That, then is us, but there’s no need to be upset; instead, have a shmy over to our next game, in which Scott E. Parker’s Fulham face Kepa Arrizabalaga’s Chelsea.
So there we go. Watford stay eighth, but look on course for “their best finish in the Premier League era,” for those unarsed about Graham Taylor’s monumental achievement in 1982-83. Leicester stay 11th.
Full-time: Watford 2-1 Leicester City
What a win that is for Watford, who were organised, doughty, and found that extra little bit at either end of the game. Leicester were poor - unnecessarily so - though there is plenty for their new manager to work with.
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90+5 min The initial cross is cleared, then Maddison gets another go and for a second it looks as though Schmeichel is there for it ... but Doucoure intercepts, then Foster kicks away another low cross!
90+4 min Holebas prods Ricardo’s cross behind and up comes Schmeichel...
90+3 min Gray is booked for removing his shirt is unbridled ecstasy and right so, We can’t have such malign emotion sullying “this league”. Football’s the winner.
GOAL! Watford 2-1 Leicester City (Gray 90+2)
Schmeichel picks out Docoure with a poor goalkick, and his header finds Deeney who, senses that Gray is in behind him, hooks a lovely pass from out to in, meeting the run of his mate ... who holds off Morgan to slip home the winner!
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90+1 min Watford send on Cleverley for Hughes.
90 min There’ll be four added minutes.
90 min Maddison overhits his corner but beyond the back post, Evans keeps it alive and eventually he gets another go, feinting inside then nipping outside, diddling Janmaat ... and his cross is a goodun! But Morgan can only head down and wide!
89 min Leicester press as Watford sit back, and Maguire steps out with the ball, finding Chilwell, and though his cross is overhit, the pressure forces Hughes to head behind at the back post; the corner forces another.
88 min Lovely pass from Maddison, inside Will Hughes, that gives Chilwell the chance to craft a cross. But his low effort is directed straight at Foster, and Watford see the danger away.
87 min Pereyra needs treatment so we enjoy a little recess.
85 min Gray swings a ball out from the back and immediately, Watford are under pressure. Iheanacho manages to control and move it into stride, and with Maddison galloping all he needs to do is hit the space between defence and keeper. He cannot.
84 min Deeney robs Ricardo, who can’t help but chase back to kick him. He’s booked, but the free-kick comes to nowt.
83 min I’m not certain why Rodgers would remove Tielemans, who’s not been in the game enough, but who you might want if you’re hoping to find a winner.
81 min Vardy now sits as Watford play on, until the ball is shmiced out of play. Leicester then make two changes: Mendy for Tielemans and Iheanacho for Vardy,
81 min Vardy has picked up some kind of injury - he’ll be off shortly, and is currently down on his haunches.
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80 min It’s Leicester stroking it around now, and they need to try and get Tielemans on the ball, especially if Watford’s centre-backs don’t drop.
79 min So, can either side find a winner? They’re both going for it, Chilwell, breaking and curving a pass across the box to Vardy. It takes him wide, so Leicester build again...
77 min That’s the first home goal Watford have conceded in 2019.
GOAL! Watford 1-1 Leicester City (Vardy 75)
Maguire wins a header and it bounces to Tielemans, who, under no pressure, moves forward then puts Vardy in a race with Mariappa thanks to a nicely-weighted through-pass. Only one winner there, and Vardy screeches onto the ball, then contorts his body to dispatch the equaliser with the outside of his right foot. Lovely pass, lovely finish, but very poor from Watford who administered very little pressure, playing to the obvious strengths of the two who made it happen.
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75 min Ndidi finds himself out on the right and with Vardy haring into the box, larrups a useless cross ... that hits the to of the bar!
74 min Gray to Tielemans to Ndidi, who swipes a ball out to Chilwell on the left, only to find he’s gone all Ed Crane.
72 min I admit it: I thought this game would be a lot better than this. It is not.
