With confidence high in a belief that we are now turning into a team that might actually make a run at the playoffs, today we play Watford at home at the start of a run of favourable looking fixtures which will define the season. It’s no word of a lie that we should be aiming to win a very large proportion of the next eight games. We have learned though not to look too far ahead because that has a way of biting you in the arse.

Watford never look too far ahead because even more so than us, if you go more than a couple of weeks into the future they are probably gonna have a different manager, such has been the case since the Pozzo family took over a few years back. The latest incumbent is Javi Gracia, who has been there before and took them to an FA Cup final once… oh no it’s not, he left a week ago having had a conversation with the owners and finding out it wasn’t going the way he wanted it to go. Really fucking weird considering he been a manager there before so knew exactly what the owners were like. Anyway, in the dug out this afternoon for this 1231 kickoff are Charlie Daniels and Dan Gosling, returning to the south Coast having previously been players at Bournemouth. Charlie Daniels was a left back and Dan Gosling was a twat, a reputation cemented by him giving it the big one when Bournemouth scored at St Mary’s a few years back. Anyone from Bournemouth who tries to stoke that game up as some sort of rivalry, is a twat.

Watford are the sort of club that I never know too much about because of the ridiculousness of the revolving door of managers. Having said that, Sport Republic must be pretty close to matching the average matches per manager that the Pozzo’s have presided over. When we played them at Vicarage Road earlier on in the season, a player that caused us a lot of problems with this direct running and power was Irankuda, who smashed a free kick into the top corner in that game. The good news is that he managed to get himself sent off in the 93rd minute last week so he won’t be available. They had a midweek game as well this week, earning a very respectable 0-0 draw at home to Hull. They had this game because they called the original off about half an hour before the kickoff. As an aside, our dear neighbours from down the road were supposed to be playing a similarly rearranged game against Ipswich in midweek but they called it off again. The official reason was because the pitch was waterlogged a day earlier than the game but the alleged reason is probably because they’ve got a lot of injuries. I don’t know what’s worse actually but calling a game off because of a waterlogged pitch in the championship is fucking embarrassing and ridiculously tin pot, especially when you bear in mind at their pitch is in part, waterlogged because of all their fans spitting on opposition players like a bunch of inbred cunts that they are. Interestingly, last weekend there was another incident of opposition supporters and the fourth official getting hit with coins thrown by those amazing fans at Fratton Park. The media will still peddle with the line that they are amazing and it’s a fantastic ground, however though the truth is that the front three rows down both sides need to be closed down.

The hope is of course that Tonda doesn’t fuck around too much with the starting lineup today, but the bench will be different with Cyle Larin expected to be present. Hopefully the St Mary’s crowd give him the benefit of the doubt. It would be somewhat pathetic if they didn’t.