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Having beaten Norwich last week we are still another three weeks away from our next home game against Crystal Palace after the fixtures against Coventry and Middlesbrough were both postponed because of our FA Cup tie at West Ham.
It's all led to a very difficult start for manager Eddie Howe, surpassing the one presented to Adrian Heath in 1996 when he faced five away games of his first six as manager. For Howe it is six out of seven and with the West Ham cup tie thrown in we now have this run of four consecutive away games with only the last one at Preston within 200 miles of Turf Moor.
It's not a bright prospect for a team that struggles to win away from home and that's something Howe has already spoken about. He's managed a win, a draw and a defeat in his first three away games in charge with only two goals scored and two conceded.
He's also said that we've now reached the point where draws are not good enough. Earlier in the season we drew five successive away league games and probably at least three of them should have been won. Now we have to start turning in those sort of performances but this time with the results to match.
Watford were not expected to be anywhere near the top of the league when it all got underway in August, but under the management of Malky Mackay, now in his second season in charge at Vicarage Road, they have exceeded all expectation.
They are currently ninth in the league and that's one place above us. They head us on goal difference although they've played one game less than us. They certainly know where the net is and their 53 league goals is only currently bettered by Leeds.
Danny Graham has scored 15 of those goals and is the leading scorer ahead of Marvin Sordell who has netted 10. Graham signed in the summer of 2009 from Middlesbrough but Sordell is one of a number of players in the first team squad who has come through their youth academy.
Their last game was a 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest and no less than six of the thirteen players involved had come through their youth system.
Since the home clash against Watford in November they've signed three more players on loan. They are Andros Townsend from Spurs and he played against us for Ipswich in our first away game of the season. The other two are Danny Drinkwater from Manchester United and Aston Villa's Andreas Weimann.
Don Cowie scored the first goal in the game between us at Turf Moor in November. It's his only goal this season and came in a game when he returned from injury. He's been out again recently but latest reports suggest today's game might have just come too early for him. Mind you, that's what they said last time.
Lloyd Doyley picked up a hamstring injury at Nottingham Forest last week but he's tested that in training today and is expected to be fit whilst Mackay believes that winger Michael Bryan is, like Cowie, likely to miss out.
The other injury scare for them is full back Lee Hodson. He picked up an injury whilst on international duty with Northern Ireland and is rated doubtful.
Last week, at Forest, Watford lined up: Scott Loach, Lloyd Doyley, Martin Taylor, Adrian Mariappa, Lee Hodson, John Eustace, Stephen McGinn, Will Buckley, Danny Drinkwater, Danny Graham, Marvin Sordell. Subs: Rene Gilmartin, Troy Deeney, Andros Townsend, Dale Bennett, Ross Jenkins, M Matthew Whichelow.
Eddie Howe's squad has been reduced ahead of the game with Kevin McDonald having joined Notts County on loan for the remainder of the season. McDonald hasn't featured in the league this season and he wasn't close to a first team place.
No injuries have been reported so only Chris McCann, who is on his way with the manager confident he'll be fit before the end of the season, and it is almost certain that it will be the same eighteen players on duty as last Saturday.
Marvin Bartley, who signed just as the transfer window was about to close a week last Monday, was an unused substitute last week. He'll almost certainly be on the bench tomorrow and it would not be a surprise to see us name the same team.
If so, it would be: Lee Grant, Tyrone Mears, Clarke Carlisle, Michael Duff, Danny Fox, Chris Eagles, Jack Cork, Dean Marney, Ross Wallace, Charlie Austin, Jay Rodriguez. Subs from: Brian Jensen, Andre Bikey, Brian Easton, Graham Alexander, Marvin Bartley, Wade Elliott, Steven Thompson, Chris Iwelumo.
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Via mobile phones and the radio commentary from home we were able to listen to snatches of the game and it wasn't long before it dawned on us that if you're going to miss one then this wasn't a bad one to miss.
A certain Jack Cork lined up against us and soon saw his side in front as Jobi McAnuff, now of Reading, scored in only the second minute of the game, getting two bites of the cherry from close range after Brian Jensen had gone down too early.
This game came less than a week after the epic cup defeat to Spurs and just three days after the superb FA Cup performance at West Brom. This was nothing like it although we did have long spells in the game when we dominated possession without ever really looking like scoring.
The score remained at 1-0 until 12 minutes from the end when substitute Tamas Priskin got their second. The same player made it 3-0 in stoppage time for what was our heaviest defeat of the season, alongside the first two games against Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich.
Guest reporter Tom Davies awarded the man of the match to Wade Elliott but warned: " We just weren't up to our own high standards tonight, and worryingly we were punished again by one of the weaker teams in the division.
"Wins against the play-off contenders, and big teams like Reading will mean little, if we cannot pick up points in games like these. Another three goals against is also damaging for our already frail goal difference."
It was a fifth successive league defeat but that's where the bad news ended. This game brought that run of defeats to an end and we went on to lose only two more of the seventeen remaining games in the league.
The teams were;
Watford: Scott Loach, Gavin Hoyte (Lee Williamson 71), Adrian Mariappa, Michael Williamson, Lloyd Doyley, Tommy Smith, Ross Jenkins, Jack Cork, Jobi McAnuff, Will Hoskins (Tamas Priskin 76), Grzegorz Rasiak (Jon Harley 60). Subs not used: Richard Lee, Jay DeMerit.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Graham Alexander, Clarke Carlisle, Steven Caldwell, Christian Kalvenes, Wade Elliott, Joey Gudjonsson (Kevin McDonald 79), Chris McCann, Chris Eagles, Martin Paterson (Jay Rodriguez 79), Robbie Blake (Steven Thompson 30). Subs not used: Diego Penny, Alan Mahon, Kevin McDonald.
Previous 20 Seasons | |||||
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
1994/95 | 1 | h | 1-1 | 11,739 | Eyres |
| . | . | a | 0-2 | 9,297 | . |
1996/97 | 2 | a | 2-2 | 6,450 | Gleghorn Smith |
| . | . | h | 4-1 | 8,269 | Cooke(3) Parkinson |
1997/98 | 2 | a | 0-1 | 11,155 | . |
| . | . | h | 2-0 | 9,551 | Cooke(2) |
2000/01 | 1 | a | 1-0 | 13,653 | Taylor |
| . | . | h | 2-0 | 18,283 | Payton Mullin |
2002/03 | 1 | a | 1-2 | 13,977 | Taylor |
| . | FAC | a | 0-2 | 20,336 | . |
| . | 1 | h | 4-7 | 10,208 | Taylor(3) Davis |
2003/04 | 1 | a | 1-1 | 11,573 | Chadwick |
| . | . | h | 2-3 | 11,413 | McGregor Adebola |
2004/05 | C | a | 1-0 | 12,043 | Moore |
| . | . | h | 3-1 | 11,507 | Bowditch O'Connor Valois |
2005/06 | C | a | 1-3 | 16,802 | G O'Connor(pen) |
| . | . | h | 4-1 | 13,815 | Branch Harley(2 1pen) J O'Connor |
2007/08 | C | a | 2-1 | 15,021 | Gray Gudjonsson |
| . | . | h | 2-2 | 13,677 | Blake(2) |
2008/09 | C | h | 3-2 | 10,033 | Alexander(pen) Paterson Elliott |
| . | . | a | 0-3 | 13,193 | . |
2010/11 | C | h | 3-2 | 14,160 | Iwelumo Wallace Alexander(pen) |