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70 min Fine run from Maddison, set away by Tielemans, and he has Grey and Vardy ahead of him ... but can’t quite find the angle to slip the former through. So eventually he settles for a simple pass, and Grey dribbles a shot into the nearest shin.
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69 min Change for Watford: Grey replaces Deulofeu, who’s had moments and helped set the pattern of the game with his movement and nip.
67 min “Brendan gets a lot of stick,” emails Football Thanksalot, a jazzer of a name if ever I’ve heard one, “but who is more deluded, him or the Leicester board who thought getting rid of Puel was a good idea?”
If I was a Leicester fan I’d have wanted Puel out for his League Cup behaviour last season - he picked a weakened side v Manchester City, lost on penalties, and missed out on a semi v Bristol City. He did the same this season, missing out on a semi v Burton, and then tossed away the cup at Newport. The Leicester fan I know was pleased to see the back of him, and excited to see what happens next.
66 min Naturally it’s not the system but the players. Rodgers sends on Gray for Barnes, so Maddison moves to the left of the the space behind Vardy. All the difference, I’m sure.
65 min This is really disappointing from Leicester, but Watford are shutting them down very well.
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64 min Mike Stowell is delivering a soliloquy to Demarai Gray, who will soon be in amongst it.
62 min Maddison’s free-kick is cleared and Watford break, the ball quickly shuttled into the space between Deeney and Schmeichel. Neither are pulling out of this, and it’s the keeper who’s there first, wearing a slide from Deeney who’s booked. I’m not sure that was necessary, he could hardly pull out of it. This is “this league” after all.
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60 min Morgan is all over Deeney as they contest a high ball but the ref sees nowt untoward, and later in the passage, Capoue trips Maddison and is booked. That’s probably for an accumulation of niggles, but Doucoure is booked for whining about it nonetheless.
58 min Chilwell swings in a free-kick from the left and is naused when there’s no one making a run to attack it. So instead it arrives at the back post, where Don Harry de Maguire tanks it over the bar.
57 min “It’s not Brendan’s positivity or his coaching that provoke mirth,” reckons Niall Mullen. “It’s his enormous, gargantuan, massive self-portrait in the living room self-regard. It’s not just funny it’s also problematic. He would often describe Liverpool as ‘outstanding’ when we were, at best, mediocre. Such a lack of self-reckoning is not a good basis for improvement (as the great man himself might say).”
I think there was an excuse for the portrait, though I forget what it was. I’d also consider excusing the things he said to the press - not on general principle, but in terms of how and whether they affected his players. I’m stumped on the lack of self-reckoning, but.
56 min Leicester need to find something here. I’d take off Morgan, bring on Gray, and go 4-3-3.
54 min “I can imagine Milling and yourself sloping off on a walking tour of London footer grounds engaging in Iain Sinclairesque monologues about lay lines and Thatcher,” emails Ian Copestake.
Point of order: neither Watford nor Stanmore are London.
52 min Lovely from Watford, keeping possession and moving it forward before Deeney lays back into the path of Doucoure, and he panels a shot from 25 yards that has Schmeichel diving to push away. And Watfrod maintain the boust, Deeney breaking across the box and diving over Ndidi’s outstretched and raised leg - it’s withdrawn just in time - before Pereyra shoves Ricardo who is in the process of handling.
50 min Leicester pin Watford back and work the ball across the face of the box, Barnes having a shot blocked at source, before Ndidi drags one straight at Foster.
49 min It’s been a quiet start to the half. The Leicester players are, I imagine, still digesting the epochal wisdom transmitted to them.
48 min News from Craven Cottage: Kepa is back, Kepa is back, hello hello! Can we all please get on with our lives now?
47 min “Whats with slagging off the town of Watford?” asks Nigel Taylor. “Having spent many an hour stuck on the North Circular admiring its beautiful architecture, I know where I’d rather watch my football!”
