In the lead up Watford’s game against Coventry, I found myself thinking a lot about music’s relationship with football, and how it struggles to find harmony. The analogies are often quite limited. There was Jürgen Klopp’s heavy metal football, of course, which always felt like a bit of a stretch considering his Liverpool side, impressive as they could be, rarely chugged and clanged like Megadeth or Metallica. Online, endless fan accounts churn out montages soundtracked by identikit dance music or stodgy guitar music.
Even chants are affected by a narrow lens, clubs all across the world mining the same material. Every time the Hornets encounter the Sky Blues, I quietly hope that the Coventry fans will buck such trends to deliver odes to Steve Ogrizovic and Peter Ndlovu and Dion Dublin and Gary Breen set to “Friday Night, Saturday Morning” or “Gangsters” by The Specials. Alas, I am always left disappointed.
Modern football itself often has more in keeping with hold music, especially at the elite level. Watching Manchester City can often feel like you’re experiencing some experimental and minimalist composer, all method and little mood, a liminal space, where exciting, off-cuff the moments, can feel like mistakes rather than the objective
Contemporary football is about possession and possession most resembles polyrhythms. Patterns buttressed by XG statistics, training drills wrought in front of stadiums around the country every weekend. But for possession to make any sense, it requires a clinical punch, otherwise, your polyrhythm brews with no pinch, no spike, a far cry from the effervescent joy of a 12 minute Fela Kuti song.
The pervasive quality of possession football has been seeping in to the cracks and vents of the Championship for a few years now. Although the division retains a chaotic, unpredictable air, it’s now a regular occurrence to see goalkeepers take short restarts and step forward in to the defensive line outside the penalty box, or defenders sweep the ball from one side of the pitch to the other like a yo-yo. Briefly, at the start of last season, the Vicarage Road faithful were even treated to the anxiety inducing sight of Valérien Ismaël deploying Daniel Bachmann as a progressed Libero.
Apt then, really, after thinking about the Championship mood music that Watford’s tannoy system should malfunction before the game. No team announcements. No Z Cars. No “Your Song”. And, most importantly, no audio for the half-time goal scoring challenge.
However, as Tom Cleverley begins to instil in his side a discernible rhythm, the Vicarage Road crowd, ably abetted by the thrumming travelling contingent from Coventry, ensured this 1-1 draw was anything but hold music.
The only unsurprising event in this thrilling game was that Watford, for a third league game in a row, conceded another soft goal within four minutes. Coventry were all teasing twists and flirtatious flicks. While Ellis Simms got the plaudits post-match, everything invigorating about Coventry’s impressive first half performance stemmed directly from Jack Rudoni in centre midfield. Time and time again, he drifted in and out of space, supplying Simms with multiple opportunities for Coventry to extend their lead.
But for some fine stops from Bachmann, this had all the makings of a thrashing. In many ways, it was on Bachmann which the whole game may well even have pivoted. On 30 minutes, sensing the pressure was too much for his side, the goalkeeper flagged a cramp. As he took to the turf, Bachmann ushered his teammates away towards Tom Cleverley in the dugout. While the referee questioned the sincerity of Bachmann’s need for medical attention, Cleverley was given the opportunity to reset the tempo. Somehow, it worked. Suspect? Possibly. Sophisticated? Certainly.
What felt like wave upon wave of Coventry attacks dissipated and the game became a much more open affair, scurrying from one end to other. For large portions of the second half, until another lengthy stoppage when Giorgi Chakvetadze tweaked his back, Watford were the better side.
The introduction of Ken Sema and Daniel Jebbison in the second half brought almost instantaneous results. Sema fed Chakvetadze down the left, who scythed a ball across the box for Tom Dele-Bashiru to finish coolly. With 25 minutes to go, it looked like Watford were the more likely winners, even the pitch seemed to expand with space to exploit.
Moussa Sissoko, again impressive, should have put Watford ahead from ten yards out after debutant Festy Ebosele provided a cute cut back from the byline after muscling past the Coventry left back.
A draw was probably the fair result on Saturday. Coventry provided a stern yet peppy test. Wordy and sophisticated like Scritti Politti at their most voluble. Watford on the other hand remain a rougher, scrappier proposition, homemade bedroom demoes recorded directly to tape. But in barely six months, Cleverley has given the side a plan, a cohesion, that excites the fans. The atmosphere in the ground was positively frenetic at times.
Francisco Sierralta delivered one of his best Watford performances at the heart of the three man defence; Mattie Pollock was also composed, tackling with staccato precision, progressing the ball diligently. This was probably the toughest side that Watford have faced this season and they more than matched them. Of more pressing concern, Chakvetadze’s injury aside, was the anonymity of Edo Kayembe.
Since his three goals across the opening two games of the season, Kayembe has slipped in to a filler track, lost, a sketched out idea, lacking a clinical focus. Last season, he excelled as a shuttler alongside two other midfielders, and as the game evolved on Saturday, I wondered if dropping him deeper would prove beneficial long term, seeing the side line out in a 3-5-1-1 hybrid. It would perhaps give more solidity to the centre of the park, and allow Chakvetadze more room to roam.
Saturday was a reminder of how bombastic and brilliant a Championship draw can be, with the sides creating over 30 opportunities on goal. Encouraging too, to see the resolve of this Watford side. Going behind so tamely is a concern, but the fact is, in all three games they’ve clawed their way back in to stay competitive. Long may it continue.