Watford vs Bristol City. Sky Bet Championship.
Vicarage RoadAttendance19,148.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Watford and Bristol City at Vicarage Road as a Harry Cornick own goal and Joao Pedro kept the Hornets in the play-off hunt.
Saturday 15 April 2023 18:50, UK
Watford made light of their recent struggles to climb back into the promotion picture with a fortuitous 2-0 victory over Bristol City at Vicarage Road.
Two Joao Pedro shots resulted in the goals that gave Chris Wilder's side their first win in five matches.
However, the responsibility for the ball ending up in the Bristol City net on both occasions lay with the visitors.
Harry Cornick needlessly turned Pedro's sixth-minute shot into his own net before a shocking mistake by City keeper Max O'Leary allowed another Pedro effort that was straight at the keeper to squeeze between his legs.
While the home side rarely looked convincing and saw their woodwork struck twice in the second half, Watford nevertheless still retain a chance of making the play-offs.
The result was a disappointment for City manager Nigel Pearson, who received a rousing reception from the Watford fans prior to kick-off.
Pearson managed the Vicarage Road club as recently as July 2020, although present incumbent Wilder is the eighth man to have overseen a Watford match since then.
The opening goal came after a quickly taken free-kick found Pedro in the area. After pivoting, he drove a low cross-shot towards the far post where Cornick stuck out a leg to divert the ball into his own net.
The former Luton player tried to make amends, only to see Watford keeper Daniel Bachmann claw away his goal-bound header before he lifted another shot wastefully over from eight yards.
A reminder of the quality that Watford possess arrived in the 25th minute when a neat interchange between Ismaila Sarr and Hamza Choudhury ended with the former stinging the hands of O'Leary with a rising drive.
The visitors came tantalisingly close to an equaliser four minutes into the second half. Following good work from Andi Weimann, Nahki Wells stabbed a shot goalwards which brought a magnificent one-handed reaction save from Bachmann.
From the rebound, Wells reacted quickest but saw his header come back off the post.
Sadly for Pearson's side, O'Leary was anything but secure after 54 minutes when he allowed a routine Pedro shot through his legs as it dipped in front of him.
Even then, City might have found a way back into the contest when they were awarded a free-kick 20 yards from goal.
Wells curled his effort beautifully over the bar but saw it dip a fraction too late and bounce off the top of the Watford crossbar.
In spite of the defeat, remaining fixtures between sides beneath them mean that City are now almost certain to be playing in the Championship again next season.
Watford's Chris Wilder:
"It's a win on Saturday afternoon. We have waited a long time for one of them. We'll enjoy our weekend. It was a tight game with more positives than negatives and it felt nice to get a win at home. We had a slice of luck when they hit the post and maybe for the first time since I've been here we rode our luck. I wanted us to get on the ball more after half-time. We were more positive in the second half against a young energetic side that made it difficult for us. I have a lot of respect for Nigel and the teams he puts out."
"The difficulties of the Championship mean that we will have another tough game against Cardiff in midweek. They will have a lot to fight for, but we've got to find that consistency from one game to the next. I want to get another performance like that from the players. We can't have inconsistencies from game to game What pleased me today was that the players have tried to win by doing the right things and playing in the structure that we created for them. But I'm not going to be jumping through hoops just because we've put two performances together. I haven't seen the other results and I won't be looking at the table until we put consistent performances together."
Bristol City's Nigel Pearson:
"We played well. We created lots of opportunities. The problem is we couldn't take them today. We made the keeper work. The keeper made some good saves, it just didn't turn out the way we wanted but it wasn't through a lack of effort. We played some patient football and some good football. I don't have too many complaints today. We want the players to continue to play at full tilt until the end of the season, but the game is all about what you do in both boxes. The margins are very, very small in the Championship.
"Their first goal, poor Harry gets a clearance that ricochets off him. That's life. I can't really give you accurate thoughts about the second one but it looked to me like Max was unsighted. It was a vicious dipping shot. The timing of the second goal was unfortunate because it looked like they were tiring physically and that it looked like we were getting on top."
"Most football fans are very knowledgeable in terms of what they see and we are trying to be as transparent as possible with the fan base. You won't hear me bleating on about money and resources. We are all working very hard at the club to find a route to success."
