Walking back to the car yesterday, I had to go past the Lion and Castle bar at Carrow Road, where the doors were wide open on a sunny afternoon and a live band were just starting a rendition of the John Denver classic ‘Country Roads, Take Me Home’.
It made me think of the Watford fans who, by the time I left the media lounge, would have been picking their way along the A-roads back to their homes.
Norwich is never an easy journey with no motorways and a series of roundabouts that slow your progress, and clearly it’s more painful when you’ve seen your side soundly beaten.
As I got back to my car the last notes of the song were finishing: it’s about three minutes long, is that Denver country standard, which means had the band started playing it when the game had kicked off, they’d have been taking their applause around the same time that the home fans were celebrating going 1-0 up.
In the last few weeks, that has been the obvious and increasingly concerning problem: you’d not have time to soft boil an egg between the whistle blowing at the start of a Watford game and the opposition scoring.
In fact, if you add in the final pre-season friendly against Brentford, who netted early in the game at Vicarage Road, then Watford have conceded a goal in five minutes or less in five of their last nine matches.
Brentford (5 minutes), Derby (2), Sheffield United (2), Coventry City (2) and now Norwich (3) have taken the lead before some fans have taken their seat.
In fact, given the Hornets have kept three clean sheets, only Millwall on the opening day have scored against Watford this season but not done so very early.
It’s impossible to ignore it. Something is going badly wrong, because it’s happening too often to be a coincidence.
It’s meant that in each of the last four league games Watford have effectively started a goal down, conceding before the game has taken any shape, and certainly before any sort of plans or tactics can start to be implemented.
Indeed, Norwich could have scored earlier than they did – and the warning signs were there – as Borja Sainz simply ran into a huge amount of space down the left flank and then centred low for the sliding Josh Sargent, who had run between James Morris and Ken Sema, to prod the ball towards goal where Dan Bachmann did very well to keep it out.
Balls into space down the flanks in Watford’s defensive third were to be the story of the afternoon.
The opening goal arrived a minute later as Callum Doyle drove towards the Watford box where the defence neither engaged with him nor got a body in the way of his shot.
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Bachmann, who had made such a fine save to deny Sargent, got this one all wrong. The ball definitely moved in the air, but he seemed to be on his knees before it got to him and even with the swerve got the tips of his fingers to it before it crossed the line.
For the next 20 minutes Norwich looked like they could run away things while Watford battled to get a foothold.
It mirrored the game against Coventry the week before, with the opposition threatening to run riot while Watford tried to work out how to stop them.
Matters were not helped as first Francisco Sierralta and then Bachmann limped off inside the first 15 minutes – I can go back as far as the mid-70s, and I can’t recall two Watford substitutions that early in a game.
As I write we don’t know how bad either injury is, but having watched Slaven Bilic’s squad slowly decimated by a series of muscle injuries (which ironically led to one of the most unlikely wins at Norwich with Mario Gaspar in midfield), there has to be a small red flag that needs to pop up so that Watford make sure such occurrences don’t become a problem again.
When the Hornets levelled after 26 minutes it was as unexpected as it was very welcome.
Rocco Vata, who looked very sharp and incisive, showcased his trickery with a superb turn to get into the box and release a shot that clipped the back post.
Sema did well to recover the loose ball and after a couple of his trademark step-overs he chipped it towards the back of the six-yard box.
Even then it was anything but a clear chance but Ryan Andrews made it look so, with a fine half-volleyed side-footed effort that picked the perfect path between Angus Dunn and Shane Duffy on the line.
The goal halted the home side in their tracks, and for the next 15 minutes Watford enjoyed their best spell and looked capable of turning things around.
In fact, they should have gone ahead.
On his full debut, Daniel Jebbison was presented with a chance that strikers can only dream about, but didn’t take it.
Chakvetadze’s inswinging corner so nearly repeated the trick that Edo Kayembe pulled off at Millwall, but Doyle was on the line and, more by luck than judgement, deflected the ball onto the post.
It bounced out and Jebbison was there, barely more than a yard from goal – and blasted the ball wide.
As Tom Cleverley reflected after the game, it’s those big moments that decide games. Had Watford gone 2-1 up it would have been scarcely deserved but may well have totally deflated Norwich, who hadn’t won at home in the league.
Jebbison cannot and must not be judged on that miss, nor on his performance in what was his longest run-out so far.
He didn’t have a good game but he wasn’t alone in that, and while he needs to find his feet as soon as possible, it would be churlish to write him off on a day when so much else went wrong.
