Match Report - 28th October, 2006

Watford 0 Spurs 0 (Premiership)
Following the 5-0 Carling Cup win against MK Dons in mid-week, Martin Jol rotated his strikers with double scoreres Dfeoe and Mido making way for Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov. Ghaly and Lennon were the wide players with Lennon starting on the left, while Jenas and Huddlestone played central.
Watford without a Premiership win this season, started very positively, taking the game to Spurs and an early shot went just over. Watford who have only lost at home once, to Manchester United, were clearly fired up for this game and created another early chance when Tommy Smith missed an open goal from three yards, the ball going over the bar.

After these opening scares Spurs created and opening for themselves when Aaron Lennon (Pic: Man of the Match - Aaron Lennon, had a number of good chances to score for Spurs) shot and Foster saved well. Later, in a very open, end to end game, Lennon had another shot well saved by the goalkeeper. Watford were very quick to the ball, giving Spurs no time or space to play so they frequently resorted to the long ball forward but with little reward. Lennon was Spurs liveliest player but Young was also creating problems for the Spurs defence and as half-time approached he went through onto a long clearance that had been flcked on, putting the ball past Robinson but was wrongly adjudged offside.

Scoreless at half-time, the amazing thing was that there had been no goals in such an open game.

Spurs started the game more positively in the second half and tok the game to Watford, playing more of the game in the home half. The home side were still dangerous and hard working but Spurs created the more clear cut chances. Lennon had another chance well saved by the goalkeeper and Robbie Keane took the ball past the keeper but as it bounced it was only able to play it square across goal and a Watford defender cleared it, dramatically back-heeling the ball over the bar, as Berbatov waited at the far post to score.

Spurs had eight shots on target and are creating more chances than earlier in the season but should have been looking for three points from a team without a win this season.

Spurs have gone 7 games without defeat since losing at Liverpool, 4 League and 3 Cup ties, with two home wins and two away draws in the Premiership and find themselves in 12th position with 12 points from the opening ten games. They are only seven points behind Portsmouth who are fourth but with Chelsea next weekend, a number of difficult matches in the following weeks [Reading (a), Blackburn (a), Wigan (h) and Arsenal (a)] and so many Cup games it is difficult to see where they will string a winning sequence together which will move them up the League table.