Watford v Leeds United: McCormack winner has sting in the tail
YEP 6/5/13
The final Championship table does not tell even half the story of Leeds United’s year or the last hours of the season.
“Amazing” was Brian McDermott’s verdict as the dust settled and, through gritted teeth and a sad smile, Gianfranco Zola agreed.
Football’s purists look elsewhere for fulfilment – with just cause going on the past nine months – but they will not find a division in Europe which ends as the Championship did on Saturday.
Plots, sub-plots, extreme emotion; in isolation at Vicarage Road and at other stadiums miles away. Leeds United were neutrals amid the fighting, forced to sit in that bemusing no-man’s land created by a league in which half of its clubs had something to gain from their 46th game.
Automatic promotion was Watford’s Elysium but Leeds gave them hell, riding the most distracting of atmospheres and walking off into the summer sun with a rare away win.
That in itself – United’s first league victory away from home for 154 days – made their game against Watford resonate but the controlled style of a fine result against a club who had a foot in second place for all of nine minutes was overlooked afterwards. For the media present, it was a case of where to begin and how to make sense of breathless weekend.
Leeds were toying with mid-table positions on Saturday and duly finished 13th. For Hull City, the scenario was more loaded – equal or better Watford’s result and a place in the Premier League was theirs. Hull held that side of the bargain, drawing 2-2 with Cardiff City at the KC Stadium while United tortured Watford. How different it could have been.
For McDermott, his sole concern was that Leeds left Vicarage Road with a flush of satisfaction and their professionalism intact. He and Zola are good friends, managers who worked on a coaching licence together, but McDermott did not want to be seen doing favours for his Italian colleague.
“It was so important for the integrity of the league that we made sure we were spot on and did our business for our club,” he said. “We’ve done that.
“Gianfranco’s a friend of mine and I feel for him because if I was in his shoes then he’d be the same with me. But during the game you do what you have to do.
“He’s a great guy and I hope Watford do well. They’ve still got a chance. They’ve got every chance of going to Wembley and every chance of going up.”
So for Watford the play-offs and for Leeds a holiday which could not be accused of coming too soon.
In years to come, the 2012-13 season will look like a non-event but those who endured it will recall the longest of takeovers, the slow surrender of Ken Bates, a failed experiment with Neil Warnock and the urgent approach to McDermott last month which, above all else, kept relegation at bay.
The ruck at the bottom of the Championship was brutal on Saturday and Leeds were well out of it. Their own mediocrity has been surpassed by others.
When Watford look back, they will say that the last afternoon of the season was a time when everything which could have gone wrong did go wrong. But Leeds had their problems too.
The seams of the game split as early as the pre-match warm up when Watford goalkeeper Manuel Almunia cried off with a hamstring injury and Leeds realised at short notice that complications with paperwork relating to Zac Thompson’s recent loan at Bury rendered him ineligible.
McDermott had unexpectedly named the young midfielder in his starting line-up but Michael Brown’s sudden dash towards the tunnel 10 minutes before kick-off pointed to an imminent change. Thompson seemed oblivious to the chaos but was hastily withdrawn and replaced by Brown. “There was a mix-up regarding the paperwork but we took care of that,” McDermott said. “There’s no problem, it’s just one of those things.”
The Football League would doubtless have come knocking had the oversight not been rectified. Zola replaced Almunia with Jonathan Bond, one of three keepers he would use before the day was out.
Bond had been on the field for only 22 minutes when a collision between him and right-back Ikechi Anya left him with a broken nose and in need of oxygen and a stretcher. Poleon was implicated and booked for a push on Anya as the ball bounced into Watford’s box but he and Bond made peace on Twitter later and Zola did not take issue with the young forward. “It was very unfortunate,” Zola said.
Poleon himself was only present because Steve Morison – recalled by McDermott – suffered concussion and a cut face in the eighth minute. Laid out by Joel Ekstrand’s swinging elbow, he took some time to get to his feet and walked unsteadily down the tunnel. Ekstrand, like Poleon, protested his innocence.
