Absolutely Buzzing: How Watford’s Two Strikers Are Leading the Hornets
Leicester, Arsenal and Bournemouth may all be nursing three game win-streaks heading into Christmas but there is a team out there that can beat that: Watford.
No kidding, the Hornets are absolutely rampant right now. Since losing 2-1 to both Leicester City and Manchester United (a 90th minute own goal the difference in that one), they’ve reeled off wins against Aston Villa (3-2 away), Norwich (2-0 home), Sunderland (1-0 away) and now, the jewel in the crown of their season… Liverpool (3-0 home).
Four good wins on the trot, three against relegation candidates, sure, but then Watford were supposed to be among that crowd themselves. And while you look at how their recent patch of form has shot them up into seventh and wonder how exactly this has happened all of a sudden, a glance over their season’s results and there’s really only one bad one there to mention: a 3-0 home defeat to Arsenal. Maybe add a 2-0 loss away to City in there but this team has been competitive all season. This recent run of wins is no fluke.
But it was unexpected. We’re talking about a team that made 16 new signings in the summer, most of them unknown players from foreign leagues. They have a manager in Quique Sanchez Flores who had zero Premier League experience and only took over as boss after they were promoted and their owners, the Pozzo Family, whose strategy of club networking has been a bit controversial, haven’t always had the best track record. The 22 players that they have fielded this season come from 19 different nations and nobody knew what to make of them. They were complete wildcards (after my own heart…).
The foundation of how Watford play is defence. Like most Premier League teams (but not leaders Leicester…) they construct their team around the idea of organisation. It’s that defence that has them heading for Christmas with the tied-fourth best defence in the PL as far as goals conceded goes. Led ably by 26 year old Northern Irishman Craig Cathcart, who also played top flight for Blackpool and has been ever-present so far, they’re a compact unit that will step in and win the ball if it’s there to win and they don’t back down from a challenge (shouts to Allan Nyom too, their dominating right back who is just fantastic to watch). They also get a whole lot of coverage from their midfield pairing of Ben Watson and Etienne Capoue. You watch them defend and you can usually draw to clean lines of four men across. Defence and midfield.
But the secret to this team lies up top.
Watford are a rarity in the modern English game in that they play a pretty conventional 4-4-2 system. Early on they experimented with a few other shapes but their success has come with two dudes up front: Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo. And those two have been straight up superb.
You won’t find two harder workers than Deeney and Ighalo. They’re always hurrying and hassling defenders, refusing to let anyone pass the ball around at the back and it’s so disruptive to teams used to having a 4 v 1 advantage in those situations. Against Liverpool on the weekend, they took advantage of a midfield (Henderson/Lucas/Can) that wasn’t especially comfortable holding deep and helping out with options. They’re all guys that prefer a short, sharp pass, or a dribble forwards in Henderson’s case. With Roberto Firmino playing as the striker (as he did to such success vs Man City), there wasn’t a long ball option to seek out either (both Hendo and Can are tops at the long switch of play). So Martin Skrtel and Mamadou Sakho were consistently being put under pressure at the back. Sakho especially, he had a nightmare of a time.
The first goal against LFC came after only two minutes and it came as Adam Bogdan spilled a corner at his feet for Nathan Ake to poke home. There’s nothing much to that other than a keeper’s error, but Watford had already shown Liverpool what they were in for in those previous 120 seconds. Twice Troy Deeney was able to hover around and pick off loose balls around the Liverpool defence, while Ake’s run to win the corner was just a matter of wanting it more against Nathaniel Clyne who was caught out trying to play the man when he could have easily taken that ball and turned into the space that Ake was leaving behind him as an overlapping fullback.
Not the best first touch on his Premier League debut for Liverpool as far as Bogdan goes either, poor lad.
The second goal, however…
That’s Deeney dropping deep to win the ball, then holding off both Lucas and Emre Can to regather his first attempted ball forward to play in Ighalo. The Nigerian was isolated against Martin Skrtel and he was able to hold him at a distance enough to disrupt the clearance and then pop a shot away. Bottom corner. Goal. Beautiful stuff against some weak defending.
Jurgen Klopp tried to alter this when Skrtel came off hurt, throwing on Divock Origi up front and moving Lucas into defence, but by then they were already 2-0 down against a supremely well marshalled defence. Seriously, watch these guys and the shape they keep, it’s near flawless. If a winger steps up to cover the dude with the ball then the fullback will track into the space behind him. If a centre back rushes out and doesn’t make the tackle, either a midfielder or a fullback will come across and plug the gap. They move as a unit. Normally that makes for very conservative football but with Watford they know that they can trust the eleven men on the park to cover for each other and so they’re actually a really daring kind of team. Obviously they don’t have a Mesut Ozil or a David Silva in there, so there are far more misses than hits but the point is that they back themselves to try a through ball in behind, or a sharp turn on a defender. Odion Ighalo has this near-iconic scoop turn that’s just murder on flat-footed defenders. The Iggy Chop, he calls it (BRILLIANT!). He left Sakho on his arse with it last game, check this out:
Most teams like to play with one centre forward in order to give more support to the rest of the team and keep from getting overrun in the middle of the park, which gives us… well, it gives us the kind of thing that’s happening with Manchester United. Over balanced defences and a great shortage of goals. But teams like Leicester City are challenging that at least.
One striker means a lot of pressure on that guy to score the goals. If his name is Sergio Aguero then that ain’t such a problem. If his name is Harry Kane (and he has Christian Eriksen feeding him the ball) then you’ll get away with it more times than not. If he’s some other Jerry Battler then things aren’t gonna flow so sweetly. The single forward is there mostly to occupy the penalty area and the space around it. He’ll often be capable of creating things for himself and will look to get in behind the defence as well as acting as a pivot to hold the ball up and lay it off to wider players. Off the ball he’ll try and guide the play towards the flanks but he’s being as he’s working alone he’ll hardly ever be able to put real pressure on defenders with the ball.
