Watford 1–0 Burnley: Substance over style against esteemed Kompany
Three games, seven points, top of the league. Yet the feeling after Watford’s 1–0 win over Vincent Kompany’s much-fancied Burnley is there is still work to be done.
And still there were positives to take from a game in which the Hornets had only two shots in the match — only one on target, the winner — and ceded 63% of the ball. It would be remiss of me not to point out some of that is skewed by Hassane Kamara’s red card for hauling down Vitinho as he sprinted clear nine minutes from time.
So here we go, five post-match thoughts from another balmy night at the Vic’…
1. Daniel Bachmann is No1: The first point of order and not by coincidence!
In the first half, misinformed Burnley fans chanted, ‘You’re just a shit Ben Foster’. They could not have been more wrong. At that point, Bachmann had miscued a couple of passes — but he didn’t crumble.
As the Clarets piled on the pressure, he underlined exactly why Rob Edwards has elected to give him the No1 shirt. Unfortunately, Bachmann’s best save didn’t count as debutant Mario Gaspar headed back toward his own net, a Burnley player was offside. But he made several other vital interventions, denying Josh Brownhill on three occasions.
His save from the free-kick following Kamara’s dismissal was probably unnecessary — the ball looked to be going wide — but it took two smart stops from the Austrian to preserve the clean sheet, building on his showing at West Bromwich Albion.
We always knew he was a good shot stopper. The question mark has been the command of his area and coming for crosses. There was one let-off when he got stuck underneath his crossbar. Otherwise, it was a match-winning performance.
2. Hamza Choudhury dazzles on debut: It’s easy to get carried away with the performance of a debutant, not least when you’ve been crying out for someone to do the job they’ve been brought in to do.
All that aside, Choudhury was probably man of the match on the night — even if Sky Sports, somewhat puzzlingly, gave it to Edo Kayembe.
For someone who’s played as little football as Choudhury over the last two seasons, he displayed few signs of being rusty and launched himself into the game — and several challenges — as if he’d never been away.
On two or three occasions he was the man to get his foot in or make a block at a pivotal moment. In possession he was tidy, too, completing 92.31% of all his passes — more than any Watford player except late sub, Christian Kabasele.
As first impressions go, this was a good one.
3. Possession is only 9/10ths of the law: After three games, Watford rank third-bottom of the Championship for average possession share per match with 39.57%. At the time of writing they, along with Burnley, have played more games than anyone else though, so that statistic is slightly anomalous.
By contrast, the Clarets are second only to Russell Martin’s Swansea City, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Burnley had a lot of the ball but without doing much. In fact, in the first half, every time they held onto it for too long they seemed to break down by wildly misplacing a pass out of play.
Burnley (461) completed more than twice as many passes as the Hornets (210) yet got the ball into the final third only 16 times more (37 vs. 21). A lot of build-up for not a lot of end result.
Bachmann, excellent though he was, did not have a save to make in the first half and was only put under any sustained pressure towards the end of the game. Even then, he was hardly overworked making just four saves in total.
Whether this is a symptom of having fairly unimaginative midfielders in Tom Cleverley and Kayembe, or a decision made because of their limitations in possession, is unclear. But there is logic to it.
Watford have got by with taking their chances and ever so slightly overperformed against their expected goals tally (2.27 xG vs. 2.64 post-shot xG). Clearly having one effort on target at home isn’t ideal but, with a more settled side, system and style of play, that should improve.
4. Changing mindset: What a difference three months makes. A man down with 10 minutes plus injury time remaining, the Watford of last season wouldn’t have held out to preserve the win.
That has a lot to do with playing against weaker teams, naturally. As alluded to after the Sheffield United win, Daniel Jebbison’s first-half miss would have been gobbled up by a Harry Kane, Mohamed Salah or Heung-min Son. Teams in the second tier let you off the hook.
Roared on by an increasingly loud crowd, Watford showed the kind of team spirit, togetherness and — perhaps above all else — organisation that was so sorely lacking last season to get the job done.
Seven points from nine and two clean sheets takes the pressure off Edwards who came under fire after the draw at West Brom. It’s one thing to question his in-game decisions, another entirely to put any kind of question mark against the suitability of a guy two games into a new role.
5. All hail King Ken, Mr Championship: I’ve been as critical as anyone of Ken Sema. In fact, I used my post-Sheffield United notes to give him a bit of stick. But the very thing I used to bash him with after that victory was the match-winning moment on Friday night. Released by Ismaïla Sarr down the right, Sema was in his area of the field and his situation to cut the ball back for Cleverley to finish coolly.
It should be noted it was a good finish, too, steering the ball back towards the side it had come from and, in doing so, wrongfooting goalkeeper Aro Muric. Like Sema, Cleverley has his fair share of detractors. But I don’t mind saying the Swede not only served up an inch-perfect low cross but a healthy portion of humble pie for the likes of me tonight.
He’s never going to be a Premier League starter. But he serves a purpose at this level, can fill multiple positions and roles within the team and — on the face of it — seems to be a low-maintenance, hard-working sort. Every squad needs those over 46 games.
But don’t let me understate his importance. This was one of Sema’s best games in a Watford shirt — if not the best. Even after swapping over to the right, he was heavily involved. In the way Sarr relishes space to drive into, Sema appears to thrive in tightly congested areas, using his physique and strength to barrel through players and out of danger.
He is Watford’s unorthodox agent of chaos and I for one love him for it.