In August Nathan Aké left the league champions on a season-long loan, apparently to become third-choice left-back in a relegation fight at Watford, who had given Chelsea no guarantees about his first-team involvement. By the start of November he has made the position, for now, his own, Watford sit five points and six places above his parent club, and by way of a bonus the Dutchman set their latest victory in motion by stealing the ball from Andy Carroll to set up the first goal against West Ham.
“I would never have expected to be above Chelsea but they will come back,” he said. “They are a good team. It is difficult to say if we can finish above them –we are doing really well and we can’t deny that, but we can’t look too far ahead. We have to look game by game.”
Perhaps, for many members of this Watford side, this is more than a cliche. Quique Sánchez Flores named an unchanged team and apparently believes that rotation is best confined to Odion Ighalo’s twinkle-toed, defender-bewitching excursions around the penalty area which brought the striker another two goals, but the manager has done enough to prove that no one’s position can be taken entirely for granted.
Sebastian Prödl started the first nine games but has spent the last two on the bench; Valon Behrami started the first five but became both suspended and injured and now finds Ben Watson blocking his path; while the Greek international José Holebas, the favoured left-back in August, has not played a single minute since the defeat at Manchester City at the end of that month.
“I’ve never played left-back constantly so I’m not used to getting forward,” Aké said. “Every week I’m learning new things – the manager allows me to make mistakes but also sees that I am improving and getting better every time.” His last two home games illustrate his point: troubled by Héctor Bellerín in Arsenal’s 3-0 win, he was sufficiently comfortable against Victor Moses on Saturday that the on-loan Chelsea forward was taken off at half-time.
That was where the trouble really started for West Ham. Already a goal down, they started the second half with a 15-minute demonstration of the art of haplessness, and should have been more than two behind by the time they pulled themselves together and the substitute Enner Valencia brought some of the dynamism that had been missing from their attack. West Ham’s reputation for triumphant travelling, built by victories at Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Crystal Palace, looked ill-deserved throughout.
Mark Noble said: “Obviously we were going to lose an away game, we knew that, but to lose in that manner is a little disappointing. We didn’t quite tick today, for reasons I don’t know. I’m going to give Watford credit: the two boys up front played really well, they were a strong team and they deserved their three points. We’re thoroughly disappointed but we’ve got a strong group of players – we’ve been on a fantastic run, but this is the time we’ve got to stand up and be counted.”
Man of the match Ben Watson (Watford)
