One of the rules I have is never to complain about an away draw in the league. By definition all the teams in the same league as you have the right to be there. Getting a point from them on their own ground has to be a good thing. Nevertheless it was hard not to feel this was more two points dropped than one gained. If we could have hit anything like our stride, we’d have wrapped up the game without a great deal of trouble.
For most of the red and white army this is a nice little fixture – always a good turnout and no problems. For those of us in the area it assumes a much greater importance. If you think last season’s disgraceful exit from the premiership by the bunch of lazy, greedy bastids couldn’t get any worse – try adding in a home exit from the FA Cup by the team supported by most of your school friends, as my son had to put up with. This season’s victory at the SoL helped him recover to some extent but we needed not to blow it by a defeat here.
We knew the pitch would be slow as it has been raining a lot and Saracens play rugby at Vicarage Road as well. Nevertheless it was remarkable quite how slow it was. A lot of the time it looked like an optical illusion, as players seemed to be operating at one speed and the ball at another. It took us a long time to adapt our game to this. I also don’t think Mick’s team selection was particularly smart. We had Thirwell and Whitley in the centre of midfield and Macateer out on the right with Smith supporting Kyle up front. What happened was fairly predictable. Trigger had trouble getting into the game. Kyle caused a lot of disruption up front but he’s not the man to convert from the opportunities he creates. Thirwell and Whitley are just not attacking minded in a game where you’d expect us to be the better side. Add in the fact that Smith had a very poor game until he was taken off (as the Watford supporters standing on the touchline with me for junior football on Sunday morning delighted in telling me) and it was no surprise that, while dominating possession and football we weren’t getting shots on goal.
Their goal early on was a lot down to the pitch and our inability to judge it. The ball came into our penalty area down the right and Jockie had it easily covered. However, the ball moved off the pitch slower than Jockie was expecting or could cope with. The concept of something being slower than Jockie defies the laws of physics – it is like being colder than absolute zero – it just can’t be done. Nevertheless in this instant physics was defied and suddenly their man had the ball and Jockie didn’t, it was knocked across and the striker had a relatively easily slot in. Frustratingly almost the identical move occurred down the opposite end (although coming via the left instead of the right). The ball was coming to Arca in the same position as their striker had been but it bobbled at the last moment and Arca skied it over.
Second half I still thought we might get on top of things. Part of the way in Mick sensibly realised they weren’t much of a threat either up front or frankly even in central midfield and so we went 4-3-3. Stew came on for Smith and new boy Byfield came on for Thirwell. However, the ref and linesman decided to take things into their own hands. Babb tackled one of their players about half way between the penalty area and the touchline. Ridiculously a free kick was awarded. Whether something is a foul can be a subjective issue so let us put that to one side. The fact that the incident happened in the middle of the park and that from the ref’s angle he could see the white line of the penalty area and then further away Babb and then further away the striker is not. It took me ages to realise that a penalty was to be awarded – I couldn’t understand what the ref was talking to the linesman about. The whole thing had happened so far away from the penalty area that it just didn’t occur to me that they might be chatting about what the rule was (“so are you saying that if the striker can see the penalty area from where he’s fouled, it’s a penalty?” “must be something along those lines – I saw that Gary McAllister explain it on the telly once”).
2-0 down in a game where we just hadn’t been getting shots on goal. Not good. However, credit to the lads, they got stuck into their task. I’ve seen some criticism of Kyle but for god’s sake – the lad had been creating openings all game that nobody had been getting anywhere near to. He had also done some fairly sterling work in defence. With Stew and Byfield around him, he continued to make the defence’s life hell. Byfield was what we expected. Proc was a great local lad but he was a very similar player to Stew and Smith. Sentiment made one want to think he was better but objectively he probably was just about third out of that lot so wasn’t giving us anything extra. Byfield because of his pace and his spinning style at least is something different and so now we have another option. I suspect he’ll play most of his football coming off the bench, as that’s when his style is likely to have the most effect.
With quarter of an hour left, we got a corner on the left. It was flicked on by Wright to Stew who was clear at the back to send in a clean header. Late on a ball came to Byfield on the centre spot. He did an air shot in one direction. You can never plan those things but they are great for putting the goalkeeper and defence on the wrong foot. He then span round and got a beautiful connection with the other foot to send the ball crashing into the net. Cue mass celebrations, particularly from the Hertfordshire based part of the red and white army.
Bizarrely we almost won it at the end. Macateer chipped the goalkeeper and it hit the inside of the post. With us already celebrating, it somehow went out instead of in – some of us just weren’t sucking hard enough I reckon.
Our cup games and our postponed Preston game mean we could be slipping down a bit but we are still looking good for a play-off and I still fancy us for an automatic place. This result was canny enough in that context, even if we’re capable of better football