Watford 2 - West Bromwich Albion 1

Submit your ratings for this game by clicking here:

Ratings submitted so far: 19

Brendan Clegg:

Very quick thoughts as it was a long drive back in the rain and a late night off the back of a very disappointing result.

The starting lineup had a couple of surprises with Gilchrist and Diakite coming in and the absence of Molumby... Heggebø was a bit more expected. Not terrible overall as it looked like there was enough there to have a go.

And I thought for most of the first half we were pretty decent. We dominated the ball, pressed well, and kept Watford pinned back without really creating. there were a few sloppy or careless passes from those who've had fewer minutes and, at times, Price and Iling-Junior but we looked comfortable without being hugely threatening.

We took the lead through a beautiful finish from Price after we'd won the ball high - he picked out the far top corner and sent the away end bananas.

Unfortunately for us we conceded far too quickly afterwards... 2 or 3 times where we gave the ball away too cheaply when defending, and then for the goal I felt like while the clearance header was decent neither Mowatt nor Diakite quite closed him down quick enough and their player curled one in... I would need to see if again to judge on whether Griffiths might have done better.

We sort of sulked our way to half time without much more action and that was that. Frustrating... Watford had been poor and yet we were all square.

Not for the first time this season, an opposition manager made bold changes against us at half time and forced changed on proceedings.

Watford came out quicker and more aggressive and after the first 5 minutes you really felt like we needed to get Maja on and get some sort of threat and link up play high up the pitch. As the minutes ticked on I felt exactly like I have a few times this season - change it now before they inevitably score...

Instead our first change was forced with Gilchrist injured and Campbell coming on to cover... pretty much his first action was to get skinned, not recover, and then from the cut back despite the number of bodies we had in the box we were unable to clear and the Watford player skimmed the ball home through a crowd for the inevitable goal.

I hate to say this... but it felt from then on we had a young head coach who was out of his depth, although it wasn't all his fault - some of the performance levels on the basics just fell through the floor.

You could say, and I'm sure Mason will argue, that the turning point came just before we made a load of subs when a good passage of play enabled us to send over a cross that Price had to bury with a point blank header but he didn't head it either down or hard and as the keeper parried I'm afraid Heggebø, who should have put in the rebound with any part of his anatomy, reacted slower than their defender who hooked it clear.

Maja and Grant came on... Maja was needed earlier but I felt Grant came on too soon and although he came on for SIJ, it moved our most dangerous player in MJ to a less effective role.

We couldn't get any momentum going... our passing was too often slow and backwards, Campbell and Grant had a running competition for the worst cameo substitute performance ever and really Watford should have picked off our general hopelessness with more goals.

The last 15 minutes I felt were even more painful in that I just couldn't work out what we were doing. Dike for Diakite with Price dropping to centre mid to just go for it with two up top made sense in theory, but the attacking Styles for the defensive Taylor less so.

And then although we had two up top we didn't change the way we were playing - the sideways and backwards football from the back. If you are going two up top then you have to get the ball forward quicker and your whole team has squeeze up to get your midfield nearer to your forwards because you are sacrificing more certain but largely pointless possession for more percentages in the opponent's half. We kept going with our style, until Watford pressed enough and we had to go long anyway... but with both our midfielders so deep to receive short passes that Watford easily mopped up our long balls and were never in danger.

For the last 5 minutes or so MJ and Grant switched and MJ tried to take the game to Watford on his own... it wasn't enough and in the end we were well beaten.

• Griffiths - 6 Possibly harsh but I think a top keeper does more for both goals... although neither were his fault.
• Gilchrist - 6 Started quite brightly and looked solid defensively but little going forward.
• Phillips - 6 Got his feet tangled for their second but competed.
• Mepham - 6 Mostly solid and passed it well.
• Styles - 6 I wouldn't have taken him off, the energy and aggression were there and we were chasing the game.
• Mowatt - 6 Did well first half, struggled after the break and I think Saturday is a big ask on his legs.
• Diakite - 6 Some of his passing was a bit sloppy but I thought given his minutes he was strong, aggressive, got about and linked it well. He's never going to be a creator but in the role asked, he was pretty good.
• SIJ - 5 Didn't do enough but I thought we needed to give him and Maja 10-15 minutes on the pitch at the same time... there was one run and cross first half that was decent but that our striker got nowhere near.
• Price - 6 Superb goal, covered the ground, still needs to work on just looking after the ball... and heading it down.
• MJ - 7 In and out and they doubled up but he was pretty good again and made space for others.
• Heggebø - 4 Didn't win much all night and when we had chances or situations he was slow to react

• Campbell - 3 Had a stinker really... just basics were miles off it/a bit embarrassing... pro footballers should be able to kick a ball with their wrong foot even if out of position. Needs a really good coach to help him work on his game... have we got one?
• Maja - 4 We rarely got the ball near him and when we did he didn't look after it
• Grant - 3 With a sigh... I will say that apart from a relatively short period where Corberan coached him to within an inch of his life he has been rubbish. He was rubbish before, has been rubbish since, and you really had to be at Vicarage Road to see how rubbish he was here. I think we might need to just give Bostock these minutes now and see what he can do and accept it will be development.
• Dike - 4 No service but will have been so rusty anyway
• Taylor - 4 Couldn't get up with the pace of the game.

A tale of two coaches I think... proactive and reactive. We sort of fell apart and are incapable of putting results together in a sequence when they are really there for the taking against teams/squads that are no better than ours. I feel like this is once of those instances where even though we were short on numbers and missing Bielik, Bany, Wallce, Molumby, Collyer and are obviously still suffering the loss of Fellows... there was enough here to nick a result, to grind out a point at least, to find a way.

And yet we couldn't, we looked lost in that second half and it is absolutely fair to say that Saturday will be even tougher due to the turnaround time and the distance.