Not slagging it at all - it’s amazing that a town of that size has a Premier League club, though not as amazing as were Craig Ramage’s mid-90s curtains.. Just indulging a bit of Metropolitan Line bantz.
46 min We go again.
“But, to fill out the biting satire,” returns Matt Dony, “I think you’re absolutely correct that Brendan is also a very good coach. The people who say he only did well at Liverpool because he had Suarez don’t seem to notice that, for example, Sarri has Hazard. There was much, much more to it than that.”
Yes. I’d qualify by saying that Brendan’s Suarez was a different league to anything Hazard has done and will ever be, but he didn’t just stick him on the pitch and let it happen.
“Watford a bit like Stanmore?” asks an incredulous Mac Millings. “As a son of Watford who spent a lot of time in the Stanmore region growing up (my grandparents lived just off Belmont Circle), some slight offence is taken. I take it the magnetic pull of the Harlequin Centre never quite drew you to the end of the Metropolitan Line.
Still, your general point stands, I think; Watford are quite an unlikely success story - 2nd smallest town (by population) and 2nd smallest ground capacity in the top flight (behind Burnley and Bournemouth, respectively). There have been a few surprising teams in the Premier League in recent seasons, but I can’t think of any comparably-small clubs who have seemed so secure in the position (please don’t publish that part - it guarantees relegation next year.)“
I have indeed been to the Harlequin – even before it was the Harlequin. What I’m really saying is that Kenton should have it’s own top division team, and Preston Road won the Tube’s best platform-garden competition nearly every year in the 90s.
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Half-time: Watford 1-0 Leicester City
A fast start from Watford, before Leicester had computed their new stylings, helped them into a lead they’ve never looked like losing, even as the balance of play tilted against them. Work for his Brendoness to do.
45+2 min “I suppose Wigan has to run Watford close in the unlikely-top-division-club stakes,” says Kári Tulinius. “Wigan proper is a bit bigger than Watford, I’ll grant you.”
Wigan is an actual place, not just a discotheque known variously as Kudos, Destiny and Oceana.
45 min There’ll be two added minutes.
44 min Meanwhile, here’s Matt Dony: “Brendan never change. Whose names are in the envelopes?”
43 min “As Brits don’t get positivity,” begins Ian Copestake, “I guess we will never truly get Brendan. That we see it as form of delusion speaks to our preference for down to earth types who start on the basis that life is misery so let’s take it from there. Or in footballing terms, let’s not talk about getting into Europe and focus on doing a win.”
I think we can get Brendan and also laugh at him. He’s really good at being a coach, and he also really good at being a right proper charlie.
42 min Janmaat launches down the right, putting Deulofeu in a race with Maguire. Somehow, Deulofeu wins, but Maguire then does really well to get in between man and ball, seeing it away nicely.
41 min Foster has not yet had a serious shot to save.
38 min ...which Mariappa heads away. Tielemans, though, meets the ball on the volley, shanking a glorious disguised pass back out to Maddison, the corner-taker. This time, he bends in a wicked cross, but again, Mariappa is there to head clear.
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38 min Leicester are pushing, gently but perceptibly, and Mariappa blocks Barnes’ scuffed shot to give them a corner...
36 min Leicester win a free-kick, 40 yards out, that’s pretty central, so Maddison dinks it to Maguire on the left of the box. Mariappa, though, clearly knows nothing about internet memes, and as such follows him to win the ball and clear.
34 min Ricardo snaps inside to Tielemans, who’s been quiet until now but then slides back a gorgeous return, meeting his man’s run to the line. The cross is bundled behind, and from the resultant corner come appeals for a penalty when Maguire and Mariappa challenge for a high ball, but the ref says no.
33 min I reckon Brendan deliberately picked this formation so he can change it, decisively, at half-time. An prophet.
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32 min Deulofeu drifts left, and when he picks the ball up he shifts it inside extremely quickly, taking him away from Ricardo and into a shooting position; his low effort is fairly well hit, but straight at Schmeichel.
