Deadline Day: Championship Update

We're just over half-way through deadline day and the busiest manager in the championship is Alan Pardew at Charlton; Amdy Faye has packed his English-Glaswegian dictionary and is off to Rangers and Marus has doubled the number Bents to leave the Valley this summer with his move to Wigan. Passing them in the training ground car park, Sam Sodje and Danny Mills have arrived to shore up a defence that has already shipped eight goals this season.

Elsewhere Mike Leigerwood's move from the Blades to the Hoops seems a shrewd bit of business by John Gregory. While down on the south coast, George Burley has spent none of the £6m he received for Kenwyne Jones (yes, I know, £6m - makes the Duke look even better business) in replacing him with Middlesborough's Jason Euell.

Nothing much to report so far from Vicarage Road, and that's just how we like it. Conflicting rumours state that Doris will pen a new four year deal today, and that he's off to Fulham for an increased offer. We have also been linked with loan deals for Chris Eagles and Scott Sinclair of Chelsea. Don't think much will come of these though, especially as in the Championship the clock striking midnight does not stop us making loan signings.

So, are you happy with the inactivity now the Duke is on board, or do you hope Aidy is wheeling and dealing somewhere this afternoon?

Young Gets The Call

Yellow Fever is very happy for one of our favourite ex-hornets Ashley Young, who has this morning, received a phone-call from second-choice Steve, asking him to replace globe-trotting David Beckham who has knee-knack, in the England squad. Ash and Blackburn's David Bentley have been drafted into the squad for the crucial qualifiers against Israel and Russia next week. Congratulations Ash. Only wish you could have got the call whilst in a yellow shirt.

Bentley you'll remember refused to play for the England at the European U21 championships this summer, citing "burnout". Many observers thought that this would damage his full international chances, but it would appear McClaren is really desperate following the broken leg sustained by Keiron Dyer that will keep him from international football for around 9 months (stop cheering at the back).

"I thought it was the right decision to leave him [Bentley] out last time. He accepted that and he paid the consequences [he missed a pointless friendly match] but this is a new squad and he is in it and he deserves to be in it." Said McClaren, forgetting that this is and emergence draft and he had not considered Bentley good enough for the original squad.

The Duke Signs On

It wont come as a shock to many, but it has been confirmed that Watford have signed Nathan "The Duke" Ellington from West Bromwich Albion for 3.25 million squid. Breaking the club's record transfer along the way. This fee could rise to 4.25 million.

Ellington has a decent scoring record, 0.34 goals a game over his entire career. If he can get motivated and form a partnership with King then this is money very well spent. Rumour has it that he turned down a move to the Vic in January because we wouldn't break our wage structure. So the question is, did we break it or did The Duke get more desperate for first team football?

Lets hope this money spent shows the ambition of the club to the minority of ignorant fans who have been calling for Aidy's head. Hopefully it will have the same effect on Doris and will stay and fight for his place, which might leave us with a plan A and a plan B. Shock.

Phoenix Update

As promised previously, here's an update on our adopted team on the other-side of the world.

The Wellington Phoenix, the sole New Zealand-based team in the Australian A-League are pre-season favourites to finish rock bottom, but have confounded critics, pre-season, with some eye-catching performances.

The pre-season cup, a friendly competition between all the A-league sides, saw them beat Sydney FC and last years A-league winners Melbourne Victory, before losing the third-placed play-off to Newcastle Jets on penalties.

The Season proper began on Sunday night with the Nix boys up against last years Champions Melbourne Victory. The Victory have been severely weakened in the close-season by the new salary cap introduced by the A-league, with last year's top scorer, Fred having left for a larger salary at D.C. United in the States, but they were still heavy favourites to beat the cash-strapped Phoenix. Watford old-boy Richard Johnson started the season on the bench, though at least he was at the game, as at one point it looked as if he may spend this season in Prison.

Victory showed their class, controlling most of the first half and took the lead through former Wolves man Kevin Muscat's penalty after Cleberson (no, not that one) was judged to have handled in the area. Ricki Herbert shook things up for the Phoenix at half time, bringing on Brazilian play-maker Felipe, despite his lack of match-fitness. Despite coming back into the game the New Zealanders found themselves two down after 60 minutes when Danny Allsopp was put through and calmly finished past Glen Moss.

But then the magic happened. Pre-season top scorer Daniel pulled a goal back for the Phoenix with twelve minutes to go, heading in a corner following some appalling defending from the Champions. The Nix, roared on by the majority of the 14,000 Westpac stadium crowd, then went searching for an equaliser, which duly arrived when Shane Smeltz headed in Tony Lochead's cross on 85 minutes to send the Yellow Fever-ettes completely bonkers.

