Steve McClaren likened last Monday’s defeat at West Ham United to a car crash but had remained cautiously optimistic that, back behind the wheel again, his Newcastle United players would safely negotiate the hazards strewn across the road by Watford.
The former England coach had clearly not bargained for his team again forgetting to keep checking those all important wing and rear-view mirrors. It left the excellent Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney free to enjoy themselves as Quique Sánchez Flores’s side continued their promising start to Premier League life.
Newcastle, meanwhile, ended the afternoon stuck in a metaphorical ditch. Forced, embarrassingly, off the road by newly promoted visitors, they are still to win a league game this term, have scored only three goals and are being kept off the bottom of the table only by virtue of having a marginally better goal difference than Sunderland.
Following a first-half surrender, they performed appreciably better in the second period with little cameos hinting at better days to come – eventually. With Newcastle’s next two League games against Chelsea and Manchester City, the immediate horizon looks less than sunny.
“It’s not a crisis, it’s not a time to panic,” said McClaren, remaining commendably calm. “It’s a long way off a crisis – we just need to find a way to win. Everyone knew this was a hard job – and now we’ve got the proof. It’s a huge club and turning it round isn’t going to be easy.
“There’s a lot to work on but as a backroom staff we’ve got the experience to turn it round. It’s early, we’ve a long way to go, a lot of points to play for. But we’re going to get a lot of criticism so that dressing room has to stay tight, stay calm and stick together.”
Exhilarating to watch throughout, Ighalo had dragged two extremely inviting chances wide before enjoying a little more luck with his third attempt. When Massadio Haïdara forfeited possession to Almen Abdi, Watford manoeuvred the ball intelligently into the area where, this time, Ighalo made no mistake with a shot squeezed just inside an upright. It was the Nigerian striker’s third goal of the season and 19th in 24 League games during 2015.
If Ighalo is on a hot streak, Papisse Cissé continues to endure a distinctly chilly one. McClaren’s Senegal striker missed three excellent first-half openings, the most notable created by Moussa Sissoko’s fine through ball.
While both defences contained vulnerable spots, Newcastle’s looked much the wobblier in the face of Ighalo and Deeney as Flores’s decision to switch to good old 4-4-2 looked increasingly inspired.
Very quick and extremely athletic, Watford revelled in finding the flaws in McClaren’s remodelled 4-1-4-1 system featuring Jack Colback in a semi-sweeping, anchoring midfield role. It is a job the undoubtedly talented midfielder is arguably unsuited to. Colback, though, could have done without Gini Wijnaldum, the team’s marquee £14.5m summer midfield signing, drifting through prolonged first-half periods without even touching the ball.
Further back, Fabricio Coloccini was not having one of his better days and watched horror-struck as Ighalo rounded Tim Krul before directing a right-foot shot into the unguarded net. Watford’s speed of thought and foot was such that Newcastle’s fading centre-half played like a man wearing blinkers.
Ighalo’s second was created by Deeney who displayed impressive control in chesting down Sebastian Prödl’s long ball before seamlessly cueing up his partner for another goal. Once again, Newcastle had been pulled out of shape and, down in the home dugout, McClaren began talking urgently into a telephone.
The interval beckoned when Heurelho Gomes made his first save, Watford’s goalkeeper repelling Florian Thauvin’s stinging first-time shot. Few were surprised to see Cissé replaced by Siem de Jong for the second 45 minutes in a reshuffle featuring Ayoze Pérez’s re-location to a central striking role and De Jong assuming the No10 position.
Another Dutchman, Daryl Janmaat is one of McClaren’s better performers and, appropriately, the right-back got Newcastle back into things. Overlapping, he picked out Sissoko before running beyond him, collecting his cross and shooting past Gomes. It was the first league goal that Newcastle had scored since the season’s opening day.
Watford nearly restored their two-goal advantage when Ighalo and Deeney combined adroitly but Chancel Mbemba’s splendid late intervention denied Deeney. Suitably spurred, Janmaat forced Gomes into a good save, the goalkeeper reacting well to tip his left-foot, 25-yard shot round a post, thereby confirming it was Ighalo’s day. “Ighalo is a very important player,” said Flores, with considerable understatement. “We’re very happy. To win here is amazing.”
McClaren opted to seek positives. “We came up short again,” he said. “But we won the second half.”
