Back here again. It’d only been 49 hours. Forty-nine hours since Manchester City bounced off this pitch, revelling in the Arsenal acrimony. Too soon to be back, for sure.
But that is where this ridiculous calendar is at. Either City played this tie here and now or moved it down to Vicarage Road. Pep Guardiola didn’t want to give up any competitive advantage – which is his prerogative – so 49 hours after the drain of Arsenal came something else to tackle.
Through, and with a first start of the season for Phil Foden – valuable minutes for John Stones and Jack Grealish too – so not all bad. And yet to the backdrop of player demands for more rest, the time between games must have left those involved feeling uneasy.
Not quite as uneasy as it might have been. Watford threatened to take it to penalties late on, when Tom Ince scored to set up a lively finale. City could’ve done with running the clock down but let’s not go there.
Rodri was 1,100 miles away in the Catalonian capital, staring at a third round of testing on the serious knee injury he sustained on Sunday. Guardiola admitted that he is out for a while and City are fearing the worst, that their metronome will not be available for the remainder of the season.
How they manage without him is for another day, given Rodri will not have featured against opposition who have stuttered slightly in the Championship after a strong start to Tom Cleverley’s first full campaign in management.Â
Nico O’Reilly will fancy that the No 6 spot could become his own in the years to come although right now feels too soon for a youngster who has burst to prominence over a summer impressing Guardiola.
Even so, it felt almost impossible to upstage a first professional start outside of the Community Shield for O’Reilly, a burgeoning talent out of City’s academy, but a 16-year-old somehow managed it.
Kaden Braithwaite is not a name 90 per cent of those inside the Etihad Stadium will have heard an hour before kick-off. He didn’t go on the tour of America in the summer and, while vice-captain of the Under 18s, somebody that before Monday had never trained under Guardiola.
Whatever happened in that session could well become the stuff of legend if Braithwaite’s career takes off. In his middle age, Guardiola is occasionally a touch more laissez faire in his decision-making. Still maniacal in attention to detail but now confident enough given what’s gone before that he’ll throw in a teenager he’d never really clapped eyes on.
Braithwaite wasn’t afforded an easy introduction: Guardiola had him moving between left back and centre half depending on when City had possession. Yet for a youngster who joined the club aged eight, like the veteran Rico Lewis on the other flank, that is probably all natural and all he’s ever known.Â
Braithwaite did breathe a sigh of relief when former Rochdale forward Kwadwo Baah barged him off the ball in a fashion deemed too zealous in the build-up to flashing past Stefan Ortega. A let-off and reminder of the jump in physicality.
Another academy graduate, James McAtee, had already engineered City’s first after five minutes when harassing the Watford back line and once Jack Grealish’s pressing nudged Ryan Porteous into selling his goalkeeper Jonathan Bond short, McAtee was on hand to nip in. Jeremy Doku steered into Bond’s far corner seconds later.
McAtee was involved in the second, tenaciously keeping a move going and allowing Lewis to feed Matheus Nunes six minutes before the break. Incredibly, his precise drive from 20 yards represented the Portuguese’s first for City in 34 games since a £53million switch from Wolves.
Cleverley’s Hornets, a blend of young and old, were sharp on the break – aside from Baah’s disallowed effort, Vakoun Bayo bulleted a header wide – but City’s fringe did enough. Even after Ince had wonderfully curled into Ortega’s far corner with four minutes left.
Bond had flung himself left and right, Ince heading half time substitute Savinho’s shot off the line before the Brazilian struck a post at the end of a 70-yard run. Although Cleverley relished testing himself against the best, in a stadium that is not exactly his favourite, Watford have a more important game against Sunderland at the weekend.
City will have Erling Haaland back in the fold for their match, the Saturday early kick-off at Newcastle United, after the striker was given compassionate leave to attend close friend Ivar Eggja’s funeral in Norway.
Foden filled the false nine role in Haaland’s absence, linking nicely with McAtee just off him, and there will come more nights when Guardiola needs to lean on old habits. Because Haaland cannot start them all. Such is the way these days, none of them can start them all. The guy who was most likely to has done his knee. Play many more with this sort of turnaround and a few more will do theirs.
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