6 NIFTY PLAYS OF GRAY
Andre proves his ex-factor as he sinks a former Hornets boss for third successive game
ANDRE GRAY’S pop star girlfriend Leigh-Anne Pinnock won the X Factor with Little Mix – and now Watford’s supersub is king of the ex-factor.
For the third home game running, Gray sprang from the bench to score the winner and shoot down a former Hornets manager.
Where Everton’s Marco Silva came a cropper last month, and Brendan Rodgers’ baptism with Leicester stalled at the last gasp a fortnight ago, Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson’s assistant Ray Lewington – who led Watford to the FA Cup semifinals in 2003 – was in Gray’s firing line this time.
It’s a unique feat, and now the Hornets are marching on Wembley in fifty shades of Gray.
At £18million, record signing Gray was slated by the Twitterati as a flop last season.
Social media’s knee-jerk tendency is not slating him any more. Long-serving defender Adrian Mariappa, who played for Palace in the 2016 final, was in awe of Gray’s party trick.
He said: “All you can do as a striker, when you are on the bench, is to try to show you deserve to be playing every week.
“We’re all delighted for him because he’s kept a great attitude and it’s a sign of our collective strength we can call on people like him.
“I hadn’t make that connection between his last three goals and former Watford managers until after the game, but it’s a great knack.”
Gray’s 79th-minute winner, 90 seconds after he was summoned to throw off his cape, took Watford to their fourth semifinal in 16 years and elevated him in Hertfordshire to supersub legend in the David Fairclough and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer category. And victory, in his likely farewell appearance at Vicarage Road, reduced 38-year-old goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes to tears.
Gomes is “99 per cent certain” to retire and answer his calling as a preacher this summer – and at Wembley, Hornets head coach Javi Gracia (right) may need some pastoral guidance to settle a familiar goalkeeping conundrum.
Semi-finals seem to bring out the panic attacks in Watford where keepers are concerned, from wine bar sommelier Gary Plumley’s bizarre one-off appearance against Tottenham in 1987 to Costel Pantilimon trumping Gomes against Palace three years ago.
Gracia will wrestle with the choice between Gomes and Ben Foster, one of the Premier League’s outstanding keepers this season, for the gloves at Wembley. He said: “It doesn’t change if it is a semi-final or final – I trust all my players and will decide what is best for the team. “In the dressing room, Ben was the first player to congratulate Heurelho. “We are all on the same page and this is helping us to achieve our objectives.”
Palace were backed by 3,000 noisy fans, but they have lost 2-1 in all three meetings with Watford this season.
Just like Brexit baron and Eagles fan Nigel Farage, setting off on his vacuous Jarrow-lite march, their season is on the road to nowhere.
Despite missing talisman Wilfried Zaha with a minor hamstring strain, Palace looked the likelier winners when Michy Batshuayi cancelled out Etienne Capoue’s opener.
But on a gusty day, Watford found their second wind and Gray’s seventh goal of the season, from Roberto Pereyra’s inspired chip, condemned another ex-Watford manager to disappointment.