Watford v Chelsea (From Watford Observer)

Watford v Chelsea

4:46pm Sunday 1st March 2009 in Avi Govind By Avi Govind

No, this isn't a very late report on the match that took place two weeks ago! Some background - a French couple I know came to London this weekend for the husband's 30th birthday. The wife wanted to surprise her husband with tickets for a football game since he's mad about English football.

Their first choice of match was Chelsea v Wigan, as the husband's favourite English team is Chelsea [it's unlikely to be Wigan, let's face it...], although the likelihood of getting tickets for this was low. Their second choice was Arsenal v Fulham, perhaps because of the French influence at Arsenal. My offer of taking them to watch Watford v Crystal Palace was politely declined.

In any case, they managed to get tickets from Chelsea. After meeting for lunch, it was to Stamford Bridge that they went, having bought Chelsea shirts in London on Friday to ensure they were properly kitted out for the experience. I made my way to Watford, wondering if we would see a third 2-0 victory in a row for the Hornets.

And we did. Something seems to have really clicked since the last time we played Crystal Palace in that 4-3 victory in the FA Cup. In each of the games since, Watford have looked like a different team from the one that struggled at the start of the season under Aidy Boothroyd, and the one that didn't seem much better at the start of Brendan Rodgers' reign.

Watford were pretty much on top for the whole first 45 minutes, Don Cowie having two clear-cut chances before racing clear from the halfway line to open the scoring with a shot that he slotted between the Palace goalkeeper's legs. Almost as enjoyable as the goal was seeing the reaction of Palace manager Neil Warnock, who clearly thought that there was more than a hint of offside about the goal and had to be calmed down by the referee.

Crystal Palace did have a couple of half-chances, but their best opportunity was snuffed out by a superb tackle from Adrian Mariappa as Alan Lee burst into the box. And it is probably our defence which has shown the most significant improvement, due in no small part to Mike Williamson's commanding presence at the back.

The other main area where we have got better is in stopping our opponents from getting into their stride - continual harrying by Watford leading to mistakes by the opposition. And it was that persistance which led to the second goal, as Cowie chased a Palace defender into the corner, robbed him of the ball, and crossed for the ball to go in off a combination of Jobi McAnuff and Jose Fonte.

While we started to look a bit more shaky at the back after Jay Demerit was forced off, Palace were restricted mainly to half-chances, and Watford also had opportunities to extend their lead.

So, how did the French couple find Stamford Bridge? Well, they had a great time. They thought that the Chelsea area was attractive. They were impressed by the Chelsea Megastore. They took photographs of the husband sitting in a life size mock Chelsea team photograph near the ground. And they saw a cracking game with Frank Lampard scoring an injury time winner. But they wanted to know why Chelsea sacked their manager despite being fourth in the league at the time.

Maybe they don't quite get the different types of pressure suffered by football managers - at Chelsea you have to win titles or someone else will be found to try and win them instead of you. At Watford, for the time being, we simply need to avoid relegation, or a concerning financial position could turn into a far worse one. Thankfully, we show every sign of still being in the Championship for next season.

On leaving to get the Eurostar this morning, the French friends said that next time they came to London, they would try to visit Vicarage Road and watch Watford play. They were pleased to hear that that could mean they also got to see Arsenal play on the Sunday!