Wellington might have gone on to steal an unlikely victory too, when first Royce Brownlie and then Shane Smeltz hitting the Melbourne woodwork in the closing moments. You can catch the goals below. Next up for the Nix are the Central Coast Mariners on Friday, who beat Sydney FC (Juniho and all) one-nil at the weekend and sit atop the embryonic A-League.

So a super comeback to start the season for the Phoenix, maybe they wont be the league whipping boys after all...

Interview With An Idiot

Hello Mr. Idiot.
Hello. Crap game innit. Why don't they bring on Henderson?
That's Liam Henderson.
Who?
As in: Not Doris. A young chap.
Why's he playing all these kids then?
Because they were uniformly excellent against Gillingham, and deserve another chance.
Why they playing so shit then?
Well, they certainly haven't performed today,I agree.
They should play like they played against Gillingham every time they play. Arsenal's kids got to the final last year.
Erm... I'm not sure it works like that.
McNamee should play every game instead of that tosser MacAnuff.
You sure about that, Mr. Idiot? McNamee is not The Answer.
And that kid that came on last time, Forbes. He should start every game, he should.
He's 17. Just.
Aidy needs to sort this lot out or we should sack him.
Goodbye, Mr. Idiot. I'm moving seats.

Perspective & Hindsight

Perspective and Hindsight are fine things. They allow a slightly-rose tinted view of real world events.

Saturday's result is put into perspective by the news of the tragic death of QPR's Ray Jones. Although we can pick a news story on any day of the year to remind us that football is just a game, this story in particular will have jolted Watford fans, given the similarities to the death of Jimmy Davis in 2001. Our thoughts are with Ray's family and we once again remember Jimmy.

The result also puts into perspective our start to the season. Against Wolves and Sheffield United we did not play as well as the table might have suggested. At Leicester we got what we deserved, as a lackadaisical performance was rewarded with a proper thumping. The 4-1 scoreline looking half-respectable thanks to a fortunate last-minute, King penalty and some sturdy woodwork around Mart Poom's goal. Still we'd have taken 6 points from the first three games two weeks ago. In the interest of fairness the "highlights" are shown below. I wouldn't bother if I were you though.

Aidy has suggested, somewhat perversely that this result might be exactly what our season needed, a boot up the backside to remind this team that they are far from invincible. Lets hope with the benefit of hindsight this turns out to be correct, and not a return to last years mindless optimism.

The benefit of hindsight can not only highlight the good, but also the bad. I imagine that now, Aidy is wishing he hadn't accepted Preston's offer for Doris before securing the return of Heidar to the Vic. There was much praise laid upon Henderson following his decision to stay and fight for his place, and some have been as quick to malign his transfer request following the interest of Northern Ireland, but you can understand his decision after his treatment by the club. I hope he stays and we can bring in another striker at the right price. Lets hope though that Saturday's lacklustre performance had nothing to do with this saga. The window closes on Friday night, and it can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

Next up is Sarfend away in the drink cup this evening. It appears the kids don't get a run-out this time with Aidy keen for the first team to make ammends for the weekend's woeful performance.

Fat Frank Scores

England still lose.

I don't know about you, but with a couple of very notable exceptions I thought England played pretty well last night. OK, we lost but the Germans are a good side and last nights match was played in a pretty competitive spirit, and on balance we probably deserved a draw. I suspect that one reason for the good performance was the relatively balanced nature of the side with Carrick holding and Lampard able to get forward. However, I suspect this balance will be lost again once Stevie G is squeezed back into the side.

This season has been notable so far for it's goalkeeping blunders and last night was no exception. Although Mad Jens looked shaky again, this time it was Paul Robinson blunder that gifted the Germans their equalizer, and his place is under massive pressure. His swing-and-a-miss has already cost England dearly in Zagreb, and we cannot afford to drop any more points. Ben Foster may be thinking it was a bad time to have that Knee Op.

The biggest plus point of last night has to be Micah Richards. Is there anything he can't do? It's hard to believe he's only 19, as his performances belie his youth. He has looked immense for Man City so far this season playing at centre-half, last night at full-back he looked a class act, solid in defense and hungry and sharp bombing forward, doing all the hard work for Frank to score the England goal. With any luck we'll never have to look at Gary Neville's ugly face ever again.

Two questions remain unanswered from last night, one is very important, the other is not so important.

