Watford seal Premier League return as Brighton are put to the sword

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/25/brighton-watford-championship-match-report

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Watford are back in the Premier League, learning of their fate on the team bus travelling back from this victory in Sussex. Eight years on from their relegation to the Championship Slavisa Jokanovic’s vibrant, multi-national side went clear at the top after Middlesbrough’s slip at Fulham and Norwich’s failure to beat a Rotherham side struggling for their lives at the other end of the table.

Watford’s lunchtime win on the south coast put them four points clear of the chasing pack thanks to Troy Deeney’s first-half goal and a stoppage time second from the substitute Matej Vydra.

Related: How Watford went from the ridiculous to the sublime … to the top flight | Simon Burnton

The Hornets’ march to glory has gone largely unheralded outside west Hertfordshire but the Serbian Jokanovic, Watford’s fourth manager of the season, has been an inspirational figure in the past six months. “It’s not a time for celebration,” he said after the game as his team prepared to journey home. “It feels like we have won a semi-final.”

The club’s former chairman Sir Elton John had promised a champagne party if promoted and that can begin, although Watford will want to beat Sheffield Wednesday next Saturday and go up as champions. Watford’s owners will also want to convince Jokanovic that his future is at the club rather than at Sunderland who are known to be interested in the former Chelsea player.

Deeney was one of four Watford players booked and the final one of these cautions Adlène Guedioura was perhaps lucky to stay on the field after a reckless challenge on Lewis Dunk but Watford were worthy winners despite Brighton’s late, desperate siege. In Deeney, goal-scorer and goal-maker, Watford also have a striker in a rich vein of form. He is the first Watford player to score 20 or more goals in three successive seasons.

For Brighton’s supporters the end of the season cannot come soon enough. Greg Rusedski was among the crowd of 28,841, swelled by more than 3,000 travelling Watford fans. And again the Seagulls came away with love. This was the fourth successive home league game that Chris Hughton’s side have failed to score, the worst run in their history. Last season’s run to the play-offs seems an age away.

Hughton said: “I don’t think Watford were better than us but what they have is two strikers who have the know-how and quality to score goals.They changed their system halfway through the first half and I think that’s testament to the way we played. I saw them come back from being two down to Blackpool earlier this season and they have some great fighting qualities. I don’t see why they can’t succeed in the Premier League.”

Jokanovic’s tactical switch, bringing on the Hungarian Daniel Tozser in place of Ikechi Anya just before the half-hour mark, paid an instant dividend after Watford had not disturbed the Brighton goalkeeper David Stockdale. Brighton failed to clear the danger after Odion Ighalo had threatened to score and after Matthew Connolly swung over a cross the ball fell to Deeney. He put the ball well out of reach of Stockdale, striking his 21st goal of the season from close to the penalty spot although Hughton later claimed that his midfielder Beram Kayal had been impeded in the build-up to the goal.

Related: Fulham 4-3 Middlesbrough | Championship match report

Five minutes later Brighton almost ended their goal drought but Heurelho Gomes flung himself to his left to parry a snap shot from the edge of the box from Chris O’Grady. Gomes made some high-profile mistakes in his time at Tottenham but he looked as safe as houses here.

Tozser began to dictate proceedings in midfield and after the break almost added a second with a free-kick that scraped Stockdale’s bar. Ighalo went close when he flung himself at Almen Abdi’s corner as the visitors began to dominate the game.

Hughton introduced Craig Mackail-Smith on the hour, the striker’s last appearance here before he moves on this summer. But Brighton rarely threatened the Watford goal while Abdi twice went close in front of the visitors’ expectant supporters.

O’Grady came the closest to breaking Brighton’s duck with a late header that Gomes was relieved to see fly wide and the goalkeeper had to react smartly to save Dale Stephens’ low shot but this was Watford’s day.

Deep in added time the Watford captain, Deeney, broke down the right wing and found Vydra in glorious isolation and the Czech made no mistake with a clinical finish in front of those delirious travelling supporters. The players celebrated in front of a yellow sea of those inflatable-banana waving fans who needed no convincing that they would be hosting Chelsea and Arsenal at Vicarage Road next season.