A win, derby glory and Watford put Luton deeper in the mire

Yes it’s only three points and one more win, and there’s no column on the league table for particularly special victories.

But yesterday was far, far more. It was Luton, it was the derby and it was a game which, by winning, Watford climbed to ninth in the table while leaving the arch enemy peering through the Championship trap-door at a return to League One – which was their home only six short seasons ago.

And it was easy.

While not forgetting or ignoring the manner in which the Hornets were swept aside at Kenilworth Road in October, the 2-0 win yesterday was so comprehensive, so comfortable and so much more emphatic than the scoreline suggests that it more than balances the books.

Three consecutive home wins over Luton, seven goals scored and none conceded.

It’s 30 years since the Hatters left Vicarage Road with three league points, and given their current league position, they may have to wait a while to have another go.

For all the away fans sang about the fact they have won a trophy (the League Cup in 1988, for those under 40 who probably don’t remember), they will know they now face a battle to even stay in the same division as Watford, never mind beat them.

That song about having won a cup could sound good at Lincoln, Mansfield and Exeter next season.

Watford just didn’t give Luton a sniff from the first whistle.

Goalkeeper Egil Selvik and his young but accomplished defence found few problems in dealing with the direct and physical style that is Luton’s greatest threat and once they had nullified that . . . well, that was it, really.

Selvik’s first proper save came in the fourth minute of stoppage time, by which point the away fans’ corner had already started to thin out.

It was no contest in midfield. Imran Louza and Tom Dele-Bashiru gave their Luton opposite numbers a proper schooling.

When that pair are on song, as they were yesterday, then Watford can boss games.

Louza made 61 successful passes, with a success rate of 97%. He had 86 touches of the ball, nearly 20 more than any other player.

Not far behind was Dele-Bashiru, with 42 passes at a 93% success rate.

The midfield duo completed a third of all of Watford’s passes on their own, and their combined total of 103 was 40% of what Luton managed as a team.

They were everywhere, exuding confidence and calm in even the tightest of situations.

It was perhaps fitting, then, that Dele-Bashiru was to score the opening goal, though the penalty from which he netted was all about the hard work and persistence of Mamadou Doumbia.

The 19-year-old had played little more than hour of Championship football before stepping in to lead the line in the absence of suspended Vakoun Bayo.

That he kept his place even though Bayo was available yesterday was testament to how well he has done, and his part in the opening goal was exactly what you ask of a striker.

When Yasser Larouci played the ball through, Doumbia was a yard or two behind Mads Andersen, and the Dane clearly though he could simply usher the ball back to his keeper.

But Doumbia chased and, as Thomas Kaminski slid out to try and gather the ball, the striker got a toe to it and was then swept over by the skidding Luton stopper.

Referee Andrew Kitchen was in no doubt, and TV replays showed he was right.

Dele-Bashiru looks the calmest man in the stadium whenever he steps up to take a penalty and this was no different, the ball sent precisely inside the left-hand upright despite Kaminski going the right way.

Tom Dele-Bashiru strokes home the penalty. (Image: PA)

It was Watford’s seventh penalty of the season, their highest total since the 21/22 campaign.

And Dele-Bashiru netting his fourth from the spot made him Watford’s top penalty scorer since Troy Deeney – other than the former Hornets captain the last player to score four or more from 12 yards was Matej Vydra.

Only 11 minutes in and already the momentum was very much with Watford, who continued to dominate the ball and look dangerous with it.

The second goal, 12 minutes later, was both beautifully constructed and delightfully simple.

Doumbia was involved as his control and lay-off sent Chakvetadze marauding away down the left.

There was no way Andersen was going to catch him and Amari’i Bell was aware he had Edo Kayembe behind him and so left his move towards the Georgian until he was in the area.

Chakvetadze simply skipped past Bell and, as Kaminski came out, squared past Alfie Doughty for Kayembe to tap in at the back post.

Watford have not lost a game when Kayembe (who now has 12 goals to his name) and Dele-Bashiru (eight) have scored, and once they’d both found the net yesterday then even with barely a quarter of the game gone it felt very much like the outcome was already decided.

In a first half that they dominated, the Hornets had more than 60% of the ball, completed twice as many passes as Luton and enjoyed four on-target goal attempts while the visitors didn’t muster one.

The second half was different, and it was always likely to be given Luton had to change what they were doing just to keep a foothold in proceedings.

Three half-time substitutions indicated as much, and while they weren’t as outplayed as in the first half, they were kept at arm’s length with relative ease.

Isaiah Jones fired wide from one of their few chances, but it always felt that should another goal arrive, it would be 3-0 and not 2-1.

