Ayew beaut
JORDAN BRINGS HORNETS BACK DOWN TO EARTH
JORDAN AYEW’S winner handed Palace their third stodgy 1-0 win in a row.
But never mind the tedium – it’s a grind of magic.
Ayew’s eighth goal of the season, all of them in the Premier League, dumped Watford right back in the muck and nettles of the relegation dogfight.
And it left Hornets boss Nigel Pearson cursing a “missed opportunity” to cash in on trashing Liverpool’s ‘Invincibles’ dream seven days earlier.
If that was the shock result of the season, this wasn’t just a case of after the Lord Mayor’s Show – Pearson’s side had as much bite as a set of false teeth in the jar beside your granny’s bed.
Watford’s head coach groaned: “Our inability to be decisive in front of goal cost us, and we could have done better with the goal we conceded in terms of blocking the shot.
“We were playing against a side who were happy to defend with a bit of depth, but our quality of final pass and set plays needed to be better.
“There is no point in wasting energy dwelling on this for too long.”
From a grown man dressed as an insect poking fun at Wilfried Zaha with a comedy dive, to former Eagles manager Ian Holloway censoring Watford’s use of the loan system with a marker pen, there has been little love lost between these clubs in recent years.
There was little sign of enmity or aggression until Ayew broke the stalemate, smuggling his shot from 18 yards beyond Ben
Foster despite being boxed in by three defenders.
But then niggling and playground pettiness took over.
Zaha, rightly booked for cynically pulling Etienne Capoue’s shirt, complained bitterly that it was his first offence – but he was trying to play ref Anthony Taylor like a golden harp.
Last season at Vicarage Road, Taylor had only booked Capoue for a poor challenge on the Ivory Coast winger when it deserved a heavier sanction.
Now it spilled over as the handbags came out in force – and amid the posturing, pushing and shoving, Zaha put his hand in Capoue’s face, Cheikhou Kouyate and Abdoulaye Doucoure volunteered for afters and Taylor’s yellow card worked overtime.
If Watford were trying to get Zaha sent off, and Palace were doing the same to Capoue, neither side scored high marks for subtlety. Pearson said: “Rules are rules, and I know what my players think about it. But I’m not going to sit here and talk about other people’s players, or start looking for events where I expected the officials to take action.
“It’s quite straightforward in my mind – that’s what we have VAR for.”
Palace boss Roy Hodgson saw it differently, of course, insisting: “I’m pretty certain that if you keep a TV monitor on Wilf for 95 minutes, you’ll see plenty of prods in his face or little kicks.
“I had no thoughts that Wilf was in danger of being sent off. I can’t praise my players enough for putting us in this position with nine games to go.”
When the feuding finally ended, Troy Deeney had a piledriver tipped over the top. But he was otherwise policed superbly by former England defender Gary Cahill and Palace deserved their victory.