Watford nearly staged a dramatic comeback from 3-0 down after a lack of professionalism by Peterborough United, who obviously thought they had easily won the game against a team reduced to 10 men!
Peterborough United 3 – 2 Watford
Location: London Road
Date: 13th April, 2013
Attendance: 10,848
Posh produced one of their best performances of the season to see off promotion chasing Italian side Udinese “B”. Sorry, Watford.
Posh boss Darren Ferguson sprung a surprise in his team selection when dropping Nathanial Mendez-Laing, who was one of the best players in the mid-week draw with Huddersfield Town, for the diminutive Danny Swanson yet it turned out to be an inspired choice as Swanson was outstanding and rightly deserved the sponsors Man of the Match award. It`s just a pity there are Posh fans who still moan at everything he does regardless of how well he performs!
With so many Italians and foreign nationals in the Hornets side, it was plain to see the match would be enjoyed by both sets of fans as Posh teams looked to get the ball down and play passing football and it was Posh that nearly capitalised first when, in the 5th minute, some excellent play allowed Dwight Gayle to run at Marco Cassetti before easily beating him but he put his powerful left footed shot wide of the goal with just the keeper, Manuel Almunia, to beat.
Swanson seemed to be everywhere on the pitch as he slotted into George Boyd`s old position and if he can play like this week in week out, Posh will have a very accomplished player. It was his tenacity and link-up play with Dwight Gayle that created an opening for him as he took the ball in his stride before beating the defender and slotting the ball past the former Arsenal goalkeeper for the opening goal.
Watford did have their chances and were nearly gifted two goals from the normally reliable Gaby Zakuani as the DR Congo International dallied on the ball first of all allowing Troy Deeney to steal the ball off him while Fernando Forestieri nearly capitalised on a slip but Zakuani just managed to recover and get a tackle in before he could get a shot off.
It`s fair to say that Watford are one of the best, if not the best, footballing side we`ve seen at London Road this season and in Forestieri, aka “Fat Messi”, they possess one of the most skilful players in the Championship. Forestieri caused many problems for the Posh midfield and backline in the first half with all his tricks, passes and runs but a change in tactics at half-time by Zola saw him move to the wing in order to accommodate their top scorer Matej Vidra.
This change in tactics also saw Posh switch to a 4-4-2 formation for the majority of the second half but it also stifled Forestieri until the late comeback when Posh let their standards slip when they thought they had comfortably won this contest.
Dwight Gayle continued his excellent first season in the Championship as he claimed his 13th goal in 25 matches for Posh and his 20th goal of the season as he exchanged passes with Lee Tomlin before firing in the second goal for Posh on the hour mark.
Things got even better less than 10 minutes later when Gayle sprung the off-side trap to race away before being brought down by Cassetti just before he reached the penalty area. Cassetti was rightly sent off and from the resulting freekick, Tomlin hit a delightful shot over the wall and into the back of the net to send the Posh fans into raptures.
Three-nil up and playing against ten men with just over 20 minutes of the match remaining, many thought it was game over?including many of the Posh players! However, Watford aren`t challenging for automatic promotion to the Premiership for nothing and even with 10-men, they are a dangerous team and so it turned out to be.
Substitute Mark Yeates was combining well with Forestieri as the Hornets looked to get something out of the game but Posh, despite their sloppy play in the latter stages, kept Watford at bay. That is until the 85th minute when a Yeates freekick struck the wall to send the ball in the opposition direction to the original shot and the opposite way to where keeper Bobby Olejnik was heading.
Watford upped their game even more in the hope that they could stage the impossible of coming back from three goals down and that hope was raised even further when another shot, this time from Forestieri, was also deflected to send Olejnik the wrong way and into the back of the net.
Somehow, five added minutes were shown by the fourth official but Posh managed to hang on for the vital win which lifts them out of the relegation places while putting a severe dent into the hopes of Watford gaining automatic promotion.
Full-time: Posh 3 – 2 Watford
DON’T FORGET YOU CAN VOTE FOR YOUR MAN OF THE MATCH. You can cast your vote on the right hand side of the page. The result will be announced on Wednesday [17th April, 2013].
Please vote for your Man of the Match and not your favourite player as this makes a mockery of the poll.
UP THE POSH!
Follow me on Twitter: @mwl1967
Photos courtesy of www.theposhpics.com.
Vital Peterborough is also on: and
Join Vital Peterborough United!
With news and views, along with a forum, polls and article comments, everything you need in a fans site is right here!
Vital Posh is 100% interactive. Not only can you have your say on the articles and the forum but you can also suggest an article or a poll so you can air your views.
So why not join Vital Posh today?
It’s easy to REGISTER HERE. Simply click the link and enjoy getting involved!.
Message Board
To visit the message board, click here.
Get involved
This website is your website and we are looking for people to help run the site. Do you go to most of the games and have an opinion? Why not write a match report? Perhaps you are a budding journalist or even just someone who is very opinionated? Well why not join our team? If this interests you please contact Vital Posh at peterborough@vitalfootball.co.uk .
