A game that gave us all a reminder of what it was like to be amongst the elite for two seasons and how, when you're the smaller team, nothing seems to go your way. I find it depressing to think such thoughts but I came away deciding that I prefer it in the Championship playing average Championship teams where, by and large, you have a 50/50 chance of getting a result. Against a team like Newcastle you seem to have a 10/90 chance and not just because of their superior resources.
The officials might as well have taken to the pitch in black and white stripes rather than bright orange. They clearly favoured the big team, looked like they were on first name terms with their players and gave them free kicks every time they fell over. Any similar 'light' challenge on a Watford player went unpunished and we only got something if the foul was particularly nasty. With offsides the linesman on the Rous side ignored most things in the first half but gave everything in the second.
The opposition only really created four chances all afternoon but scored two of them. However, I've no doubt had we managed to get back into the game early enough they would've easily managed to conjure up some more. Its true to say we had the majority of the possession but they seemed content to allow us to pass it between ourselves without ever looking threatening until it was too late.
Sometimes I feel Malky's Watford believe that games are decided on the amount of passes completed rather than goals scored. So often we seem to have the opportunity to break but elect to the hold the ball up, wait for opponents and team mates to catch up and then pass the ball sideways, allowing any advantage we had to disappear.
"Get stuck in" the bloke behind me shouted, for once making perfect sense. "Yeah" said another bloke "enough of the foreplay, just stick it in". Its easy to say in a game against the league leaders and probably not as simple to do, but it applies to all our games this season. Sometimes we'd be much more effective if we just had a shot rather than trying to create the perfect goal.
As a tactic to try and beat a team that can probably create chances at will, scoring late in the game to set up a grandstand finish is probably as good as any. Unfortunately we left it slightly too late. We only managed one more attack after it was 2-1. Had Hoskins scored his goal a few minutes earlier an unlikely point might have been on.
For the record Williamson was booed but didn't get quite the amount of abuse expected. He didn't celebrate either of their goals and even seemed to fall out with his fellow defenders over our goal. Maybe they thought he was letting us score.
All in all an afternoon to forget. I look forward to things returning to normal against Derby next week.