1. What has Jermain Defoe done to upset second-choice Steve? Crouch is suspended for the Israel match and Dyer isn't a striker yet poor Jermain still didn't get a game. Did he do the dirty with McClaren's missus? Did he stink out the toilet on the coach on the way to the game? He must have done something wrong because the decision to leave him on the bench didn't seem that sensible to me.

2. Is it just me or did Alan Hansen look like he's been sleeping rough since the weekend?

Any thoughts?

7 days. 3 wins.

How cool is that? Six points and top of the league for a couple of hours before Stoke overtook us on alphabetical order. We may not have played all that well, but we've only conceded one goal, scored 6 and the kids are all knocking on Aidy's door asking to be played. We can only get better. The video below shows Williamson's classy strike that totally surprised Fat Paddy in the Blade's goal. It also shows Smudger's awesome goal-line clearance, even with the replay you'll not be able to work our how he did it! Also isn't the man behind the wall interfering with play, given that his sole job appears to be to put-off/unsight Mart Poom?

In player news, Clarke Carlise left at the end of last week for rivals Burnley with a fee of around a quarter of a million quid. This is a slightly strange decision, but with Shittu and Jay from the USA in good form Clarke was at least third choice, if not worse with the performance of Avinel last week. As usual being closer to his family in the north was cited as a motivating factor, which is weird as wasn't being near his family in the south the reason he moved down from Leeds? Either way it'll be interesting, given recent inter-league transfer activity, to see if Clarke plays at the Vic in November. I suspect he may take a light knock in training the day before.

Also leaving the Vic, Johan Cavalli has climbed out of the transfer window and gone looking for first-team football, thus cementing his place as a Watford enigma, remembered for helping mastermind that win at Upton Park which gave us hope, albeit rather fleetingly. He made four appearances for the club, never for a full 90 minutes.

Newspaper rumours today suggest that Jay's agent wants 15% of a new signing on fee. This is actually good news, because presumably he was touting Jay around the not not clubs earlier in the summer, but now they've come to the negotiating table at the Vic instead. Danny Shittu's Mr 15% is not resting either and seems determined to take the man mountain north of the border. The quoted £4 million fee would be awesome business if he really wants out, but with the window shutters closing in just ten days would a replacement be found in time? Lets hope we don't regret offloading Carlise.

Drink Cup

Two questions; Why does the League Cup still involve the not not teams, given that they broke away and formed their own rich, big league? Also is it compulsory for this competition to be sponsored for by a drink? Milk, Coca Cola, naff beer, and now pissy lager, has it ever been sponsored by a non-beverage?

Anyway, a fairly strong looking stiff’s side beat the Gills in the Drink Cup last night. 3-0 suggests a pretty one-sided affair, though it certainly didn’t start out that way, with Richard Lee saving a penalty in the opening quarter of an hour. Priskin was the only man to start on Saturday and last night, which might suggest Aidy is saving big D for potentially physical encounter against the Blades at the weekend.

The youngsters produced an entertaining display by all accounts with plenty of tricks from the not quite so young McNamee who gave whoever the Gills played at right-back a torrid time. The Will Hoskins on the right experiment didn’t really work again, but in a more central role he looks a real prospect. The young defence (average age less than 20 when Jackson went off) coped well, and I was delighted to see Mariappa given the armband. Debutants Forbes and Campana looked pretty good coming off the bench too, the latter notching his first senior goal in the process. The future looks very bright indeed. Highlights below.

Last Minute Winners

It's one of the great feelings in football. A last minute winner. This one wasn't totally undeserved by all accounts, we did have a perfectly good goal ruled out, after all. But maybe Wolves will feel a little hard done by, but frankly we don't care, it's an opening day three points for the first time since Neil Cox and Tommy Smith scored away at Huddersfield in 2000. Re-live the coolness of Marlon's penalty below.

An seemingly unlikely comeback (albeit from a greater deficit) at Plymouth was also the early kick-start to the season two years ago, so lets hope it inspires the boys on to great things again.

Off the pitch, you'll already know that Boozer went off to play for Northern Ireland, erm, sorry, Fulham. Aidy has said he's looking for a striker and a winger before the window shuts in 18-days time. The striker was rumoured to be Chinese youngster Dong Fangzhuo, on season-long loan from Manchester United, though the Rooney injury, yawn, may snag this up, though probably not really.

Marlon King does Wayne Rooney

Great spoof of Wayne Rooney's obviously faked Nike Ad.

This is taken from Mitre's Pass It On advert for the upcoming Championship season. It's quite good, but Marlon's bit is the obvious highlight.