Poor Pitiful Watford

On Saturday I watched Fulham v. Portsmouth. I mostly was hoping to catch a glimpse of Clint Dempsey with his new club. It was a pretty ho-hum affair. Portsmouth scored in the fourth minute on a crackerjack goal by Niko Kranjcar. From that point forward Fulham controlled the run of play, but created few dangerous chances.

Around the 70th minute, Ian Pearce, Fulham's veteran defender, pulled up lame after a tackle. Unfortunately the squad had already used all three substitutions. So Pearce stayed on, gamely hobbling up and down the field, but basically reduced to one leg.

Then two minutes into injury time, with Portsmouth looking certain to take home all three points, the ball trickled out of the Portsmouth box and ended up at the feet of Pearce. He gamely struck the ball (with his bad foot no less), it caromed off a Portsmouth defender, and trickled into the goal. It was one of the most ridiculous goals I've ever seen. Pearce was too hobbled to even properly celebrate. Watch it here.

(Dempsey, sadly, did not play.)

Then I watched Watford v. Chelsea. American centerback Jay DeMerit had a marvelous game for the miserable Hornets, including a goal-saving tackle on Frank Lampard in the 78th minute. But the American's side was cruelly undone two minutes into injury time by a Salomon Kalou header. It was brutal. Watford is a cursed squad. They can not score. Highlights here (with commentary in some language other than English).