30 min A careless square ball from Maddison somehow still rolls, and Deulofeu picks it up, driving at the heart of the Leicester defence. But Ndidi is alive to the danger, and slides into a challenge that extinguishes it.
29 min Maguire overhits a pass to Ricardo; it shoots into touch, and everyone laughs.
28 min Watford are back in the ascendancy, at least for a few minutes. They look better drilled, I’d say; Leicester are making it up.
26 min It was a risk for Rodgers to change things after Leicester won well at the weekend, and at the moment, things aren’t working. They’re not creating much, and the extra defender hasn’t given them any extra solidity.
25 min Doucoure into Pereyra who, back to goal, backheels a return ... except Doucoure stops running, and the ball rolls harmlessly into a touch, a metaphor for life.
23 min Chilwell is robbed by Hughes, who lifts the ball over the nearest challenge and hares after it. He’s quickly stopped, but Deeney pulls wide and slings in a low cross that Doucoure is inches away from converting. Watford’s delivery into the box has been excellent so far.
21 min Maddison nips past Capoue, who extends a leg and imparts pain. The ref keeps his cards to himself.
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20 min Are Watford the most unlikely top-division club in the modern era? As a norf London boy I’m probably biased, but Watford was considered a little place like Stanmore or Crouch End, just with some water slides (called Watford Springs, of course).
19 min The game has settled into a pattern now, Leicester in possession and Watford - who’ve yet to concede a home goal in 2019 - sitting back.
18 min Nice from Watford, Ricardo guiding a lovely switch out to Chilwell, who carefully caresses a cross for Barnes ... who can’t quite resolve his feet to direct goalwards, bundling wide instead.
17 min Leicester were inching into things prior to the stoppage, and are moving the ball with a bit of confidence now.
16 min Both men are up and about.
15 min Foster is down, having stitches on his chin. Vardy looked to wear the worse of that, and is also being treated.
14 min With everyone gathered towards the far side of the box, Maddison curls obliquely towards the near side, meeting the run of Vardy - that’s clever. Except Foster is wise to the ruse, gets there first, just, and then faces mince.
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13 min Mariappa’s first touch is poor, taking the ball towards goal as Vardy scavenges, so Mariappa’s second touch is of Vardy’s calf. He’s booked and Leicester have a free-kick, 40 yards out, right of centre.
11 min Watford get it into Vardy and Barnes goes beyond, the first little flash of Leicester. Nothing comes of it, but it’s something.
10 min “Javi Gracia, he’s better than you,” sing the Watford fans, reanimating the ditty used on Marco Silva the other week.
9 min “It’s Watford at home to Leicester,” emails Mac Millings. “We have to, don’t we?”
We absolutely do.
7 min This has been a great start from Watford, while Leicester have yet to get going. They’ve a lot to process, of course.
GOAL! Watford 1-0 Leicester City (Deeney 5)
Deulofeu curls in an absolute expletive of a cross, flat and hard, and Deeney, perhaps an eyebrow offside, flicks a backheader that flies past Schmeichel. The Rodgers era is away!
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4 min The corner is cleared but not properly, and the ball makes its way over to the right where Maguire yanks back Hughes so that when Deeney can make nothing of it, the ref pulls play back for another free-kick.
3 min First chance! Watford win a free-kick on the right which Holebas curls in. Caught under the ball, Morgan can’t head clear, and it breaks to Mariappa who sidefoots firmly ... but straight at Schmeichel, who beats away before Morgan blocks Deulofeu’s follow-up behind.
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1 min Call me mad, call me crazy, but I think Leicester are playing a 3-4-2-1.
1 min Off we go!
I can’t decide whether we’ll get more penetrating philosophy if Leicester win or lose.
Sky reckon Maddison and Barnes are roving behind and to the side of Vardy, so Leicester are playing a 3-4-3. I’m not sure about that, but in all likelihood that’s what they’ve been told, so.
Here come the teams!