Having not gone ahead, the Hornets should have been able to get to half-time on level terms and have the opportunity to regroup in the dressing room.
Indeed, as the clock ticked down to 45 minutes, I was wondering if Watford would push their wing-backs deeper and almost play with five at the back just to give themselves a safety net and help draw a line under a bad half.
They didn’t, and instead conceded a goal that was painfully direct but also well taken by Sainz.
Norwich had a similar effort ruled out for offside shortly before, but this time the officials didn’t come to the rescue as the ball was lofted over the top and Sainz ran clear.
One of my pet hates is seeing defenders appealing for offside while the ball is still very much alive.
Porteous had his arm in the air and was looking across the pitch before trying to chase the Norwich player as he sped towards goal, controlled the ball extremely well and then steered a low curling effort between the advancing Jonathan Bond and the post.
The officials obviously didn’t think it was offside, and I’m yet to see an instance where waving at the assistant referee has led him to suddenly change his mind.
Appeal all you want afterwards (and even then it’s usually in vain), but keep playing even if you think it’s blatantly obvious that it’s offside.
If the first half started badly, the second half was barely any better and 2-1 became 3-1 nine minutes after the restart.
By now, the fact Norwich had identified the space behind the two Watford wing-backs was the best route to success had become quite apparent, but when Doyle played a simple give-and-go he ran past Chakvetadze before collecting Kenny McLean’s effective but simple chipped pass down the left.
The scorer of the first goal had time to look up and pick his pass, dragging the ball back for Marcelino Nunez to expertly open his body up and guide a shot inside the far post.
With a two-goal cushion and their confidence high, Norwich could afford to then get bodies behind the ball and see if Watford could find a way back into the contest.
The Hornets did have chances: Chakvetadze’s clever pass released Kwadwo Baah in the box but Gunn charged down his attempt to lift the ball over him, and Porteous hooked a volley just wide of the post.
Baah again made an impressive, all-action appearance from the bench, and may well have staked a claim for greater inclusion with Edo Kayembe’s injury sidelining him.
However, as time ticked away Watford looked increasingly unlikely to make Norwich sweat, and just to be certain the home side added a fourth in the 89th minute.
Watching the goal back, the home side started the move five yards inside their own half, executed 19 passes and the ball crossed the halfway line seven times – what never happened was a Watford player coming close to making a challenge.
In fact, nobody in a black kit even got to within touching distance of those in yellow as they popped the ball around before Sargent simply nudged it into space down the right of the box, Jack Stacey squared and Ben Chrisene accelerated between Andrews and Porteous to stab the ball past Bond.
From Norwich’s point of view it was a lovely team goal, but watch it from a Watford perspective and you see the home players able to stroke the ball around while the Hornets look a tired, dejected side.
It capped off a thoroughly miserable afternoon where there was very little to be positive about.
Chakvetadze was, again, the bright spot. Watford’s best moments invariably came through him, opponents clearly find his direct running difficult to handle, and but for a series of attempts to pull him off his feet he would surely have scored the goal of the season with a run from just outside his own penalty area that took him past three or four players into the Norwich box before he finally ran out of room.
The style Watford are adopting is very front-footed. Wing-backs high up the pitch, three forward-thinking players and two midfielders who aren’t very defence-minded means there will be times, such as yesterday, where the Hornets get their backsides dished up to them.
The lack of a ball-winning, defence-protecting midfielder may need to be addressed in January, and hopefully the inclusion of Angelo Ogbonna before too long will add a guiding hand to a defence that increasingly looks in need of one.
Watford sit eighth in the table and if the season were to end now there wouldn’t be many fans who didn’t have their expectations surpassed.
However, with 40 games to go the current standings are very embryonic, and while the first three league games yielded nine points and eight goals, the last trio have delivered one point and two goals.
Balance is often talked about in football, and after yesterday it’s something that needs to be applied in order to fairly judge where we are.
Those first three wins did not mean Watford were title hopefuls or, for that matter, play-off contenders.
Equally, the three games since and yesterday’s general shambles does not mean Watford are now relegation fodder and will be bottom by Christmas (a suggestion I saw somewhere on social media).
The prospect of Tuesday’s cup trip to the Etihad aside (where Watford have had famous problems with conceding several early goals before), there is a run of three games in a week on the horizon with nine points up for the grabs.
After that, almost 20% of the season will have been completed and the league table will have settled into something closer to a marker of where every team is.
Watford have shown already they can be very good, but also very bad.
It’s now up to them to convince us all that what we saw in August, and not the offerings so far in September, is what's in store for the next eight months.
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