Michael Brown did the same after appearing to trip Jonathan Hogg inside United’s box five minutes later but the injury to Bond was pivotal, not only for Watford but the entire afternoon.
His treatment ran and ran and referee Graham Salisbury added 16 minutes of injury-time when normal time in the first half elapsed. The implication for Hull was that their fixture against Cardiff would finish long before the match at Vicarage Road. Supporters at both ends of the country were chewing their nails by then.
In no small way, the relevance of matters on Humberside was a troublesome diversion. Chinese whispers in the home end at Watford spoke wrongly of a Cardiff goal late in the first half, prompting ecstatic reaction around the ground. Watford’s players were snared by the noise and in the 42nd minute, Bond’s replacement – 19-year-old debutant Jack Bonham – lost communication with Ekstrand and lured the defender into a mis-hit clearance which gifted Poleon a tap-in from a yard.
Bonham had come to Vicarage Road as a spectator and was surprised to find himself on the bench. His eventual promotion to Watford’s team was hopelessly cruel, ending with another bad error at the death. “In football, you make mistakes,” Zola said. “I’m not going to blame him for one second. I’m just expecting a good reaction from him, that’s all I’m asking for.”
In the extended period of first-half injury-time, Watford salvaged failing optimism when Almen Abdi picked out the top corner of Paddy Kenny’s net with a beautiful shot from 20 yards. Cardiff scored soon after but Leeds offered no help. Watford were troubled further when Troy Deeney – already booked for kicking the ball away – earned a red card for lunge on Brown in the 61st minute. United worked on Watford’s tiring legs until news of late chaos at Hull positioned Zola’s players within a goal of promotion with nine minutes to play.
Kenny denied them it by beating shots from Hogg, Matej Vydra and Nathaniel Chalobah off his line and as Watford drew breath for one last push in the 90th minute, Aidan White played the ball out to Ross McCormack who sprinted into an empty half of the pitch and attacked Bonham with a chip which slipped through the teenager’s hands and bounced over the line, forcing Vicarage Road to smell the coffee. It was football at its most compelling, as Zola was forced to admit. Leeds would still trade a few weeks of holiday for the chance that Watford have left.
The final Championship table does not tell even half the story of Leeds United’s year or the last hours of the season.
“Amazing” was Brian McDermott’s verdict as the dust settled and, through gritted teeth and a sad smile, Gianfranco Zola agreed.
Football’s purists look elsewhere for fulfilment – with just cause going on the past nine months – but they will not find a division in Europe which ends as the Championship did on Saturday.
Plots, sub-plots, extreme emotion; in isolation at Vicarage Road and at other stadiums miles away. Leeds United were neutrals amid the fighting, forced to sit in that bemusing no-man’s land created by a league in which half of its clubs had something to gain from their 46th game.
Automatic promotion was Watford’s Elysium but Leeds gave them hell, riding the most distracting of atmospheres and walking off into the summer sun with a rare away win.
That in itself – United’s first league victory away from home for 154 days – made their game against Watford resonate but the controlled style of a fine result against a club who had a foot in second place for all of nine minutes was overlooked afterwards. For the media present, it was a case of where to begin and how to make sense of breathless weekend.
Leeds were toying with mid-table positions on Saturday and duly finished 13th. For Hull City, the scenario was more loaded – equal or better Watford’s result and a place in the Premier League was theirs. Hull held that side of the bargain, drawing 2-2 with Cardiff City at the KC Stadium while United tortured Watford. How different it could have been.
For McDermott, his sole concern was that Leeds left Vicarage Road with a flush of satisfaction and their professionalism intact. He and Zola are good friends, managers who worked on a coaching licence together, but McDermott did not want to be seen doing favours for his Italian colleague.
“It was so important for the integrity of the league that we made sure we were spot on and did our business for our club,” he said. “We’ve done that.
“Gianfranco’s a friend of mine and I feel for him because if I was in his shoes then he’d be the same with me. But during the game you do what you have to do.
“He’s a great guy and I hope Watford do well. They’ve still got a chance. They’ve got every chance of going to Wembley and every chance of going up.”
So for Watford the play-offs and for Leeds a holiday which could not be accused of coming too soon.
