Watford 0 Plymouth Argyle 0 (29/03/2025)

03/30/2025 11:00 AM

1- It’s not that the games are dull. If they ARE dull it’s rich to complain about it… as Lars Sivertsen pointed out this week, if it’s dull it’s because it’s rigged in favour of nations for whom failure to qualify would be undesirable for the World Cup Finals tournament. The lack of jeopardy is because the decks are stacked in England’s favour, the more so as the tournament expands to TWICE what it was at my own personal day zero (the 1982 World Cup, itself a 50% increase on the previous tournament). Kieron has always maintained that the World Cup should be a straight knockout from the outset with no seeding. I’d watch that.

A bigger problem than the games being boring can be managing the interruption to the rhythm. Whether you’re in the habit of going to games or not, the lack of a (full) domestic fixture list of a weekend between August and May remains Wrong, irrespective of how many years we’ve been dealing with it. Like going a night without sleep, or skipping breakfast (weird). It can also be helpful occasionally if you’re able to schedule major life events skilfully… weddings, births of children and so forth. But otherwise it’s discombobulating, the more so when you’re in the position of suddenly being desperate for any kind of structure or familiarity.

So despite Daughter 2 again rejecting the game in favour of GCSE revision (which is good. I guess…) it was with a light heart that I headed to Vicarage Road for resumption of our season of epic midtableness. The sun was shining, now warm enough to accommodate short sleeves (if only on the walk to the ground, still far too chilly for such recklessness in the stands out of the comfort of the sun) and with players returning there were reasons to be positive.

2- The first half soon bludgeoned any optimism out of us. It had only been two weeks since a similarly listless outing at Oxford so this should have been no surprise; Argyle employed the high press that we have such trouble coming to terms with, particularly given the ongoing absences of Keben (playing out), Abankwah (charging out) and Doumbia (something resembling a target man to hit). Meanwhile several including Giorgi and Louza, critically, looked rusty taking a time to get going. Both of our DRC representatives, Kayembe and Ngakia, began on the bench for perhaps related reasons, alongside the returning trio of Bachmann, Dwomoh and, eye-catchingly, Baah.

So we enjoyed most of the possession and did the thin end of bugger all with it. Plymouth grew in assuredness as the half progressed and got themselves into some threatening positions, not least when Obafemi forced a ball through to Hardie for the only clear chance of the half; Hardie placed his shot well, down in the corner to Selvik’s left, but without sufficient power and the Norwegian pushed the shot away sharply.

On the plus side Caleb Wiley acquitted himself well looking solid at both ends of the pitch on his full debut, while Vakoun Bayo arguably looks at his most capable when the ball is nowhere near the penalty area, here hurtling after and into things in an attempt to disrupt the humdrum first half so characteristic of 12.30 kick offs. There’s something slightly perverse about rescheduling a swathe of matches to Saturday lunchtime on a weekly basis with the consequence that the nature of the game is frequently almost unwatchable, but the schadenfreude isn’t much comfort as Rocco Vata, restored to the starting eleven for the first time in two months, has our first shot of the game driving low and wide in the dying moments of the half.

3- The half-time entertainment is at a fairly high water mark with the latest iteration of the (sponsored) challenge in front of the Rookery. Just the right level of bantz, humiliation, drama and occasionally success including here, where Tim Coombs tempted fate by dismissing one punter’s chances before said punter put two of his three shots in the lower corner targets of the canvas wall strung across the frame of the goal, here buffeting in the wind, for £100 a pop.

Meanwhile at the far end there’s the kids’ penalty shoot-out, a staple of interval entertainment of course (is it still the “Watford Observer” shootout or did that stop in 1993?). I suppose it’s a bit unreasonable to demand that BOTH events take place in front of the Rookery; the Vicarage Road End houses the family stand after all. Nonetheless, scarcely visible from our location it feels like something that used to be part of the experience. Like Chariots of Fire, Match of the Day or Trevor Putney.

Yes, the first half was that bad.

4- But the second half isn’t. The first five minutes are characterised by every single onlooking Hornet turning to their neighbour and saying, “well they’ve had a rocket up them”. We looked aggressive and purposeful all of a sudden, on the front foot, a mentality which was maintained throughout the second period and for all that we didn’t take advantage that isn’t nothing.

Vakoun Bayo in contrast had a far worse half, first seeing a shot blocked as Sierralta nodded Wiley’s excellent cross back across goal, then somehow failing to connect altogether when Vata, at the second time of asking, curled a run to attack a corner at the rear post sending his header back across the face of goal mere inches from the line but somehow avoiding Bayo on the way through.

But the most positive takes from the game were in the promise of what was to come. Kwadwo Baah’s much trumpeted return after his own two month absence didn’t disappoint; Argyle’s Tymoteusz Puchacz, the oldest 26 year-old you’ve ever seen, was powered through and left in disconsolate pieces on their left flank before a ball came in that saw Vata crash a shot off keeper Hazard and the post. Every time he received the ball the pitch of the hubbub changed. Suddenly we had a way to reliably hurt the visitors; being fairly solid (and that’s five clean sheets in seven despite the inconsistent availability of our best centre backs) now looks like a viable proposition on it’s own, since Baah is good for a good few chances a game not to mention the pressure his place on the pitch puts on the opposition and off our own backline (and also Vata on the opposite flank).

Almost as fun was Zavier Massiah-Edwards. The presumption as he came on for his first home minutes was that Baah would play down the middle as Bayo left the field; instead, the slight eighteen year-old took the central role and looked mobile, willing, positive… and far tougher than his frame suggested. No, we didn’t score… and having bowed and been penned back for most of the half, Argyle gave us a couple of scares late in the game but there’s plenty of fun to come between now and the end of the season on this evidence despite the scoreline.

5- Absurdly, if you’re minded to keep an eye on such things, we ended the day closer to the play-off picture than we started it with only Norwich and Boro winning of the nine teams chasing the last two places and Cov, West Brom, Blackburn, Millwall and next week’s opponents Bristol City all losing.

That has to be weighed against drawing nil-nil with the side bottom of the table of course. We could also do with a few more goals… Tom got an ovation after the game again but won’t be able to rely on these indefinitely if the current strike rate of one goal in three games is maintained. Nonetheless, any prolonged involvement in the play off talk is a bonus versus (reasonable) expectations and after our fourth League draw with Argyle in two seasons the hope can only be that this point – plus the one they burgled at Home Park – proves decisive in their survival at the expense of our friends up the road.

Won’t be at Ashton Gate, see you for Hull.

Yoorns.

Selvik 3, Andrews 2, *Wiley 3*, Pollock 3, Sierralta 3, Louza 3, Dele-Bashiru 2, Sissoko 3, Chakvetadze 3, Vata 3, Bayo 2

Subs: Ngakia (for Andrews, 45) 3, Baah (for Dele-Bashiru, 67) 3, Massiah-Edwards (for Bayo, 79) NA, Larouci (for Wiley, 90+1) NA, Kayembe (for Vata, 90+1) NA, Ince, Dwomoh, Morris, Bachmann