Watford = talent without passion, Rudoni and Harrat goals, counterattacking masterclass, Warnock tribute – Notes on Watford away

During Mark Fotheringham’s time as Town manager he often talked about how “on another day” things would have gone differently. Unfortunately for him, those days never seemed to come. However, under Neil Warnock, we seem to be having quite a few of those days, where things go our way. It happened again for Town against Watford, where we went behind but then scored three goals and won the game.

It isn’t good luck that’s led to Town recent upturn in results, it’s, as Neil Warnock pointed out to the club’s media team, having a good manager. We’ve now got a boss that knows how to use the players we have in such a way that gives us a chance of getting results like these. Rather than bemoaning our bad luck, we’re actually making our opponents curse their luck instead. It’s not always pretty, but who cares when you can look at the league table and, for once, see that Town are now above the dotted line.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the game…

A great counterattacking away performance

This is the first time we’ve won three games in a row all season, and it’s come at just the right time, as it’s pulled us out of the relegation and given us a bit of hope of survival. 

I thought this was about as good as an away performance as you could hope for. We defended brilliantly but more than just packing men behind the ball, we also showed real threat on the counter attack too. Ward worked tirelessly to provide options, Koroma stretched the game with his dribbles and Rudoni scrapped around to link things up between midfield and attack. We spent long periods without the ball, but those periods when we got it back off them and spent some time in their half not only cause them problems but also gave our back line a bit of a rest and time to reset themselves.

In the past we’ve gone away to teams like Watford and just sat back with everyone behind the ball and tried to soak up wave after wave of  attacks. We’re not good enough to cope with that kind of relentless pressure though and usually capitulate, so I much prefer this kind of approach, where we retain a bit of threat, and look to push them back a bit too even if it risks leaving you exposed at the back from time to time.

People who don’t like stats, look away now! In this game Town completed just 95 passes, which is incredibly low, Watford managed 448, and our pass completion rate was 53%. This would be really worrying if our game plan was to play attractive passing football. But it wasn’t, so all these stats prove is that we stuck to our task and it worked. Despite the huge disparity in passing statistics, and the 75/25 possession split, Watford only managed one more shot on target than Town, five to our four. I’ll stop it with the stats now, because we all know the only stat that matters is goals scored, and that ended up 3-2 to Town. 

Watford full of talent but not desire

I was a bit surprised by what I saw from Watford in this game. They’re obviously a team full of talented players, particularly in their attacking lineup. Any team that can have players like Assombalonga and Sarr on the bench is clearly well endowed in terms of attacking talent. Then there was Joao Pedro, who is obviously too good to be playing in the Championship but we managed to restrict him to mostly running down blind alleys and shots from long distance. 

I think the biggest issue for Watford was that they lacked passion and team spirit. They didn’t seemed to add up to less than the sum of their parts. Even though the team they put out should, in theory have played us off the part, they never really found any fluency or rhythym in their play. I thought Middlesbrough looked a far more accomplished and cohesive attacking unit when we played them last weekend. 

It seemed unusual to see a Chris Wilder team play this way, as they seemed to lack passion. Until it all spilled over in the final few minutes and they played with too much passion of course. The keeper losing his head and getting sent off was the icing on the cake of a brilliant away win for Town. From the replay it looked like he was trying so hard to kick Matty Pearson’s head off that he actually missed it by aiming too high and caught his back. I’m not sure that’s a great defence though, it was reckless anyway and he deserved to go.

Rudoni finally gets his goal

I spoke at the top of the article about waiting for “another day” and we’ve been waiting all season for the day that Jack Rudoni finally scores a goal and it finally arrived. He’s been doing the right things, on the whole, but despite getting into the correct areas he’s either not quite applied the right finish or the ball hasn’t dropped for him up until now. 

As if to confirm this was a day when things were going to go our way, I think that Rudoni’s first touch to set up the goal was actually a bit heavy but that worked in his favour because it took the ball away from the defenders and gave him a better shooting angle to get it past the keeper. He took his shot well, to his credit and now that monkey is off his back, we might see him rattle in a few more before the end of the season.

The goal wasn’t the only thing to admire about Rudoni on the day, he’s been a key part of Town’s recent resurgence. He’s a relentless runner and provides a great link between midfield and attack with his clever footwork and intelligent passing. Goals have been the missing ingredient in his game until now, but I think there’s potential for him to be a regular scorer now he’s off the mark.

Is it okay to get behind Kian Harratt?

