Odion Ighalo helped Watford to fire their Champions League charge with a comprehensive victory over a Liverpool team who lag in mid-table. It is not a sentence that might plausibly have been conceived at the beginning of the season but this is no ordinary season and Watford are riding the wave of the craziness.
Quique Sánchez Flores’ team registered a fourth consecutive victory to lift them to within a point of the top four and this was their first major scalp of what is becoming an incredible season for them. The manager had made Premier League survival the priority but, right now, the possibilities feel rather greater than that.
Ighalo added to Nathan Aké’s opener with his 11th and 12th goals of the league campaign and when he was substituted in the last minute, he departed to thunderous acclaim. The home crowd, who must be pinching themselves, had unfurled a banner beforehand that paid tribute to the club’s owners, the Pozzo family.
“So here’s to you, Pozzo family. Watford loves you more than you would know,” it read, playing on the old Simon & Garfunkel line. Love is certainly in the air in this part of Hertfordshire.
For Liverpool, it was a match to forget and it compounded the disappointments against Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion, from which they had taken only one point. Watford swarmed all over them at the outset, hustling them into errors and when they had finished their early burst, they were two goals up and in control.
The tone was set by Ighalo and Troy Deeney up front, both muscular, harrying presences and it was clear Martin Skrtel and Mamadou Sakho would have an uncomfortable game. Skrtel lasted until the 41st minute, when he was forced off with a muscular injury. Watford won so many of the one-against-one duels.
The opening goal was a present and it came gift-wrapped by Adam Bogdan, the Liverpool goalkeeper, who made his Premier League debut in place of the injured Simon Mignolet. Bogdan dropped Ben Watson’s corner and, when it bounced back up for him, Aké nicked it off him and forced home. It was the on-loan Chelsea defender’s first goal for the club.
Bogdan claimed that he had two hands on the ball before Aké robbed him and, when there was a break in play on the half-hour, he could be seen in discussion with the referee, Mark Clattenburg. But Bogdan had lacked conviction and it would not be for the first time.
Aké had won the corner on the left through steer persistence, and Watford’s performance was stamped through with the quality. It underpinned the second goal, too, when Deeney won the ball off Lucas Leiva and sent it over the top for Ighalo to chase. In a straight fight with Skrtel, the Liverpool defender, initially, looked the favourite. But Ighalo muscled in and, when the ball broke wide, he reacted the quickest, getting his body shape right before hooking a low shot into the far corner.
The home crowd roared their approval for every block and challenge and there was a standing ovation when Almen Abdi slid in to nick the ball away from Adam Lallana in the 33rd minute, which was really something and reflected the bond between the team and the stands that Flores has worked to establish. Abdi got another standing ovation when he was withdrawn towards the end. Rarely has a wide midfielder been so feted on the basis of one tackle.
Liverpool did nothing more than flicker in the first-half – Philippe Coutinho worked Heurelho Gomes in the 12th minute but it was a routine save – and it was Watford who might have scored a third before the interval.
Bogdan punched straight at Lucas after Deeney had helped the ball into the box, sparking a scramble and, on the second phase, José Manuel Jurado drew a save from the goalkeeper. There was also the moment when Bogdan, having stayed on his line, had to beat away Watson’s whipped, low corner.
Jürgen Klopp had started with Roberto Firmino up front in a 4-3-3 formation but he switched things after Skrtel’s injury, sending on Divock Origi to add a bit more presence at the sharp end of things. Coutinho and Firmino worked off him.
It was interesting that Klopp introduced Origi ahead of Christian Benteke, who had been dropped from the starting lineup. Benteke eventually came on, together with Jordon Ibe, in the 74th minute but it was not a day for any of Liverpool’s strikers.
The visitors had a few clearer-cut chances in the second half. Lallana looped a header off target; Jordan Henderson got the better of Aké before seeing Gomes tip over his shot and Emre Can worked the Watford goalkeeper from distance.
But Watford had more of their own. Ighalo left Sakho on his backside after a wonderful trick and Jurado almost profited following his cross while Jurado turned provider on 63 minutes. His ball put Ighalo clean through, after Sakho had slipped only for Bogdan to block.
Ighalo, though, had the last word, starting and finishing the move for the third. The cross from the substitute, Valon Behrami, was made to measure and Ighalo, the man of Watford’s moment, buried his header from close range.
(Guardian Service)
