Everton go through and Watford go home, 2‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
1 for Tom Dele-Bashiru, marked 7.75, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Michael Matthews kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Watford man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Yannick Agnero was the best thing in any of them.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Michael Matthews after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Watford told Mady Camara something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edo Kayembe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Nampalys Mendy
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Watford that is a harder question to answer.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Daniel Bachmann has written the date down.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Giorgi Chakvetadze signs something — a contract at Watford or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Edoardo Bove. 1‑0 against Middlesbrough, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Michael Matthews kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Edo Kayembe falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.