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Yes, another home game and it will mean for the first time this season we will have played more home games than away games in the league at tonight's final whistle.
We've had a mixed bag at home, we lost the first one, then drew with Plymouth but then got wins under our belt against our two closest rivals Blackpool and Preston.
The Preston win on Saturday took us to eighth place which is our highest position this season, and given the wretched start we made it is incredible that we are now only outside the play offs on goal difference before the end of September.
And to top it all off we've only one more goal to score to get rid of that horrible negative goal difference that had reached six by the end of our second game of the season.
Watford have had a difficult start to the season, but much of that has been brought about by an incredibly long injury list.
Looking back to last season, they looked certainties for promotion at one point but in the end only managed to win a play off place on the last day of the season. When we went to Vicarage Road in November they were riding high, but a run of poor form particularly at home brought to an end any hopes of finishing in the top two.
The close season saw some changes. Their local newspaper were running stories of imminent administration, quickly denied by the club, but they did admit to having to sell players.
The big departures were Darius Henderson and Danny Shittu who went to Sheffield United and Bolton respectively. The only incoming permanent signing was Jon Harley who had turned down the offer of a new deal at Burnley.
Boothroyd also brought in former Derby and Spurs striker Grzegorz Rasiak on loan from Southampton for the season whilst the likes of Steven Kabba and Nathan Ellington were allowed to go out on long term loans.
It all got off to a decent enough start with a draw at Palace on the opening day and then a home win against Charlton, but injuries have hit the squad and the results haven't been quite so good since.
Despite their disappointing league form they are, like ourselves, still in the Carling Cup. They beat Gianfranco Zola's West Ham (are they GZWH now?) last week and have got a trip to Swansea to look forward to in the next round.
It is a case of more players out injured for Watford, but allied to some returning from injury and two new faces in the squad after Boothroyd made use of the emergency loan system this morning.
Already without Mart Poom they also lost replacement goalkeeper Scott Loach to injury on Saturday. This leaves third choice keeper Richard Lee to play tonight but it must be said that Lee was first choice last season and made 35 league appearances. Boothroyd has though brought in goalkeeper Mark Tyler on loan and he will fill one of the places on the bench.
Sam Sodje signed on loan from Reading but he got injured on his debut at Bramall Lane on Saturday and has been returned to the Madejski Stadium. In this morning came former Watford centre half Darren Ward from his current club Wolves.
There's also good news for them with Jay DeMerit, Tamas Priskin and Jobi McAnuff all with chances of playing tonight although it may well be that all of them will be on the bench. McAnuff has the best chance of starting after playing around twenty minutes on Saturday.
The expected Watford team is: Richard Lee, Adrian Mariappa, Darren Ward, Leigh Bromby, Jon Harley, Tommy Smith, John Eustace, Lee Williamson, John-Jo O'Toole, Lionel Ainsworth, Will Hoskins. Subs from: Mark Tyler, Matt Sadler, Liam Henderson, Alhassan Bangura, Jay DeMerit, Tamas Priskin, Jobi McAnuff.
I can't see many, if any, changes to our team tonight. Ade Akinbiyi has a chance of being fit but Kevin McDonald remains out of contention and I suspect Owen Coyle will select from the same squad of players plus Ade tonight without any changes to the starting line up.
Our team should be: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Clarke Carlisle, Steven Caldwell, Stephen Jordan, Graham Alexander, Wade Elliott, Joey Gudjonsson, Chris McCann, Steven Thompson, Martin Paterson. Subs from: Diego Penny, Alan Mahon, Chris Eagles, Robbie Blake, Jay Rodriguez, Ade Akinbiyi.
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I wrote at the time: "We can't point all the finger of blame for not winning at Boothroyd and his shocking ideas about the game, nor the most inept and appalling of officials in Darren Whitestone. We more than did enough to ensure we didn't win with some alarming misses, but as any manager will tell you he'd rather see his side miss chances than not create them."
Alarming misses? Do I need to remind you of Ade's miss early in the game in front of the Jimmy Mac Stand. He'd played a superb cross field ball, made a seventy yard run to get there and then missed the easiest opportunity he is ever likely to get.
Kyle Lafferty had already missed one chance but then Watford came into the game and the first sign of that was James O'Connor going down after being introduced to Darius Henderson's elbow. Incredibly Whitestone did no more than award a free kick. You just knew what would happen and it did. Henderson rose unchallenged to head home a corner and we were a goal behind.
Ade did get the ball in the net in the second half but it was surprisingly ruled out for offside and then he missed another chance that led to him being replaced by Robbie Blake and within three minutes were level when he latched on to a brilliant Andrew Cole back heel to stroke him.
At that point I thought we'd go on and win it, but when they get the ball in your box, handle it and wrestle defenders out of the way before putting the ball in you know it's not your day when it is all missed by the referee and the goal is allowed.
Thankfully, late in the game, Robbie did it again, hitting a shot in off the bottom of the post to give us the very least we deserved.
I said of Boothroyd: "He quite frankly sickens me with his style of football. I believe he's doing this great game as much harm as Don Revie did years ago. It's not what the game is about and it is no surprise that more and more are now speaking out against him."
Apparently things have changed down Watford way and they are playing football with some style. I'll reserve judgement.
The teams were;
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Graham Alexander, Clarke Carlisle, Steven Caldwell, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, James O'Connor, Chris McCann, Kyle Lafferty, Ade Akinbiyi (Robbie Blake 73), Andrew Cole. Subs not used: Gabor Kiraly, David Unsworth, Mark Randall, Joey Gudjonsson.
Watford: Richard Lee, Adrian Mariappa (Jay DeMerit 61), Leigh Bromby, Danny Shittu, Matt Sadler, Tommy Smith (Jordan Stewart 83), John-Jo O'Toole, John Eustace, Jobi McAnuff, Nathan Ellington (Steven Kabba 73), Darius Henderson. Subs not used: Mart Poom, Collins John.
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) |