Gracia’s line-up looked like a surrender
YOU could imagine the uproar on Merseyside when the team sheet dropped an hour before kick-off at the Etihad Stadium revealing no fewer than seven changes in the Watford line-up.
It felt like a declaration of surrender from manager Javi Gracia and a team who have now lost 13 games in a row against the Big Six clubs, stretching back more than two years.
Watford may have won four of their last five matches in all competitions, but they lost 5-0 at Liverpool a fortnight ago so what chance had they got at City?
With one eye on next week’s FA Cup quarterfinal against Crystal Palace, Gracia made a calculated gamble. Out of a winning line-up went Troy Deeney, Gerard Deulofeu, Adrian Mariappa, Craig Cathcart, Jose Holebas, Will Hughes and Roberto Pereyra.
Liverpool cannot have been banking on a City stumble in this fixture but surely they were hoping that Watford would put up a fight against their title rivals?
Funny thing was, the gamble paid off for 45 minutes. Watford sat back, kept their discipline, stuck to a game-plan and frustrated the hell out of City.
Yes, David Silva was agonisingly close to reaching Riyad Mahrez’s cross and Sergio Aguero somehow headed millimetres wide of the post from point-blank range, but the champions created little else.
Daryl Janmaat typified the spirit in an unfamiliar Watford side with a brilliant block on Raheem Sterling, and the ball seemed to stick to Ben Foster’s gloves every time it came near the keeper.
Foster’s time-wasting only added to the exasperation building around the stadium and at half-time Liverpool can only have been impressed by Watford’s resilience.
The problem with Gracia’s plan was what to do if City scored. It may have been a scruffy, controversial goal that finally broke Watford down but it changed the dynamic of the game.
Having claimed the first goal, Sterling only took another 13 minutes to complete his hat-trick and the contest was over.
As if to offer Liverpool a glimpse of what might have been, Gracia sent on Deeney and Deulofeu in a double substitution and it took them just a matter of seconds to combine for a Watford goal, scored by the latter.
Would it have been different if they were on from the start? Probably not. Watford have lost their last 10 meetings with City and have not beaten them for 30 years.
But that is unlikely to make Liverpool feel any better.