WATFORD WERE on the end of a Rickie Lambert treble as they went down 3-0 to top of the table Southampton in a disappointing game at Vicarage Road.
Watford made five changes from last weekends trip to Selhurst Park with Tomask Kuszczak, Carl Dickinson, Mark Yeates, Troy Deeney and Marcello Trotta replacing Scott Loach, Lee Hodson, Craig Forsyth, Chris Iwelumo and Joe Garner in the starting line up.
The Hornets started brightly enough but struggled to make an impression on the Saints in a game of few chances for either side.
Southampton took the lead after 13 minutes through Rickie Lambert, although new loan signing Tomask Kuszczak gave him more than a helping hand. Jose Fonte’s long ball into the box was completely misjudged by Kuszczak and Lambert nodded the ball into the empty net.
Southampton doubled their lead 8 minutes later through Lambert again. After Nosworthy’s clearance was picked up by Morgan Schneiderlin he fed the ball to Adam Lallana who teed up Lambert to strike home from just outside the area.
Watford continued to compete in the middle third but struggled to find the composure or final pass to really hurt the Saints rearguard. Alex Kacaniklic provided the greatest threat for the Hornets but his crosses were well dealt with by the Southampton defence.
Half Time: 0-2
Watford started the second half brightly and almost pulled a goal back after 55 minutes. Good work from Mark Yeates saw him beat two defenders and his cross was headed back across goal by Troy Deeney but Eustace stretching backwards couldn’t head in at the back post.
Southampton sealed the points with Lambert’s third from the penalty spot after 72 minutes. After Kuczszack had saved at point blank range from Tadanari Lee, the striker was then bundled over by Carl Dickinson and Lambert smashed the penalty past Kuszczak into the top corner.
The Hornets continued to fight to the death and nearly found a consolation when good build up play saw Troy Deeney’s cross find substitute Joe Garner but he headed straight at Davis whilst behind manhandled by Jos Hooiveld.
Full Time: 0-3
Watford: Kuszczak, Doyley, Nosworthy, Mariappa, Dickinson, Yeates (Buaben), Eustace, Hogg, Kacaniklic (Iwelumo), Trotta (Garner), Deeney
Southampton: Davis, Butterfield, Hooiveld, Fonte, Fox, Schneiderlin, Cork, Chaplow (Hammond), Lallana (Puncheon), Lambert (Connolly), Lee
Share this article
Related Articles
9 comments
Comments are closed.
Works in progress, not having Hodgson playing showed how inept Doyley is. The whole team performance was poor and I witnessed no fight to the death. It’s hard to apportion blame, the ball is not held upfront and continous pressure on our defence, not one shot on target and can only recall Garner touching the ball one. Lovely piroet by big Chris near the end. The one thing that makes me laugh, is if they are top of the league, just how ***** is the championship?
The quality was not there but they continued to fight and try and compete. To say they did not do is unfair on the players and Dyche however dissapointed you are with the performance!
you can only play as well as you are allowed. We didn’t play our more fluid attacking style today which is a pity but as long as you have a player to bang in the goals you will always win a few games, no matter what league you are in.
Come on guys, you know that I have backed Dyche all the way and to be fair I’m not criticising him now, but if you think that performance was acceptable then I suggest you take those rose tinted glasses off, we were ***** poor in every department, if the players had performed like they had against Leicester, we would have won today, but we didn’t and the saints were no better than them. It’s ironic but the boy Murrey is already a big loss.
Few things here –
1. You’re not the only person to highlight the fact Soton were nothing special Andy, highlights the fact that the Championship is a reasonable division this year with lots of similar-quality teams.
2. SFC Forever is completely right about having a goalscorer. Doubtless we won games last season where we weren’t great simply because we had Graham and Sordell up top & bang in form. This season we are having to work a lot harder for goals.
3. Doyley is a solid defender but nothing more. Hodson is very competent on the ball and contributes to more than one phase of play. We definitely miss that.
4. We also miss Murray as Andy says. Yeates is a reasonable winger but he does not have the same raw mentality to just try things that Murray does. Having his unpredictability in the side has been great. The sooner he is back the better.
I’m not looking throgh rose tinted glasses Andy. I have already pointed our we didn’t play well. What i actually said was it is unfair to say they didn’t try. I have a seat very close to the pitch and i can tell you they did try and for whatever reason yesterday we didn’t play very well. To say they did not try and fight is unfair on the players.
The other thing about Doyley is that clearly he is not as good on the ball as Hodson and we missed that. That said he is a vast improvement on Dickinson, who was poor again yesterday and merits a place at left back. Dickinson seems to have gone really off the boil recently and he has a shocking tendancy to give away cheap free kicks every time he tries to win the ball!
“our fluid game” you sound like Nigel Pearson with his comment about, knowing what to expect when you play watford.yet both teams were more direct than the way we play.
Were are predictable… We don’t take chances… Why when 3 nil down didn’t SD throw on another forward & take off a defender??? How many goals have we let in the last three matches???? Far too many… If we’re not very careful then we will be fighting for our lives…. I just don’t see where any goals are coming from & when we are letting in so many only spells one outcome…. The boy Trotta seamed too weak to me… Maybe in time he may improve… We all hope so…. He doesn’t have long to do so…. By the next match he is one quarter through his loan… Time is not on his side… All ours…