Because of what Leicester actually did in 2016, what Rodgers nearly did in 2014 has been forgotten. But make no mistake, the way he coached, managed and tweaked that Liverpool team was exceptional. He had Luis Suarez, it’s true, but he also turned Raheem Sterling from talent into player, made changes both before and during games that were crucial, and blitzed a variety of teams with screechingly quick attacking football. That’s what he’ll try and do at Leicester.
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Graeme Souness says the Leicester players didn’t put it in for Puel, and went sneaking to the board. Not sure how he knows that, or how it was their fault that Puel kept binning the cup competitions. Nothing on Pogba just yet.
Rodgers says that his back three is partly because Watford play two strikers. He wants to “progress the team” and “regardless the of the result it’s been a really positive week for us”. He’s pleased to have the second-youngest squad in the league and is excited to see the players improve. He expects speed with the ball, intensity without it, and that he was at the club he’s supported all his life in Celtic, but if you take the emotion out, he’d achieved all he wanted to achieve in Glasgow, thanks to him –!– the club is in safe hands, and now he’s back in the best league in the world. At Leicester, he wants to deliver European football and to go close in the cup competitions. The aim is to create an identity in the team, and go forward with the talented young players that he has.
So where can Watford hurt Leicester? They’ll want to get Deulofeu running at Morgan, and Deeney in a fight with Evans, I’d expect, and hope their narrow midfield four can outnumber and out-think Leicester’s three. And there should also be opportunity to get their full-backs forward and create overloads in wide areas – though Leicester are a serious threat on the counter.
That 3-5-2 does suit the Leicester players, but I do wonder if they’ve got one defender too many in there; perhaps it’s because Watford play two up. On the other hand, moving Barnes into the middle will give Cathcart and Mariappa something to think about something about which to think something to think about, even if his finishing prowess is unlikely to agitate Ben Foster. And with Tielemans and Maddison behind him, he shouldn’t want for service.
Well that didn’t take long. Rodgers immediately changes formation, from 4-3-3 to 3-5-2, Wes Morgan in for Demarai Gray.
Watford make one change from their 5-0 nuzzling at Anfield, Jose Holebas returning from suspension to replace Adam Masina at left-back.
Team are here!
Watford (a retro 4-4-1-1): Foster; Janmaat, Mariappa, Cathcart, Holebas; Hughes, Doucoure, Capoue, Pereyra; Deulofeu; Deeney. Subs: Gomes, Masina, Kabasele, Cleverley, Quina, Success, Gray.
Leicester City (a scholar’s 5-3-2): Schmeichel; Evans, Morgan, Maguire; Pereira, Tielemans, Ndidi, Maddison, Chilwell; Vardy, Barnes. Subs: Ward, Soyuncu, Fuchs, Gray, Mendy, Ghezzal, Iheanacho.
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Preamble
There’s a lot of guff spoken about “this league” like it’s some mystical, impenetrable riddle with intricacies that are palpable but elusive, simple yet profound. Like much nonsense, though, it contains within it a germ of truth – a germ which multiplied this week with the return of Brendan Rodgers, and I’m not even sure to how much extent I’m joking.
Because the thing is, despite the teenage self-obsession and Hollywood newtons, Rodgers knows something – and more than that, he’s a perfect fit for Leicester: ground sorted and money to spend, plus a variety of exciting young players, quick, versatile attackers and a defence he can leave well alone. Everything about this feels right, even if his personal brand of exceptionalist cheese is more in step with elsewhere.
Watford, though, will not make things easy. They have narrative with our Brendan, and before their midweek kicking at Anfield, looked likely to give Liverpool a hard time. That’s down to the galvanising impact of Javi Gracia, who is extracting the maximum from a tough and talented squad, and you can be certain that they will put it about this afternoon. If you wanted to evangelise what makes “this league” special, you could do a lot worse than point in the direction of what we’re about to enjoy.
Kick-off: 12pm GMT
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