Louza swivelled to shoot over after intricate work by Kayembe and Chakvetadze, and the latter forced Kaminski into a full-length save at the end of a typically direct run, though he might have been better off nudging the ball to the unmarked Ince on his right.

Four minutes into stoppage time was the first time Selvik had to break sweat, blocking at his near post after Jones had got on the end of a deep cross.

Egil Selvik denies Isaiah Jones in stoppage time. (Image: PA)

The defensive unit kept a second successive clean sheet for the first time since late November, though seeing both James Abankwah and Kevin Keben limp off was a sign that the cost of victory may be a little higher than hoped.

The dominance of the Hornets was borne out in some of the stats – football data site FotMob rated the 10 Watford players who were on the pitch for 50 minutes or more among the top 13 of all those across both teams.

Every player got pretty much everything right. In fact, that goes for the club generally, who popped up a picture of Graham Tayor on the big screens in the 72nd minute which created a nostalgic, poignant buzz around the stadium.

There were several Elton John songs played before kick-off, the pre-game video contained a couple of goals from the 4-0 win in 2022 – enough to stir the emotions, but not too much as to over-egg the pudding.

And a particular nod in the direction of PA announcer Tim Coombs, for his perfectly-delivered but equally factual reminder after the game that “the Golden Boys move up to ninth in the Championship table . . . no change at the bottom”.

It was a team display that ticked pretty much every box for the Watford fans, particularly the ones around heart, desire and attitude in a derby game.

There were no shirkers, nobody tried to hide, everyone wanted to play their part.

Unity and togetherness between fans, players and head coaches has been thin on the ground at Vicarage Road in the last few years.

Not since the likes of Xisco Munoz and Javi Gracia has there felt the level of harmony as there is right now, although while those two achieved more than the current incumbent in terms of success on the pitch, the bond between Tom Cleverley and Watford was strong and existent long before he became head coach.

He’s still learning on the job, even though with 47 games in charge he is the now fourth longest-serving head coach of the Pozzo era after Gianfranco Zola (75), Gracia (66) and Quique Sanchez Flores (56).

Watching how he handled the media questioning in the build-up to the Luton game showed Cleverley is a fast learner.

Steadfastly refusing to be drawn into discussions about revenge and redress for the defeat at Kenilworth Road, the Watford boss talked about striking the right balance with his players of helping them understand the significance of the fixture while making it clear it was still only worth three points.

As James Abankwah said after the game, Cleverley got the key messages across without ever putting the players under any unnecessary additional pressure.

They knew they had to win, they knew how they were going to do it, and Cleverley’s work in the days leading up to the Sunday meant they focussed on those two elements without straying into what might happen if they didn’t win.

To see Cleverley being lifted off his feet by his players in front of the celebrating Rookery End was a joyous moment that summed up the ‘all for one, one for all’ feeling that currently pervades both at the stadium and the training ground.

Another sign of the head coach’s rapid understanding of the do’s and don’ts of the job has been his response to questions about the play-offs.

Back at the start of the season, Cleverley spoke about them when most others were simply hoping not to finish lower than the 15th place of the previous season.

When results backed up the bravado, it became almost a weekly discussion and, coupled with the unbeaten home run, may have led the Hornets camp to start trying to run before they had mastered walking.

The messaging from Cleverley has been very different, partially because the Hornets have slipped away from the top six in recent weeks, but also because he’s realised that it’s better to deal with each job at hand rather than fixating on things that won’t be decided for weeks or months.

Even after yesterday’s win, the head coach simply reaffirmed that his job was to try and improve every single player, in each training session, and as a result to then try and win the next game.

That approach has led to Watford earning seven points from 12 against Sunderland, Leeds, Middlesbrough and Luton. Few would have predicted such a healthy haul.

Patient pragmatism is delivering results, helping to manage expectations and enabling the squad to look more consistent than perhaps they have all season long.

It’s a reminder to those who, when yesterday’s visitors were relegated, predicted that Luton had assembled some sort of Championship ‘super team’ which would surf back to the Premier League on a wave of top-flight bunce and construction of a shiny new stadium.

Anything is possible with ambition and conviction, but equally every journey has to have first steps – it feels like Watford have regrouped after the thrill of the first five months of the season and the subsequent cold-turkey since the turn of the year.

Consistency, sharper short-term focus and fast learning for the head coach, his staff and players has pretty much pressed the reset button and the last four or five games have given an indication that what Watford are doing now is sustainable and can deliver success.

But for one glorious afternoon yesterday, it was also more than good enough to batter Luton which, according to a song heard at Vicarage Road yesterday, happens everywhere they go.

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