Match Report: Watford 2-0 Birmingham City

A full breakdown of Watford 2-0 Birmingham City, including match, tactics and player breakdown plus general conclusions.

John Eustace's Birmingham City succumbed to defeat for the first time since their American takeover at Vicarage Road.

Hosts Watford were struggling to make their dominance of possession count in a tightly fought game but a late Lee Buchanan red card swung the tie and goals from Mileta Rajovic and Ryan Andrews earned the win.

John Eustace made one change from the side that drew with Millwall, Oliver Burke thrown straight in for his debut with Juninho Bacuna, who played twice for Curaçao during the international break taking Marcel Oakley's spot on the bench.

Burke almost had an immediate impact, working the ball to sharp-shooter Jay Stansfield to force a stop. At the other end, Matheus Martin's delivery took two attempts to clear and Ryan Porteus slammed an effort off the inside of the post.

That was pretty much that. Watford dictated play. Blues looked to keep shape, nick possession and break. Stansfield had a couple of nearly moments, Watford were wasteful with the final ball and the closest anybody came was Tom Dele-Bashiru with a wicked effort from distance that narrowly fell the wrong side of the crossbar.

Watford made it in behind a couple of minutes into the second half but Rajovic got his cross all wrong. Just before the hour, Dion Sanderson was on the front foot and found Stansfield, the 20-year-old wasting little time getting a shot away only to see a whipped effort hit the outside of the post.

Keshi Anderson and Stansfield linked up but the latter couldn't find the run of Scott Hogan. Jeremy Ngakia fired low and wide before substitute Giorgi Chakvetadze shot straight at Ruddy.

A couple of Blues changes stemmed the tide and one of those newcomers, Bacuna, almost made a telling contribution, his set-piece falling for Kevin Long, then Stansfield, then Hogan, who was denied twice by Daniel Bachmann.

Blues had received a number of bookings and the concern was that we may receive a second. That came to pass on 88 minutes when Buchanan was nutmegged by Yaser Asprilla and used his arms to stop him. He realised, let go, but the damage was done.

Watford worked another of their patterns down the right and Asprilla crossed under little pressure and, for what felt like the first time, the Hornets found a team-mate with a cross, Rajovic's looped header finding the far corner.

And as Blues pushed their ten men forward in hope, Watford exploited the space, worked the ball across and Ryan Andrews' pot shot hit Kevin Long to deflect past Ruddy.

A day in which Blues weren't quite at it and were, eventually, punshed for it.


Lineups

Watford

Bachmann; Ngakia (Andrews 77) Porteus Hoedt Morris (Lewis 46); Louza Sierralta Dele-Bashiru (Chakvetadze 65); Ince (Asprilla 56) Rajovic Martins (Kone 65). Unused: Hamer; Pollock Livermore Kayembe.

Blues

Ruddy; Drameh Sanderson Long Buchanan; Sunjic Bielik; Burke (Bacuna 71) Stansfield (Longelo 87) Anderson (Miyoshi 68); Hogan (James 87). Unused: Etheridge; Aiwu Roberts Longelo Gardner James Khela


Tactics

This game was dominated by Watford in possession.

The hosts have a consistent rotation in defensive areas during build up, flitting between a 3-2-5 and 2-3-5. Sometimes Sierralta would drop in. Sometimes Hoedt or Porteus would take a central position and have their full-back supporting. Sometimes the full-backs provided the width and the two midfielders dropped in. Sometimes one full-back would provide width and the other would step inside. It meant Blues didn't have a consistent reference point of which players would step where and had to work it out for themselves.

In the final third, it was all about triangles out wide. Winger. Full-back. Central midfielder on that side. They often tried to be clever with the final pass to throw Blues off, looking to bring a fourth man into play or play the difficult one on the outside of the boot to step back inside. Otherwise, it was about delivery and they often got that wrong.

Blues looked to press as a unit in their usual fashion. We would sit off when Watford had possession between their centre-backs, blocking the option of Sierralta and whoever else stepped in. The moment the ball was played forward into midfield, the press would start. One winger would step onto a centre-back to press with Hogan, Stansfield would sit on Sierralta and the other winger would block the pass into the other full-back, whether they stepped inside or not. The aim was to force Watford to one side of the pitch, leave one man spare on the opposite flank and close in on the rest.

The issue Blues had was that, for the most part, we were often half a second or longer short in reading the press. Rather than confidently strutting forward and making it happen, we pressed in ones or twos rather than as a unit and it gave Watford the chance to build the way they wanted with general ease.

As for the other way round, Watford weren't messing about. The front three closed Sanderson, Long and Buchanan. Morris was quick to close Drameh and the rest of the pitch was man for man, to the point that Hoedt would move right across the pitch to tackle Burke when Blues were building.

A couple of other notes.

Goal kicks were being pinged to Burke on the right-hand side rather than down the centre, as we've done recently. The reason this didn't really work was Hogan and Burke getting in each other's way. Simple stuff to get wrong.

Blues made a couple of changes of positions. Miyoshi's arrival saw him move in behind Hogan with Stansfield moving to the left. When James and Longelo replaced Stansfield and Hogan towards the end, Miyoshi moved up front with James in behind. The red card a moment later meant James moving to the left-hand side with Longelo at left-back.


Players

Credit to the centre-halves again. Cause to believe Sanderson could have been quicker to the first goal but otherwise, they defended the box brilliantly. I also thought Drameh, early yellow aside, was superb in his defensive play.

Stansfield was our bright spark. Had the chance early on. Looked sharp in and out of possession. Burke had moments but showed he's a player better running into space than taking the ball in tighter areas. Hogan and Anderson have had better days.

For Watford, I thought Porteus and Hoedt were comfortable, as was Sierralta for the most part. Dele-Bashiru caught the eye. They were poor in the final third.


Conclusions

A first defeat. A first genuinely below-par performance. And yet, Eustace is probably right in suggesting we had just as many chances, probably the better chances and didn't give up much at all.

It just felt like we were too often a yard or so short to react to situations. It happens. It's rare that this happens to us under Eustace with so much training time beforehand but we're not immune to it, and we weren't abysmal either, just below par.

The red card was disappointing. I'm not going to blame Keith Stroud - Drameh, Buchanan and Bielik deserved their yellows in the first half. Stansfield was silly to earn his, Sunjic was wild in his challenge. The second yellow for Buchanan is a pull back as their lad gets away. And Longelo goes and bodies their player for no reason. Just silly. Frustration. Poor positioning. Poor tackles.

More concerning is that we head into Tuesday without both full-backs and Dembele. Hall, Jutkiewicz and Roberts are missing. So much for improved depth. I have a suspicion Emmanuel Aiwu could play on Tuesday in place of Buchanan rather than Longelo just for additional defensive security. I wouldn't be surprise to see Bacuna or Miyoshi come in to freshen up the front line either.

A bad day at the office but no need to sound the alarms just yet - we're still 6th.