In years to come, the 2012-13 season will look like a non-event but those who endured it will recall the longest of takeovers, the slow surrender of Ken Bates, a failed experiment with Neil Warnock and the urgent approach to McDermott last month which, above all else, kept relegation at bay.
The ruck at the bottom of the Championship was brutal on Saturday and Leeds were well out of it. Their own mediocrity has been surpassed by others.
When Watford look back, they will say that the last afternoon of the season was a time when everything which could have gone wrong did go wrong. But Leeds had their problems too.
The seams of the game split as early as the pre-match warm up when Watford goalkeeper Manuel Almunia cried off with a hamstring injury and Leeds realised at short notice that complications with paperwork relating to Zac Thompson’s recent loan at Bury rendered him ineligible.
McDermott had unexpectedly named the young midfielder in his starting line-up but Michael Brown’s sudden dash towards the tunnel 10 minutes before kick-off pointed to an imminent change. Thompson seemed oblivious to the chaos but was hastily withdrawn and replaced by Brown. “There was a mix-up regarding the paperwork but we took care of that,” McDermott said. “There’s no problem, it’s just one of those things.”
The Football League would doubtless have come knocking had the oversight not been rectified. Zola replaced Almunia with Jonathan Bond, one of three keepers he would use before the day was out.
Bond had been on the field for only 22 minutes when a collision between him and right-back Ikechi Anya left him with a broken nose and in need of oxygen and a stretcher. Poleon was implicated and booked for a push on Anya as the ball bounced into Watford’s box but he and Bond made peace on Twitter later and Zola did not take issue with the young forward. “It was very unfortunate,” Zola said.
Poleon himself was only present because Steve Morison – recalled by McDermott – suffered concussion and a cut face in the eighth minute. Laid out by Joel Ekstrand’s swinging elbow, he took some time to get to his feet and walked unsteadily down the tunnel. Ekstrand, like Poleon, protested his innocence.
Michael Brown did the same after appearing to trip Jonathan Hogg inside United’s box five minutes later but the injury to Bond was pivotal, not only for Watford but the entire afternoon.
His treatment ran and ran and referee Graham Salisbury added 16 minutes of injury-time when normal time in the first half elapsed. The implication for Hull was that their fixture against Cardiff would finish long before the match at Vicarage Road. Supporters at both ends of the country were chewing their nails by then.
In no small way, the relevance of matters on Humberside was a troublesome diversion. Chinese whispers in the home end at Watford spoke wrongly of a Cardiff goal late in the first half, prompting ecstatic reaction around the ground. Watford’s players were snared by the noise and in the 42nd minute, Bond’s replacement – 19-year-old debutant Jack Bonham – lost communication with Ekstrand and lured the defender into a mis-hit clearance which gifted Poleon a tap-in from a yard.
Bonham had come to Vicarage Road as a spectator and was surprised to find himself on the bench. His eventual promotion to Watford’s team was hopelessly cruel, ending with another bad error at the death. “In football, you make mistakes,” Zola said. “I’m not going to blame him for one second. I’m just expecting a good reaction from him, that’s all I’m asking for.”
In the extended period of first-half injury-time, Watford salvaged failing optimism when Almen Abdi picked out the top corner of Paddy Kenny’s net with a beautiful shot from 20 yards. Cardiff scored soon after but Leeds offered no help. Watford were troubled further when Troy Deeney – already booked for kicking the ball away – earned a red card for lunge on Brown in the 61st minute. United worked on Watford’s tiring legs until news of late chaos at Hull positioned Zola’s players within a goal of promotion with nine minutes to play.
Kenny denied them it by beating shots from Hogg, Matej Vydra and Nathaniel Chalobah off his line and as Watford drew breath for one last push in the 90th minute, Aidan White played the ball out to Ross McCormack who sprinted into an empty half of the pitch and attacked Bonham with a chip which slipped through the teenager’s hands and bounced over the line, forcing Vicarage Road to smell the coffee. It was football at its most compelling, as Zola was forced to admit. Leeds would still trade a few weeks of holiday for the chance that Watford have left.