With two strikers, the forwards each have options. There’s gonna be a guy to pass to and that means the midfield can play a little deeper and the wingers can stay wider. It lends well to a team that is so attentive to shape. But it does mean one fewer guy behind the ball on most occasions. Let’s have Quique Sanchez Flores explain the whole thing, he’s the man responsible:
“If you are playing with two strikers separate to the rest of the players it’s very difficult to stop other teams. If you’re playing 30 to 35 matches with fewer players when defending then you can tire. So that’s the key: when we are playing with two strikers and we have the ball we have a lot of possibilities, for good football, counterattacking or playing long ball out of defence. But when we don’t have the ball they come back with the rest of the players and form a compact block. For us it’s necessary to be defending with all our players.” - QSF
The counter argument to the fewer guys back idea is that they can instead start defending from higher up, as these guys do. Except that that’s hardly all that they do. Deeney is the guy that plays a little deeper. He likes to go searching for the ball and that has a way of sucking in defenders, making room for Ighalo to run into. One reacts to the other’s movement, it’s exactly what you want. Both are also strong guys who can hold off a defender and each has the ability to turn, while Deeney in particular is a beast in the air although Watford don’t play the long balls without purpose. They’re at their best with the ball on the ground, where they can control, turn and pass, and Deeney tends to look to bring the ball down or nod it down to a teammate. The important thing is that he commits CBs. Between Deeney and Ighalo they have 17 goals and 6 assists. Between them they’ve scored 77% of their team’s goals and the best part of it: both were influential figures in their promotion campaign last season.
To be fair to the other 19 teams, it’s about to get a whole lot tougher for Watford. Away to Chelsea, home to Spurs and home to City across the Christmas/New Year period. That’s not easy and a single win from there is probably gonna count as a success. But then we’re 17 games in and they already have 28 points. Watford are playing with house money.
“Ighalo, oh! Always believe in your soul. You’ve got the power to know, you’re indestructible. Always believe it… Ighalo!” – The Vicarage Road Choir.
The Good
Arsene Wenger – There’s no excuse now after taking down City 2-1. Arsenal are favourites for the title, Walcott and Giroud keep scoring, Mesut Ozil is the assist king of Europe again and Petr Cech is continuing to prove that he can make any defence look good (especially Arsenal’s full strength defence). And they did it without Alexis Sanchez too. City were more disappointing than Arsenal were impressive, but you have to hand it to a team like that. They were prepared to be patient early on, and yet they took their chances when they came (thanks to poor defending but whatever). Making fewer mistakes in the big games is often the difference. Kevin De Bruyne shoots when he should have passed for a likely goal and the Gunners go straight down the other end and score. Top finish by Theo, with some lovely work by Ozil in getting it too him and then running the decoy past him to keep the central defence far enough for TW to cut in and get a shot away. So long as the physios play ball, Arsenal have everything it takes to win this title.
Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City) – Honestly, if a bigger club doesn’t come out with a big blank cheque for this fella then they’re mental. He’s so freaking good and he just keeps on performing. Whether or not he wants to quit on this magical LCFC run at this stage is another question (he shouldn’t, mid-season transfers are always a bit weird) but he’s gotta be on the radar. A guy with the energy that he has, with the ability to put defenders on ice and with that wicked left foot is a guy who can fit into any team. Might need to add a couple new tricks to make it on a more complicated team but you’ve gotta back him. Two more goals in a 3-2 in over Everton, both penalties, that makes it 13 goals and 7 assists now, both of those figures second in the PL.
Los Foxes – Leicester City are first at Christmas. They were dead last a year ago. What a ride.
The Bad
The Mess Left Behind in Chelsea – Predictably, they were immediately better without the shadow of Jose on the sidelines, easily beating Sunderland 3-1. But the real problems are in the crowd, where Mourinho’s name was chanted loudly and often and the players were booed for giving up on him. If Guus Hiddink can get the results on the board then, let’s be honest, they’ll quickly forget this whole saga. But only if he gets the results.
City Without Kompany – Vincent Kompany has played in eight games this Premier League season. In those games, City have conceded just once. In the nine games without him they have leaked 18. They have good defenders in there, Nicolas Otamendi is a great one, but there’s no organisation. They all speak different languages and only Kompany has the leadership and the stature within the club to arrange things on the fly.
Manchester United – Geez, the standard of teams in The Bad this week. United were just awful against Norwich. As an isolated game it’s not so bad but when you consider that they’re now six games without a victory in all competitions, having dropped out of the Champions League and out of the top four, it’s terrible. They looked decent early on but couldn’t score as per usual and as soon as they conceded they seemed wrecked. They know that they’re struggling to score and, shockingly for the team that gave us Fergie Time, they seemed to have no belief that they could make the comeback. Things were better once they brought on Ander Herrera, moved Anthony Martial centrally and threw Ryan Giggs on the touchline barking instructions, but not enough to get them back into the game. Hey but credit to Alex Neil who once again showed himself a superb tactician. Ooh, maybe he’ll get the United job?
The Ugly
Mesut Ozil’s Confidence – Mate, it’s always someone else’s fault…
“You have to put the numbers into perspective. I’ve also played a lot of good final passes in the last two seasons, but nobody converted them. This year, our attackers turn my assists into goals, and those assists appear in the stats.”
Harry Hornet – Play it again, Harry. Once more, just for us!
