.
