I wonder if Richard '40' Shorty and his mate Tim select various appropriate tracks on Radio Hornet for events that have happened during the game.
If they do then Blur's 'Charmless Man', which was played at half time, was absolutely the perfect choice for one Mr Neil Warnock. His team yesterday were one of the worst incarnations of a Warnock side I can remember seeing for some time. His instructions for the game appeared to consist of ensuring your elbow was always waving around ready to meet your opponents face when jumping for the ball, shirt pulling at every available opportunity and getting the tackle in regardless of where the ball happened to be.
Every decision that went against him he raged at from the sidelines making him look like a Thunderbirds puppet on ecstasy. Unfortunately the ref totally bought into this from the moment 'Colin' made such a fuss of our opening goal.
Whether or not Don Cowie's nutmegged effort should have stood, the referee should not have granted the opposing manager a two minute pitchside audience presumably where he was informed of all the areas he was going wrong. A stronger referee would've asserted his authority on the game by telling Warnock where to go. Not this chap though. He spent the rest of the game trying to make up for the possible error by awarding everything Palace's way and only giving bookings where a charge of GBH might have been more appropriate. It is a sign of how poor Palace are that rarely did they ever look like capitalising on their twelfth man.
We, on the other hand, put in a solid display in a game that a couple of months ago we would've lost three or four nil. Back then Mariappa wouldn't have timed his tackle to perfection to deny what looked like a certain goal after 15 minutes. Cowie's goal would've been offside. Palace's shooting wouldn't have been so wayward. They would've scored from the bundle up at the Vicarage Road end early in the second half. The ref would've found a reason to disallow our muddled second goal which looked far more like the 'own' variety even though McAnuff claimed it.
But its not only our luck that seems to be in at the moment. Warnock said at the end 'Watford had more leaders out there today'. A huge compliment given that a little while ago it was impossible to name even one.
