Watford 2 - 1 Newcastle

Watford 2 - 1 Newcastle

Watford’s Odion Ighalo sets up repeat win over ailing Newcastle

Home team scorers
Odion Jude Ighalo 46
Craig Cathcart 58

Away team scorers
Jamaal Lascelles 71


Odion Ighalo beats the Newcastle goalkeeper Rob Elliott to score Watford’s first goal.

It had been 29 years since Watford last did the double over a top-flight team, but against Newcastle they have now done the treble. Much had changed in the two weeks since the teams met here in the FA Cup, including 10 members of the starting line-ups and even the pitch, freshly relaid for this game, but for the away side the outcome was precisely the same – a decent performance but a poor result.

“We’re very disappointed because, similar to the Cup game, we came here and played very well,” said Steve McClaren. “You can’t fault the attitude of the players. I thought we did everything today but win the game.”

It was a predictably positive spin on a display that only ever offered gentle encouragement, against a Watford side that had lost their previous four league games and, in the words of Quique Sánchez Flores, “came from a bad place, in terms of feelings”. In mitigation McClaren had to cope with a string of defensive injuries, with every fit centre-back named in the starting line-up, but though they conceded twice their true problems lay in attack. Newcastle scored with their only genuinely threatening effort on target, a header from a corner by Jamaal Lascelles, a central defender given his first league start of the season essentially only because he was able to walk.

Watford smuggled a significant change to their formation under the guise of a single, like-for-like alteration to the side that had performed so incoherently during the first half of their 1-0 defeat at Swansea last Monday. For the first time since the opening day of the season José Manuel Jurado occupied a central role, just behind the front two, with three vaguely defensive midfielders behind him. Though this had the advantage of allowing the Spaniard to shine in his favoured position it came at the cost of cover in wide areas, and as the home side struggled to come to terms with their tactical alterations the visitors prospered down the flanks, with Moussa Sissoko particularly threatening on the right.

Watford eventually settled, with their new shape also giving Étienne Capoue unusual freedom to attack, an opportunity that he initially seemed determined to translate into unlikely penalty claims. The Frenchman should however have given his side the lead in the 17th minute, when Odion Ighalo set up Troy Deeney, whose weak shot was saved but spilled by Rob Elliot. The ball ran beyond the far post, where Capoue sidefooted back into the goalkeeper’s legs with any number of better options available.

Newcastle ended the first half promisingly, with both Jonjo Shelvey and Daryl Janmaat crossing just beyond or behind Aleksandar Mitrovic in the closing minutes, but started the second half catastrophically. Less than 45 seconds after the restart Watford were ahead, Deeney lifting the ball over the visiting defence and Ighalo racing clear, rounding Elliot and scoring from an acute angle.

Though Newcastle crafted an opportunity to equalise within three minutes, when Mitrovic was played in from a free-kick but sent his cross-shot rolling wide, the goal prefaced Watford’s finest period, as Deeney shot wide from the edge of the area and Valon Behrami, flinging himself to the ground in an effort to bring the referee’s attention to Fabricio Coloccini’s gentle nudge in the back, was booked for simulation. Then in the 58th minute Watford doubled their lead: Miguel Britos sent a half-cleared free-kick back into the area, Deeney headed down, Ighalo controlled on his thigh and Craig Cathcart volleyed in with his left foot.

McClaren immediately made a double substitution, and both of the new arrivals might have scored with headers within five minutes only for Yoan Gouffran and then Ayoze Pérez to head wide, the latter after a lovely Sissoko centre. They eventually succeeded in pulling a goal back, and though Watford also had further chances – Ighalo shot low and hard from the left of goal and Elliot saved; Capoue shot high and hard from a similar spot and missed entirely – they could have prospered further. Pérez outpaced Behrami but shot over, while Emmanuel Rivière, another substitute, and Lascelles, from another Shelvey cross, both headed wide in stoppage time.

“It’s very difficult to win three times against the same opponents in a season,” said Flores. “I’m really happy with the performance of the players, to recuperate our ambition, our spirit, our passion.”

Guardian