I still haven’t got anything particularly original to contribute, but here are a few random thoughts occasioned by yesterday’s topsy-turvy FA Cup tie:
- Isn’t it great to hear ‘Z-Cars’ all the way through for a change? It’s almost worth paying the £10 just for the sax solo in the middle.
- For anyone who’s been trumpeting Watford’s strength in depth, the line-up Pearson sent out against Tranmere was a bit of a wake-up call. Giving the players who busted a gut for the team over those four magnificent Christmas games the day off was absolutely understandable, but when you also discount the long-term injured, what’s left looked very much like a collection of odds and sods. In happier circumstances, yesterday’s team would have included the likes of Prödl, Cleverly, Welbeck and Janmaat, a core of battle-hardened pros who would have been much less likely to crumble under pressure in the latter stages.
- Talking of pressure, it can’t be much fun when you’re a fringe player and a handful of cup ties are the only chance you get to prove what you can do. Isaac Success and Domingos Quina in particular seemed to be self-consciously auditioning for the first team yesterday, showing off their tricks and flicks whenever they could. Quina is pure class and mostly got away with it, not least because he balances the showy stuff with a furious competitiveness. As for Success, much of what he tried didn’t come off, and his best moments were those when he opted for simplicity and direct running.
- Personally, I will be very surprised if both Success and Andre Gray are in the Premier League squad of 25 the club names at the end of the month. Success has been here three and half years now, and while he’s got something, the refusal of successive head coaches to trust him with anything more than cameo appearances speaks volumes. He needs regular football, and he’s not going to get it at Watford. A loan or sale in this transfer window would be best for all concerned.
- As for Gray, he’s unfortunate to be stuck at a club that doesn’t play in a formation that suits him. Playing him as the lone striker yesterday just highlighted his limitations, as he was completely neutralised by a bog-standard lower-division lunk of a centre-half. His best spells at the club have come playing alongside Troy Deeney – the two of them built up a decent understanding for a spell early last season – but unless Pearson is tempted to revert to 4-4-2, then Gray is going to be stuck on the subs’ bench for the forseeable future. He too might be better off leaving, but I suspect Watford won’t let both him and Success go unless they can bring in another striker.
- One player I’d expected to see in the line-up yesterday was Dimitri Foulquier, but instead he was loaned to Granada for the rest of the season a couple of days ago. I feel sorry for Foulquier. I saw him in the League Cup tie against Coventry and thought he looked like a decent full-back, solid and tidy. The club obviously saw something they liked, too, or they wouldn’t have recalled him after two seasons of loans and put him in the first-team squad, and both Gracia and Flores regularly included him in the 17. But he had the misfortune to make his league debut in the 8-0 drubbing at Man City, and copped some of the blame for the scoreline. After that, some fans were never going to give him a chance.
- One final thought about players who might have expected to get a game against Tranmere: what the hell has happened to Marvin Zeegelaar? As far as I know, he’s still at the club (I’ve occasionally spotted his name in under-23 line-ups), but he doesn’t even get his name listed on the back of the programme any more. I know he turned out not to be the long-term solution at left-back he was intended to be, but I’d be intrigued to know what he’s done to be sent to purgatory.
