[themaclad]

Watford
Deepdale 2/10/2024

https://www.watfordfc.com/

Manager



Thomas William Cleverley (born 12 August 1989) is an English football coach and former professional player who played as a midfielder. He is currently head coach of EFL Championship club Watford.

HOTSHOTS



NEWBIES



LAST TIME OUT







OTHER GAMES





BIT OF PREVIOUS



The Fitness Test
There aren’t any injuries within the PNE squad for Paul Heckingbottom to worry about.

Robbie Brady and Will Keane both made a return to action at The Den on Saturday and will hope to feature again on Wednesday night.

Stefán Thórdarson was being managed last week due to a slight issue, but appeared off the bench in Millwall and could be pushing for a start against Watford.

The Hornets


Since former England midfielder Tom Cleverley was given the Watford job on a permanent basis in the summer, the Hornets have taken 13 points from their opening seven matches.

They head into Wednesday’s meeting at Deepdale following a victory over high-flying Sunderland and will be hoping to keep pace with the division’s top six in the early stages of the campaign.

Watford have a real mix of experience and youth within their side, with not many Championship teams able to boast the knowhow of someone like their captain Moussa Sissoko, who has been capped 71 times by France.

The Officials

Referee: Andrew Kitchen
Assistant Referees: Ian Cooper and Hugh Gilroy
Fourth Official: Adam Herczeg

Andrew Kitchen will take charge of the third PNE match of his career on Wednesday night.

His one and only time as the main official at Deepdale was last season’s narrow defeat to Norwich City.

So far this season, he’s refereed four Championship matches and shown 23 yellow cards.

Mac's view

A win is needed although suspect the Hornets will provide a tough task, they had a good win on Saturday whereas we were slightly iffy.
A few changes from the shambles on Saturday

[themaclad]

After being “too easy to play against” at the weekend, Paul Heckingbottom has reinforced some of his fundamental ideas in preparation for the visit of Watford.

The manager, who had been encouraged by the performances of his squad during his first few matches in charge, was left frustrated on Saturday as he felt they strayed away from what they’d been doing so well in the 3-1 defeat at Millwall.

He’s been showing the group clips of the game in order to be really clear about where they can improve and what’s expected of them

Hecky said: “I want to be really clear with everyone. We did things we haven’t been doing and that’s why we lost the game. You’ve got to use it as learning.

“Everything we’ve been trying to improve on in how we build and keep people connected and go up the pitch together, we didn’t do. It was off the cuff and then when we lost the ball, it was too easy to play against.

“We’ve been really good at defending set plays and then for some reason virtually every one we weren’t switched on. We weren’t organised quickly enough.

“It was disappointing in that way when you’re two steps forward, one step back. I hope now we’ll start going forwards again, so it was frustrating. Then we had half-time to try and correct things and then to concede straight away after having a good chance sort of ended the game for us really.”

His focus after the clash at The Den turned to Wednesday’s match against Watford as quickly as his car journey to the train station.

The Hornets, under the guidance of Tom Cleverley, sit seventh in the Championship table ahead of the midweek round of fixtures, and arrive following a victory over high-flying Sunderland.

Hecky said: “The squad’s dangerous. They’ve got some dangerous players with pace and athleticism.

“We know that and they’ve got really big moments in them. They may be quiet, but they’ve got big moments in them. They can also really compete so they started the season really, really well.

“They’ve had a couple of results they wouldn’t have been happy with and then they had a big win at the weekend, so we know it’s going to be tough, but we’ve played against good opposition before.

“It’s like I keep saying, and it’s not anything disrespectful to Watford, I’m not really bothered who’s in front of us. It's about how we perform which is what’s most important, and we’ve shown that regardless of whether we’ve had ten men against a relegated Premier League side or a Premier League side – it doesn’t matter who’s in front of us if we perform well.

“If we perform how we know we can, then we’ll give anybody a game.”

WATFORD VIEW

Watford know that Preston North End will be a different proposition at Deepdale this evening (7.45pm KO) due to their early-season managerial change.

Hornets Head Coach Tom Cleverley came up against Ryan Lowe in a 0-0 draw with the Lilywhites towards the end of last season, but the visiting boss at Vicarage Road that day has now been replaced by Paul Heckingbottom.

Explaining the preparation for the midweek trip, Cleverley said: “We watch the footage and break it down into three or four different phases of the game and how we feel like we can dominate in each of those phases.

“We focus on us and how we can really hurt them.

“That process has happened and it’s a little bit different to the Preston team we faced under Ryan Lowe at the end of last season.”

Lowe left just one game into the current season, with former Sheffield United boss Heckingbottom appointed later in August.

Cleverley is expecting some similarities from Lowe’s spell in charge and added: “It’s a lot of the same personnel.

“My players will have a clear gameplan and the belief that we can go and win the game.

“If we execute that as well as we know we can, I’m confident we will.”

