This is a morale boosting win, especially the way we won the match with late goal. But our performance was not really convincing, especially after we scored first and they had been reduced to 10 men. Disappointingly, this was the 9th time this season that we had failed to defend the lead after scoring first. We did well to come back to win. But it was a very disappointing display after they had a player send off. Traditionally we are always poor against teams who had players send off. And this was proven yet again. We did not look like scoring a goal until Son got the winning goal. Well, atleast we managed to find that all-important goal !
Credit to Lamela and Son for getting our goals. It was nice to see us winning a league match without Kane scoring for once ! It was especially sweet to see Lamela scoring our first goal. And it was a well-taken goal. Hope this goal will boost his confidence to score more in the league. Well done to Son for getting our winning goal so late in the match. It was a well-taken back-heal goal and it came at the right time. It would have been very annoying if we had drawn this match despite Watford only having 10 men. Afterall, we badly needed to win this match to stay in touch of the league leaders.
I think Pochettino did a big mistake in changing our formation to contain Watford. Our defence and midfield didn't look comfortable with the changes. I am still not fully convinced of Dier in defence and Carroll in midfield. Both struggled badly, especially Dier. Apart from 1 match-saving tackle in the 2nd half, thought Dier looked poor all match. In fact, it was Dier's mistake which led to Watford's goal. It was an amateur mistake by Dier as he completely missed the header and then couldn't clear the ball until it allowed the Watford player to score. Similiarly, Carroll made too many mistakes and gave the ball away easily many times. He is simply not ready to start any league matches. Too bad Dembele got injured as we struggled even badly after he went off injured.
After keeping 2 clean sheets in previous matches, it was really disappointing for our defence to concede the goal like that. Apart from Dier's failure to clear the ball, maybe Loris and Alderweireld could have reacted faster to close down the Watford player. Annoying thing was, Watford hardly looked like scoring a goal before that. That goal could have been costly for us as Watford started to put pressure on us after that. Fortunately for us, we managed to come back and win the game. Another draw would have been very annoying. Afterall, this was our first away win against a top 10 teams so far this season.
It was nice to get our 3rd consecutive win which moved us into the 3rd place even if it was for a while only. More importantly, we are now just 4 points from the first place. Hope we can continue winning to stay in the title race.
