Deeney break fear as Watford blow it
ETIENNE CAPOUE fell to the floor when the final whistle sounded at Craven Cottage and let the injustice of football sink in for a few moments. Then he pounded the turf once in frustration, got up and looked around. Daryl Janmaat was on the ground, too, not knowing where to look, but knowing he was at fault, knowing his team had thrown victory away.
Great expectations do that to you. Winning your first four games of the season do that to you. Desperately wanting to regain the momentum that was interrupted by defeat to Manchester United last week does that to you. Outplaying your opponent for 90 per cent of the game and then making one mistake that costs you dearly does that to you, too.
And that was Watford’s story in the pouring rain by the Thames. For the majority of this match, they looked every inch the team whose start this season has surprised everybody. They oozed class. They made Fulham look like naifs in the Premier League. They looked as if they were about to cruise to a fifth victory in six games and go back to a share of the lead at the top of the table.
In Capoue and Abdoulaye Doucoure, they had the best two players on the pitch. In attack, Troy Deeney played like a man who was intent on continuing to make a point to England boss Gareth Southgate, whose judgment in leaving him out of the national reckoning he had questioned.
To add to all that, Fulham should have been down to 10 men after 32 minutes when Timothy Fosu-Mensah lunged in studs-up on Deeney but escaped with a yellow card from referee Martin Atkinson. Deeney played on but left the ground in a medical boot after the match and said he is to have an x-ray.
‘I may have a broken bone or two but we crack on,’ said Deeney. ‘I am a tough, ugly boy so it will be all right. Martin is a very good ref, but I thought on that occasion it could have been a red card.’
The message that nothing had changed despite that first defeat by United was underlined when Watford boss Javi Gracia named an unchanged team from the XI that started against Jose Mourinho’s side. In fact, it was the same team that had started every Watford league game this season. They are only the fifth club in Premier League history to name the same team in their opening six matches.
The faith in continuity paid off immediately. Watford have gained something of a reputation as slow starters but only 90 seconds had gone when a scramble on the edge of the Fulham box fell to Will Hughes. The situation cried out for a moment of calm amid the falling rain and Hughes provided it. He rolled the ball wide to Andre Gray who slid it past Marcus Bettinelli.
Craven Cottage was stunned into silence. Fulham tried to rally and, prompted by the obvious class of Andre Schurrle, they showed flashes of competing. It was Schurrle’s turn and pass to Luciano Vietto that nearly dragged the home team back into the game. Vietto outstripped Daryl Janmaat but could not push his shot past Ben Foster and when the ball rebounded to him, he lifted his effort over the goalkeeper but wide of the far post.
At the other end, though, Fulham were a shambles. They had a lucky escape when Alfie Mawson panicked under a long ball from Janmaat and tried to head the ball back to Bettinelli. Gray anticipated that and intercepted it. It was a difficult ball to control but he hit it well and it took a superb save from Bettinelli to keep it out.
Watford looked dangerous each time they attacked. Mawson was lucky not to concede a penalty nine minutes before the interval when he slid in to tackle Hughes. He didn’t get the ball but he didn’t really get the man either and Atkinson waved away the appeals for a spot kick.
Fulham boss Slavisa Jokanovic, the former Watford coach, reacted to his team’s first-half mauling by withdrawing Kevin McDonald, his skipper, as well as Mawson at the interval. ‘I took off two players,’ he said, ‘but if I could have taken off four, I would have done.’ The Fulham changes stemmed the bleeding in their defence but did little to stop them giving the ball away with criminal abandon.
But then, 11 minutes from time, Watford’s failure to put the game out of reach came back to bite them. All it took was one error and Janmaat made it. He allowed Vietto to force his way in front of him and get to the byline. Vietto crossed low and hard and Aleksandar Mitrovic, who had had a distinctly average game, got in front of his marker and turned the ball home from close range.
Fulham knew the goal was more than they deserved but they endeavoured to rub salt into Watford’s wounds in the dying moments. First, Foster pushed the ball round the post when Mitrovic tried to curl it past him and then, from the resulting corner, the Serb rose beautifully but crashed his header against the bar.