Another player that opened their goal-scoring account on Friday was Kian Harratt. I wasn’t sure how to feel about him getting into the first team after his fine for hare coursing last November. As an animal lover, it’s hard to not be disgusted by that kind of thing but, as someone who believes in giving people second chances, it also feels wrong to write off a 20-year-old because of one mistake, no matter how unpleasant. 

Given that he’s been punished by both the courts and the club’s internal disciplinary system, I’m going to move on from it. It’s not a nice thing to have done but people deserve a second chance and I hope that it was something he’s learned from and he won’t be involved in any sort of animal cruelty again.

So, I’m not going to make any of the obvious, fox in the box, natural poacher, haring around the pitch, or similar kind of jokes anymore. If it’s been dealt with it’s probably best to just move on from it. That’s my opinion at least. I’ve seen some fans say that they don’t think he did anything wrong and others won’t think he can be forgiven, so it’s likely to be a divisive issue, buy my opinion is that it was a bad thing but it’s been dealt with and it’s time to move on.

With all that said, it’s now possible to celebrate just how good his movement was for the goal he scored within seconds of coming off the bench. Of course, it’s impossible for any Town fan to observe a headed goal without comparing it to Andy Booth, but I’m sure Boothy would have been proud of that movement to make space and get on the end of Koroma’s cross. 

Matty Pearson the goal machine 

Matty Pearson’s little run of three goals in two games means he now has four for the season, which means he’s now our second top scorer, tied wtih Jordan Rhodes and one behind Danny Ward. While our top scorer only having five goals is a pretty depressing stat, it’s impressive that one of our defenders has started chipping in. 

Person’s tenacity and aggression in the box is a vital asset to Town but his goal against Watford was also down to a fair bit of skill too. It wasn’t an easy header to guide on target and he needed to get a fair amount of power behind it to get it to reach the goal from the distance he was from the touchline. 

I’m pleased that Danny Ward’s attempts to claim the goal were only in jest as I think he might have been nutted by his colleague if he’d have tried any harder to get the goal added to his tally. As much as you want your strikers scoring goals, this one was definitely Pearson’s.

Is Josh Koroma suffering from Simone Baldry syndrome?

Younger Town fans may not remember Simon Baldry, he’s a player that goes right back to the early days of my following Town, but I do distinctly remember how he would be a fairly average winger for most of the time he was at Town and then suddenly, when he was with a few months of the end of his contract, he would suddenly start playing like a world-beater. 

I think we might be seeing this effect in Josh Koroma at the moment. As it stands, the winger is due to be unemployed in the summer, so he knows these performances are a chance to either earn a new contract at Town or put himself in the shop window for potential suitors. 

Maybe I’m being harsh, and it’s actually just the impact of playing under a manager that is willing to let him play to his strengths and will put an arm around his shoulder. Warnock is widely accepted as being an excellent man manger and it seems like Koroma has been a beneficiary of this. 

However, it does seem bonkers that a player who couldn’t get a game in a League One side before Christmas has now become one our best players and has played a huge part in (hopefully) saving our season. 

Whether it’s playing for a contract or Warnock working it’s magic, I just hope it continues for the next few weeks and we can benefit from it a bit longer. 

I’d previously written off the prospect of Koroma signing a new deal as neither side of the transaction seemed interested in extending his stay in Huddersfield. This little renaissance might be enough to convince the club to offer him a new deal though and with a new owner and coaching set up on the way, that might be enough to tempt Koroma to stay too.

Hats off to Neil Warnock 

I wanted to finish off the post by paying tribute to Neil Warnock. He’s done such an incredible job to get us to the position we’re in now. Regardless of whether we stay up or not, just to have fought our way to the point of having a chance is incredible given how desperate our situation was. It wasn’t so much the league table but the state of club when he came in, the players’s confidence was rock bottom and they didn’t look like they’d win another game all season.

After a series of managers that have had quite high-minded ideals about the way football should be played, in theory at least, it’s been quite refreshing to see a Town manager come in that is one of the old-school. For once it’s the opposition that are messing around with the ball at the back, and us that are pressing them into mistakes and snatching unlikely wins with next to no possession. 

People write Warnock off as a dinosaur but I think experience is a vastly underrated quality in football management. In the constant search for the latest hot new talent, it’s easy to forget that those that have been around for decades have only survived because they’ve seen off dozens of others that have tried and failed to make it. Warnock is a fighter and a winner and those are the qualities that he’s brought to Town and it’s why we’ve managed to finally drag ourselves out of the relegation zone, for now at least.