Those who bought it were greeted by loads more 'sticking together' type sentiments in the matchday programme. This is obviously a particular bugbear of the club at the moment. It would be a completely legitmate thing to moan about on this scale if the dissent had reached unrealistic proportions to our current situation. People baying for Malky's head in the way they did Bassett's would be unacceptable right now. But good grief, lose at home to Peterborough and what do you expect??
Also it would be a fair point to make if we had entered into some sort of pact. How about let us in for free and we won't boo? But if you charge us £20 you can't expect us all to come and play the part of Watford cheerleaders.
A very obvious retort to all this is 'give us something to cheer about'. Luckily, from kick off last night, we did get a much improved performance and it fed the crowd who in turn fed the team. Cleverley was very unlucky early on not to put us ahead when a free kick that looked like it was going in got deflected and hit the post. Ten minutes later Lansbury scored from nearly the same position with a free kick which beat everyone and went in.
We continued attacking thoroughout the half most memorably when a Lloyd Doyley stepover and cross set up an H header which hit the post. Had it gone in it would've been goal of the season.
The only real negative point of the half concerned Scott Loach not coming out to collect crosses. He left a questionable one which Taylor got rid off, but minutes later neglected to get one which should have been his comfortably. Communication is clearly something he needs to improve with Taylor and DeMerit because a better side would punish such hestiancy.
You can't treat a Roy Keane team like we did in the first half and not expect a reaction after the break. Unfortunately whilst maybe we were ready for it, we didn't seem to know how to cope with the Ipswich attack, especially down the right flank and so defended deeper and deeper until the inevitable happened.
At 1-1 it would've been easy to capitualte totally and for a while I think we all feared the worst. But Will Hoskins, who started in place of Danny Graham, justfied his inclusion by scoring with a fine strike following a Cleverley cross. He seemed to collapse with the effort of it all straight afterwards but its to his credit he is prepared to run himself into the ground for his team.
In the final ten minutes we still defended far too deep, had too many unpleasant moments and seem to have forgotten completely how to run the ball into the corner and keep it there (could Gifton be the next legend to visit the Vic and maybe give some lessons??), but we hung on and that's what mattered. No boos or dissent at the end. All of us sticking together, but grateful to have had something to cheer.
In Malky's post match comments on the OS he did admit that the fans thoroughly deserved to voice their opinion. But this is something that is probably much easier to say when you've walked in from a standing ovation than to the boos echoing round a half empty stadium.
