Well that was enormous fun.
What a great way to bounce back from all of Saturdays malarky. We finally got a bit of luck courtesy of Mullins. But that shouldn't detract from the fact this was a great performance by a side, particularly at the end, that featured more of our reserve team than that of our opponents.
Zola only made 5 changes from the team that beat Newcastle convincingly at the weekend. Whereas we had trouble filling the bench and included Dale Bennett who no-one around me had heard of, but was excellent when he came on after the goal. You wouldn't have known which side was trying to impress their new boss and which had struggled to put out a full team.
Lee Williamson had his finest display in a yellow shirt. It said a lot that the man behind me who really REALLY hates Williamson and never misses an opportunity to bellow his name in anger, didn't mentioned him once. Ross Jenkins gave his best performance yet and Will Hoskins grows in confidence all the time.
Bang Bang looked a little rusty but is still footballs smallest hard man as he fouled a West Ham player by literally wrapping his body around him in the second half. Jordan Parkes did better than against Darlo but his final touch still lets him down too often. Ainsworth was busy but still has more of the Nordin Wooter about him than the Ashley Young. Lewis came on and did well even though he was half the size of the Hammers defenders.
I wonder if the ref was brought in specially after Saturday as he was brilliant. He wasn't at all fussy and just let the game flow and only got his book out once.
The West Ham fans were impressively vocal as ever in the first half but we more than matched them in the second half creating an atmosphere that really did remind me of those famous Watford cup nights from the 1980's
Even Radio Hornet's Richard and Tim played a blinder in the form of Teenage Kicks which was aired at half time. Shame Richard spoke over half of it but it was still a vast improvement on Easy Lover which was played on Saturday.
The only downside was DeMerit disappearing before the end leaving us with 10 men as we'd already used our subs. It said something about how caught up in the game the crowd were that I don't really think many people noticed. That's not to critisize DeMerit's performance at all because along with Bromby he was a powerhouse at the back. But when required the 10 coped just as well as the 11 had done.
All in all performance of the season so far by everybody.
