That was a dour game and I am glad that I watched it on Ifollow, instead of making the long 360 mile round-trip down to Vicarage Road. Today, Hull drew to Watford in another pivotal match, which could decide our fate at the end of the season. I have to admit, we have been let off again as Norwich were not able to beat Bristol, so we are still 6 points behind them with a game in hand. We must win all our remaining games because another draw or a loss could see us playing another season in the Championship.
I won't dwell on the details; both sides were very lacklustre, especially the hosts chalking up just two shots on target. For us, we had 13 shots, with six on target, one of which could have won us the game. The possession was quite equal, with us having 52% and The Hornets having 48%; we also had a better xG rate, 2.36 compared with their 1.11. Again, another game where we cannot take our chances and we were the antithesis of how we played last week against QPR. Disappointing for the 1400 travelling fans.
Liam Rosenior made no changes to the starting eleven he fielded in our 3-0 victory last week; that meant we lined up in a 4-4-2 as follows: Ryan Allsop in goal; Regan Slater, Alfie Jones, Jacob Greaves and Matty Jacob as the back line; Tyler Morton and Jean Seri in the middle, with Philogene and Omur either side of the flanks and that leaves Carvalho and Tufan leading the flock.
The game started off quite well for us, stringing passes together nicely, playing it out from the back well and moving the ball forward. Indeed, our great start was rewarded in the 10th minute after Carvalho made a run into the box, but was tripped and, thus, the referee pointed to the spot. Tufan, who is usually reliable in these situations, scoring all his penalties for us so far, was put up to the job; however, his weak effort towards the left-hand corner was saved by Bachmann, their keeper.
The game settled down after this and Watford, who came out of their shell, responded well to this wake-up call as it was their turn to go on the front foot. Their best chance came in the 20th minute after our corner was cleared by the hosts and they were able to break all the way to our box, but, fortunately for us, Asprilla shot on the turn and sliced his effort into the away end behind the goal.
Very little happened for the remaining minutes of the half, especially from us, who seemed very short on energy and did not look up to the mark. If anyone looked like scoring, it was Watford, who had six shots in this half and seemed more threatening than us. Thankfully, our defence was switched on and were able to snuff out any danger they caused and saw the half out, which is our 12 game in a row where we have not been behind heading into the second half.
You would have thought, with Norwich still drawing, we would have put our foot on the gas and come out of the stops all guns blazing. But, no. We continued to play in the same manner and with the same attitude as we did in the first period. Bristol even went one nil up during the second half, but that did not change anything.
It took until the 75th minute until either team had a decent chance at breaking the deadlock and that was The Hornets after Mileta Rajovic’s right-footed freekick from a promising position was sailing towards the bottom-right corner of the net, but Allsop managed to parry it away. Shortly after this, Ozan Tufan, who had a meagre game, was replaced by the eager Liam Delap, and he made an impact in the 81st minute after Philogene played the ball to him in the box, but he just put the ball past the far-left post.
The game came into life after these few attempts and we made three further substitutions: Adama Traore, Billy Sharp and Ryan Giles came on for Omur, Slater and Seri. Our next great chance came in the 85th minute after Cavalho was awarded a freekick when he was brought down just outside of the box. He tried to curl it into the top-left corner, but it forced a great save from Bachmann.
Moments after, Watford broke and they had the best chance of the game to break the go infront; in the 87th minute, Watford broke on the right and a nice ball was rolled into the box to an unmarked Martins, who, with lots of time, managed to put it wide. This was followed by a counter-attack from us, which was finished by a shot from range by Jacob, which was stopped by their keeper and Sharp tried to chip it on the rebound, but again, the keeper snuffed out the danger.
So, it was one of those games again and we really need to start putting our chances away. Also, if we were not thinking that these games are vital, we must start having another mantra as there are only three games left–we can’t keep playing like this. We need to head into the game against Coventry on Wednesday night, which I am going to, with a positive and energetic mindset. If not, it's over.