[themaclad]

Preston North End 3 Osmajic 2 McCann Watford 0

Well, well, well, four goals in the last 12 games and we get three in the same game, albeit if Watford had taken their chances it could have been a different result but they didn't and paid the price for that
Osmajic played after accepting his charge from the Plastic game possiby gave the away defence plenty to chew upon, have we actually after 18 months found out how to play to his strengths, pity we will likely lose him to a lengthy ban, but that is in the future.
Watford started the better should have been one up when Lindsay made a horror of an error and left Baah one on one with Woodman, a massive left footed save by the keeper stopped us from going behind. Wake up call, we grew into the game trying to break down a wall of yellow in front of them fairly obvious what the visitors tactics were play on the break with the pace they had useful tactic.
We had chances Osmajic had a header well saved by Bond similar to the one on Saturday, nice height for the keeper, easy save.
Brdy took one for the team getting booked for bringing down a Hornet when they were ina decent position.
Stroke of half time Festy blazed over should have done better.


Early Watford chance in the second period McCann cleared from the line and then it was boo, boom, boom, the first was a great team goal, Woodman to Storey bit of showboating from the defender, ball down to KKH outpaced the defender ball across to Osmajic close offside decision not given , Fang bundled the ball passed Bond, soon two long throw in Storey effort pin balled across face of goal, two up dream land. The third Whiteman free kick again pin balled across the box until it found the unmarked McCann who hit it first time and in off the post it went.
To be fair the visitors didn't give up, Bayo beat the offside trap and complete missed the target, a couple of deflected shots by Andrews brough TV saves from Woodman, but third clean sheet in a row at home, decent performance, hopefully a sign of things to come.



HECKY

Paul Heckingbottom said his PNE players gave him exactly what he asked for during the second half of the 3-0 victory at home to Watford.

The two sides went into the break level after chances fell for both in the opening 45, but North End came out firing in the second period.

Milutin Osmajić scored a brace within 12 minutes of each other, before Ali McCann capped off the victory with a stunning strike.



Hecky said: “I’m really pleased. I thought we started the game well but I thought at half-time the game was still in the balance.

“We needed a little bit more and the things that we asked for and said that we needed to be better at in the second half, we were.

“One was our delivery from set plays because we felt we could exploit that. That improved in the second half and we got chances. We got momentum and we got more set pieces.

“The other was the intent with the forward runs and the forward passes, which we got in the second half. The final bit was just the quality with the final bit of detail, whether it was the final ball in behind or the final cross. We got that and then we won the game 3-0.”

The manager opted to make five changes from the defeat to Millwall at the weekend, with scorer-of-two Osmajić one of those who came into the team.


He took both of his goals well on the night, scoring with two first-touch finishes from close range, and celebrating in style in front of the Sir Tom Finney Stand.

Hecky said: “He deserved his opportunity. It’s been enjoyable working with him. He’s similar to Emil in terms of they both like going towards the opposition’s goal.

“Milly’s just been really dangerous. He’s scored goals which we’ve seen, worked hard, and I felt today he 100% deserved an opportunity.

“But with what’s looming over us as well [with the FA charge] and the quick turnaround to the game against Burnley, it makes sense to do that then we’ve got Emil [Riis], Keano
(Will Keane) and Layton [Stewart] for Saturday if Milly’s missing.”



It was McCann who scored the pick of the bunch, though, and that was his first competitive goal at Deepdale.

Ben Whiteman had a free-kick near the touchline and his ball went across to the opposite side of the box, where North End’s No.8 swept a superb effort in off Jonathan Bond’s right-hand post.

“Ali’s been great,” added Hecky. “The area I’ve been challenging him on is going forward in terms of not goalscoring as such but I expect him to make the box from midfield with the energy he’s got.

“We all know what he’s like without the ball with his tenacity and how difficult an opponent he would be to play against.

“We’re challenging him to play forwards more to build up the attack, to join the attack and he’s got his goal today which was a fantastic finish.”

CLEVERLEY

Tom Cleverley admitted that Watford’s performance was not good enough as the Hornets were beaten 3-0 by Preston North End.

The hosts scored all three goals in the second-half, with the Golden Boys living to regret missed chances of their own.

Kwadwo Baah and Vakoun Bayo both came up short with one-on-ones while Moussa Sissoko saw a header cleared off the line in Lancashire.

Preston’s second goal, when a long throw was allowed to bounce in the box, was particularly disappointing but all three could be seen as avoidable.

“It's a league where you can lose games, but not in that manner,” Cleverley said.

“You could start with the chances we’ve missed at big moments of the game.

“We started with a big chance in the first 10 minutes and there was another big one just before half-time which could change it.

“The Bayo one is at a less-significant part of the game.


“I didn’t think we competed as well as them. They are a physical team, they are very high in the duels in the league.

“But you have to compete better. If you don’t win the battle, then you have to show a little bit more possession and we didn’t this evening. We fell short in a lot of areas.”

Cleverley said his team was not “aggressive enough or intense enough”, with too many players falling short and having “off-nights”.

He knows his challenge now is to replicate his side’s Vicarage Road form on their travels.

The Head Coach has overseen five home wins from six in all competitions this season but it is now four defeats in a row away from The Vic.

“The challenge for us is ‘yes, we’ve got a real good thing going on at home’, but that’s half the games,” he said.

“If you don’t show the same sort of form and commitment then you are a mid-table team.

“The challenge for us is to transfer our form at home into better away form.”