December 29th • 24/46 • 0-1 (L)
Well, that wasn't very Christmassy. A sobering and stark reminder of the position we're in. The run was going to end at some point, bit this was a disappointing way for it to happen.
This was not a good game. It had 0-0 written all over it mid-way through the first half. Scrappy and with neither team having any real chances. I saw somewhere that the first shot on target came in the sixty-something-th minute, and it felt like one of those games you couldn't wait to be over.
Watford had a shot go just wide followed by one hitting the post. A missed offside was shortly followed by another offside which everyone apart from me seemed to think was a throw in - even Harry Darling had to check with the lino. The second half highlights were Liam Gibbs managing to take a throw-in and throw the ball back out of play, and a good save from Kovačević towards the end.
I thought my prophecy of a 0-0 was going to be played out until we, yet again, conceded in the final minutes. This was definitely 1 point dropped rather than 2 like in other game we were ahead in and threw at the death - we could have played all night and we were never going to win this game, and we wouldn't have deserved to anyway. Not being able to see games out is becoming a problem though, and it needs to be resolved. With Coventry, Oxford, Preston, and now Watford, that's 7 points dropped, and those points would put us 19th. I think this is the first game Clement could be criticised for his subs, but he's earned enough good grace to be given the benefit of the doubt that he's still getting to know which players he wants in his team. But this felt a lot more like a Manning performance that the recent performances under Clement. In a normal season, this sort of result in a game as bad as this doesn't matter, but given the terrible start to the season and the position we're in, we can do without results like this.