Watford 'didn't stick to gameplan'

Watford boss Aidy Boothroyd was in no mood to take prisoners last night after seeing his lacklustre troops played off the park by Owen Coyle`s Burnley in a 2-1 defeat.

But the livid Hornets gaffer still insists that had his team stuck to the game plan it would have been a different outcome altogether.

Boothroyd told the bods in the know down at the official club site "We should have stuck to the gameplan and if we had have done that we would have won the comfortably…but we didn`t".

No Aidy, we didn`t and I, along with 15,020 other people lay witness to that.

Quite rightly, Boothroyd gave a damning assessment of every aspect of the Hornets sub standard performance in what he rightly dubbed 'an absolute shocker` : "We were over passing the ball for some ridiculous reason tonight, the energy, the passion [and the work rate] that is usually seem from Watford just wasn`t there".

He went on to add "They [Burnley] came here expecting an onslaught from us, but they didn`t get it, they were allowed to play, we didn`t close down, we didn`t attack efficiently".

And even the return of Jay Jay DeMerit, back from a calf injury at the heart of the defence, did little to encourage the Watford boss "We didn`t defend properly. To concede 2 goals [at home] and 3 on Saturday is very very disappointing".

It`s all well and good Aidy but what was the game plan?

The 'Plan A` tactics of hit the wings and fire balls into the box wasn`t going to work - Kabba isn`t a left winger, didn`t have a clue where to play and never once got down the line whilst Hendo looked off the pace.

The back-up Plan B to knock it around a bit didn`t function as Mahon and Williamson were over-run in midfield and King gave away the ball on every occasion.

Plan C to stop conceding weak goals was doomed to failure - Stewart was just plain rubbish and Shittu spent too much time in the opponents box.

And don`t get me started on substitutions…