I would've been a bit fed up if I'd been Gary Porter who was one of two legends present at the Vic today. He is just as much of a Horns legend as Tommy Mooney yet he got very little attention. Really this is just because he doesn't have a song and singing 'Walking in a Mooney Wonderland' was about as fun as it got this afternoon.
The first half was dull dire drab and probably several other words beginning with 'd' that I haven't the intellect to come up with. We were very poor apart from Scott Loach who made a string of stunning saves to deny the Brummies. Having said that you wouldn't have known that Birmingham were second in the Championship. They weren't that much better than us. In fact, the only way they looked like a team on the cusp of promotion was that they had all the luck that was going for the entire afternoon.
The aforementioned Mooney and Porter came on at half time to do Harry's 50/50. They are the latest tantalising legends dispatched to try and tempt us to pay over £1000 for some pre-match hospitality. Mooney even commented how rubbish the first half had been!
Hoskins had started up front for us but struggled with the 4-5-1 formation we appeared to be going for. Even though its a very fluid 4-5-1, occasionally becoming a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 poor Will just hasn't got the build or height to act as the lone striker. Unsurprisingly he came off at half time to be replaced by a fit again looking Raziak. Instantly we were transformed, regularly threatening the Birmingham goal when previously we'd struggled to get out of our own half. We had a few chances to take the lead the best of which fell to Double Agent Dan who got on the end of a great cross from Ross Jenkins only to hit it wide of the far post.
Brum rarely threatened and it was no surprise that their goal was another one of the ridiculous ones we seem to have been so good at concedeing recently. A shot deflected off Jenkins and maybe even another Watford player causing the ball to balloon over Loach and go in. The Brum fans went mad. There is something deeply galling about having promotion contenders come to town and giving them the three points they need in such a fashion. They certainly didn't deserve them.
We challenged for an equaliser but it never really looked likely. Birmingham employed award winning time wasting tactics to which the ref was completely oblivious only awarding the standard three added on minutes. A predictable and depressing loss especially as we played so well in the second half. We were defintely worth a point. Shame we couldn't have smuggled Moons and Porter on in the second half and we'd have probably got all three.
