Huge task ahead for Watford following Gunners pummelling

ADRIAN BOOTHROYD is a Champions League contender when it comes to positive thinking, but there are occasions when even his unique brand of corporate pep-talks will not do, and a trip to Arsenal is one of them.

As Arsene Wenger’s buccaneers nonchalantly zipped around passes in the dying stages of this embarrassingly one-sided game, Watford’s bright, articulate young manager stopped patrolling his technical area, sighed deeply and retreated to the sanctuary of his dug-out. His side had not been beaten so much as tenderised.

Statistics are a notoriously unreliable gauge of a football match’s ebb and flow, but amid the flurry of figures which highlighted Arsenal’s utter superiority — 15 shots on target to Watford’s 8 — 62% of the possession and winning the corner count 8-4 — perhaps the most telling one of all was not to be found on an Opta spreadsheet.

The account books for the last financial year reveal that Arsenal’s wage bill stood at an eye-watering €126m; Watford’s, in comparison, is €9m. The old adage that peanuts reward only monkeys may be unfair on Boothroyd’s vigorous team but in the quality stakes they simply cannot compete.

Arsenal won by three goals here, but had it not been for the repeated acrobatics of goalkeeper Ben Foster who, as a Manchester United loanee, is not even Watford’s player, it might have been double figures.

Boothroyd was doing his best to remain upbeat as he surveyed the wreckage of his heaviest defeat since winning promotion in May, but there was a hint of weary resignation in his voice as he confronted the magnitude of the task that faces him in keeping Watford at this exalted level.

“You have to believe in the impossible and hope that you can pull off victories at places like this,” Boothroyd insisted. “The fans who travelled believed it and we have to share that belief.

“Nothing fazes me. I am lucky and privileged enough to be manager of this football club and to work with some fantastic people — the players and the staff. I think that we have come a long way in a short space of time but we have to continue to build and not be tricked into thinking short-term. It’s a long-term process.”

In that sense, perhaps Boothroyd has more in common with Wenger than he might realise. The Frenchman may operate under vastly different expectations but his work in north London serves as a case study in how to maximise resources.

Francesc Fabregas, for example, cost just €750,000 when he was prised from Barcelona three years ago and with each passing week, the Spaniard adds another layer of gloss to his already polished reputation.

Looks are deceptive with Fabregas. The 19-year-old is an affable, courteous character but when he steps onto a football pitch he has the cold, clinical touch of an assassin. Nobody in the Premiership picks a pass better and, this season, he has added bite to his brio.

He made at least six telling challenges on Saturday and while Gavin Mahon and Damien Francis might not be the top flight’s most formidable midfield combination, Fabregas eclipsed them both with consummate ease. Gilberto, his supposed partner, might as well have been in Rio.

It was Fabregas who set up the first goal, chipping a free-kick onto the head of Emmanuel Adebayor, whose nod-down was deflected into his own net by Jordan Stewart as he attempted to keep Kolo Toure at bay.

But if that was prosaic, the pass which dissected Watford’s back-pedalling defence mid-way through the second half was pure poetry. The weight and direction of the ball made it simple for Thierry Henry to collect, although the forward — who had scored Arsenal’s second with a typically clinical finish just before half-time — showed his own touch of class in the reverse pass which allowed Adebayor to tap in from close range.

As the nights draw in, the sun is starting to come out on Arsenal’s season. This was their sixth consecutive victory and Wenger felt so confident he could even hand a full debut to Theo Walcott. The 17-year-old was superb for half-an-hour, creating a golden early chance for Fabregas and linking delightfully with Henry, but he faded noticeably and was substituted. His future remains bright: the same cannot be said for Watford.