Eriksen has his Bees a-buzzing
GREAT DANE TEES UP LASTGASP WINNER FOR JANSSON
CHRISTIAN ERIKSEN starred again as Pontus Jansson’s lastgasp winner left Watford staring relegation in the face.
This was Roy Hodgson’s fifth successive home defeat since he took over, but the problem for Watford is that they had already lost the previous five.
It means an unwanted new record of 10 successive home defeats in the Premier League and leaves them six points adrift of safety.
Everton – who occupy 17th spot – have two games in hand.
Hodgson is not one to throw in the towel, but Watford look doomed and their policy of managerial roulette seems likely to cash in only Championship chips at the end of the season.
It might have been a very different outlook if substitute Josh King had managed to score instead of striking the post in the third minute of injurytime – or if Imran Louza had not somehow put the rebound wide.
“That’s why you’re going down,” sang Brentford fans after the double miss, but they were only half right.
The reason Watford are almost certainly going down is because of what happened two minutes later.
Defending a free-kick 25 yards from their goal, their defenders failed to prevent Jansson getting his head to the ball first, although it has to be said the delivery from Eriksen was exquisite.
Brentford – who took the lead from another set-piece through Christian Norgaard before being pegged back by Emmanuel Dennis – have now won three games on the bounce and five out of their last six. It’s an astonishing surge for a club who lost seven out of eight games through January and February.
Their ability to win matches late on is a common thread and a dejected Hodgson admitted: “From drawing the game, we have only lost one point, but it’s the way we lost it. To lose with the last action of the game is hard to take.
“I can’t complain too bitterly because in the second half I thought the effort, commitment and desire from the players was all there.
“If we can do that for six times 95 minutes more, then perhaps we can get back in the race. But it’s not the time to predict that we are going to sweep the board and kill all opposition because if I say that people are going to laugh.”
It’s Brentford fans who are more likely to be chuckling this morning with their club on course for a remarkable
top-half finish in their first season in the Premier League. They play composed, accurate football and carry a big threat at set-pieces through the likes of Kristoffer Ajer, Ethan Pinnock and Ivan Toney.
They are also more than the sum of their parts, whereas Watford’s fitful threat is wholly based around the individual talents of the erratic Dennis and Ismaila Sarr.
Brentford boss Thomas Frank (right) admitted: “It’s been a remarkable, crazy season in so many ways.
“I think we have statistics to show we have scored 13 goals in the last 15 minutes of our matches which is a tribute to the players’ fitness as well as their character.
“We set no targets at the start of the
season, but I always had a confidence that we would do well because I believed in these players..”
By the time Norgaard had put Brentford ahead from Pinnock’s long throw-in, Watford had already created – and then wasted – their best chance of the half.
In a rare moment of fluency, Joao Pedro was manoeuvred into space on the right but his cross was headed up and over, instead of down and in, by Sarr.
Watford levelled in the 55th minute when Dennis showed calm and an impressive touch and a VAR check confirmed Sarr had been onside with his headed flick-on.
Watford then blew those two late opportunities before Eriksen’s classy intervention left Watford distraught.