Watford: outfought outrun outmuscled and outplayed.
There was torrential rain upon arrival at Kenilworth Road.
Groundstaff spent most of the two hours before kick-off sweeping water off the pitch, and the game went ahead and was largely played in sunshine.
But for Watford fans, inside the stadium and watching on at home, the dark clouds didn’t clear – because there was one total shower still on the pitch.
Four paragraphs in and the scoreline really does have to be mentioned: Luton 3 Watford 0.
Quite simply, this was a pathetic surrender. Embarrassing. A gutless excuse for a performance where the Hornets were outfought, outrun, outmuscled, outplayed and deserved every boo and gesture inside the ground, and each furious post across every social media channel.
Losing is one thing. Playing badly and losing is another. But delivering 90 minutes where the players looked scared, disinterested and shameless, in a derby, on TV – that’s pretty much as bad as it gets.
And it’s not as if Watford don’t have previous for this offence. Remember April 2023?
Two consecutive trips to Bedfordshire where the home fans have laughed the Hornets off the pitch with total justification.
Cleverley admits same faults in two successive derby defeats
Luton 3 Watford 0 – how the game unfolded
Just 25p a week for unlimited WO website access
Rob Edwards was the architect of both, a man who was managing Watford a little more than two years ago and Tom Cleverley is the fourth to have taken charge since.
Calls for a change of head coach are emotional knee-jerk reactions to a grim defeat, but the very fact some fans think Cleverley could even be in danger are indicative of the culture that has pervaded at the club for several seasons now.
The Hornets are eighth in the table, yet people are discussing if the head coach is at risk.
That’s because we’ve been taught that a few bad results generally mean the manager pays the price, and if fans have that idea in mind then there has to be every chance players think the same way.
Chuck in a few bad performances, talk the talk but not walk the walk, sack it off in a derby – no repercussions for us because every time it’s happened before the head coach has been sacked.
Big it up during the week, bottle it on the day. Too many uses of the phrase ‘we go again’ and not enough inward reflection on why they didn’t go a lot more in the first place.
Cleverley is not free from blame, though. Not at all.
His decision to recall Dan Bachmann, who was clearly hampered by an injury which meant he couldn’t kick properly, was mystifying.
Jonathan Bond had done little wrong while he was deputising, and leaving a fit keeper who has been playing well on the bench to field someone who has been out of action and so obviously hampered is surely a decision that will haunt him every time he looks back on this defeat.
It also felt like there needed to be changes at half-time, and yet the same 11 players that had been so placid and purposeless for 45 minutes trotted back out for the second half and promptly conceded another goal.
Then the changes came, but Luton were disappearing over the horizon and coasted through what was really no more than some token resistance for the remainder of the match.
The Watford head coach has got far more right than wrong so far this season, but he picked the worst day to drop a couple of clangers.
Having said that, once the players cross the white line and the whistle blows, no head coach can be in the ear of every player – you can’t have 11 staff members trotting around with each of them, reminding them of the need to put some effort in and urging them to be brave little soldiers.
What the players dished up let the head coach down and, just as importantly, let the fans down.
Being reminded they’ve got to wait for a bus home after another turgid derby defeat by the home supporters is unpleasant enough without the realisation that there is absolutely nothing you can shout back because the team have simply rolled over before their eyes.
This is a squad of players that has Premier League experience. Many of them are either full internationals or have been capped by their countries at younger age groups.
Through the week we’ve heard many of them talking about being ready, knowing what to expect, blah blah blah etc
