WATFORD are the energetic team of nice guys from a town in Hertfordshire.
Arsenal are the Champions League finalists with a luxurious new stadium.
Watford have been promoted to the top flight three times and Arsenal have never been out of the top flight.
Aidy Boothroyd is young enough to be Arsene Wenger’s son.
Arsenal are 8th and Watford are 19th.
Watford’s style of play will not be as damaged by a long international break as Arsenal’s style is.
But maybe Arsenal’s rather new multi-passing style, the Hleb-Rosicky-Fabregas style, will prove to be less fragile that the dynamic one-touch passing game of recent years.
That is the most interesting thing about Saturday’s game at the Emirates. Without an international break, Arsenal , having won their last five games, would have beaten Watford comfortably.
But now it looks a bit more even. And while Watford are bottom and badly need a morale-boosting win, Arsenal need to keep their run going. Watford are under pressure to climb above Sheffield United , Wigan and West Ham, and Arsenal are under pressure to climb above Reading, Aston Villa, Everton and Portsmouth.
ROBIN VAN PERSIE has been in form for Holland , scoring four goals in his last three games.
Against Bulgaria they played in a monsoon with a crazy amount of surface water and Dirk Kuyt injured his ankle early on after losing his balance in the puddles.Van Persie’s goal was a header where he did very well, jumping to an awkward ball and managing to nod it sharply down so that it bounced and hit the post and went in. A vital goal from a position where he could have easily fallen over or headed straight at the keeper.
Then, in the same game, he scored an even better goal, turning his marker in the box and blasting in with his left foot. But that goal was wrongly disallowed for a foul on the defender. Van Persie held his face in his hands, and spoke to the referee, but he did not go wild with fury. He accepted a bad decision in a mature way.
Against Albania on Wednesday he scored another goal with his left foot and he also cut the ball back for the second goal, which went in off a defender and Holland won 2-1.
So van Persie is flying right now.
Thierry Henry is coming off a surprise 1-0 defeat in Scotland and a 5-0 win over the Faroe Islands in which he scored the second goal after Saha scored the first.
Arsenal will be without Ljungberg, Eboue and Julio Baptista for the Watford game and also for Tuesday’s Champions League game CSKA in Moscow.
Ljungberg suffered a calf injury playing in Sweden’s 2-0 win against Spain on Saturday, Eboue hurt his knee playing for the Ivory Coast, and Baptista has pulled his hamstring in training.
WATFORD MANAGER Aidy Boothroyd ran West Brom’s Centre of Excellence before under whizkid chief executive Mark Ashton, who was then headhunted by Watford.
When Ray Lewington was sacked the Watford chairman Graham Simpson interviewed over 40 candidates for the job including one Premiership manager who is still managing the same Premiership club. Then, when Boothroyd applied Ashton said “I’m biased, I know Aidy, he ran the academy for me at West Brom, I love the guy, but I won’t sit in on his interview.”
Boothroyd amazed the directors by giving them a detailed five-year plan for the club. They hired him and he got Watford promoted straight away, via the play-offs.
Goalkeeper Ben Foster is an interesting player who spent last season on loan from Man United, starting poorly before developing into Championship’s best keeper and being allowed to stay for another year by Sir Alex to gain Premiership experience.
Foster had been third choice at Stoke being farmed out on loan to places like Tiverton Town. He went on loan to Wrexham, where he played a major role in them winning the LDV Vans Final. Foster was recommended to Sir Alex by his son Darren and United paid £1 million for him.
Ashley Young is a fast, direct, left-sided, right-footed Under-21 international who started ahead of Theo Walcott in Leverkusen this week.Walcott came on for Agbonlahor and scored twice.
Young has a vicious free kick and good crossing ability.He scored 15 goals last season and two against Fuilham this term. Arsene Wenger was interested in him.
Striker Marlon King became the first Watford player to get 20 league goals since Luther Blissett. He terrorised Championnship defences last term and says: “I’ve been a Gooner all my life – to play them at the Emirates is dream come true and I want to put it up them.”
The other striker Darius Henderson a genuine workhorse/target man, a good foil for King.
American Jay De Merit, an excellent centreback who was unlucky to miss the USA’s World Cup squad, will probably mark Henry. His partner Danny Shittu cost £1.5 million from QPR and has made a good start.
Boothroyd intends to play a very direct game this season, declaring: “We play to our strengths – we’re a no-frills side.”
Watford have not won a Premiership game yet but have drawn their last three and were only beaten by a one goal margin in their openers against Everton at Goodson, Man United at Vicarage Road and at Bolton in injury time, with a 1-1 against West Ham in between.
It won’t be easy.
Boothroyd is mentored by former Spurs boss Keith Burkinshaw, Watford’s Director of Football.
Keith is a really good bloke and I still regret giving him a hard time when he was at Spurs. Brian Glanville used to joke that my questions contributed to his resignation. But of course that was not the case. Chairman Irving Scholar wanted him out and took the club in another direction and bungled it badly and had to sell Spurs to Alan Sugar.
As Keith famously remarked, “There used to be a football club over there.”
Saturday morning update : MANY THANKS to readers Matt Rowson, Sebastien V and Paun Fo for correcting my Watford and Dutch stats.