Watford 1-4 Huddersfield: Visitors end abysmal away record

When you’re over 12 hours without a goal away from home, sometimes it can feel like luck has deserted you.

Huddersfield Town, though, got their fair slice of good fortune and pounced on it to take three valuable Premier League points from Watford.

Elias Kachunga’s goal that ended a 738-minute, four-month barren run involved two incorrect offside calls before a second bounced in that scorer Aaron Mooy knew little about.

But make no mistake, this was a well-deserved victory for David Wagner’s men against their imploding hosts who were summed by captain Troy Deeney’s idiotic red card that ended any hopes of a comeback before Laurent Depoitre and Mooy again made the win emphatic.

Huddersfield struck first inside six minutes when Elias Kachunga bundled home a corner despite being in an offside position

Kachunga’s goal was Hudderfield’s first away goal in the Premier League since their opening day victory at Crystal Palace

Kachunga celebrates with his team-mates as he plunged the Vicarage Road crowd into silence early on

Aaron Mooy doubled Huddersfield’s lead when he rounded off a team move following some poor Watford defending

A cross was not cut out by Watford’s lacklustre defence allowing the ball to squirm its way through to Mooy, who finished it off

Hitting three at Crystal Palace on the opening day of the season feels like an awful long time ago for Huddersfield’s travelling fans. They had not scored away from the John Smith’s Stadium since.

So it was no surprise to fear such a ferocious roar from their packed-out corner of Vicarage Road when Kachunga put them ahead.

This first goal of the season for the German forward owed much to his persistence, twice rising from the turf to battle against Christian Kabasele to win a corner off Heurelho Gomes.

The initial ball in from Chris Lowe did nothing of note but a subsequent second corner sparked the goalmouth scramble to lead to the opener, with the assistance of the officials.

Christophe Schindler backed in from an offside position, taking down a poked touch from Mooy six yards out before shooting across goal. So too was Kachunga, waiting to subsequently tap in at the back post.

Drought over and done with.  

Laurent Depoitre seized upon a loose ball on the edge of the Watford area before taking one touch and firing into the net

The Belgian wheeled away to celebrate in front of the Huddersfield fans after scoring his side’s third goal

Abdoulaye Doucoure seized upon a loose ball and fired a ferocious shot that flew past the goalkeeper and into the net for 3-1

Mooy wrapped up a stunning victory as he converted a late penalty to secure all three points

Doucoure celebrates his fantastic strike but it proved to be nothing more than a consolation for Marco Silva’s side

Watford responded with Richarlison firing over from a Jose Holebas cross on 20 minutes, shortly after Kachunga had to be taken off injured, but they were otherwise lacklustre.

The Terriers, on the other hand, were bristling with confidence. Centre back Mathias Zanka exhibited that perfectly, clipping a delightful lobbed ball through for Collin Quaner to chase alone.

Quaner advanced to the byline and sent a low cross zipping through the six-yard box where no Watford player decided to deal with it before it hit Mooy and bobbled into the corner.

Vicarage Road buzzed with disbelief as the Hornets looked disinterested.

Deeney wasn’t getting a kick up front and then foolishly decided he was better off getting involved in the defensive side of things.

Quaner was going nowhere, near the touchline and shielding the ball from Etienne Capoue, when Watford’s captain ran round and lunged, studs up, at his ankles.

That he made little contact mattered little for Michael Oliver, who gave him his marching orders with the game effectively done on 33 minutes. It is the third game in a row where Watford have been reduced to 10 men.

Watford captain Troy Deeney was handed a straight red for a tackle from behind on Huddersfield’s Florent Hadergjonaj

Jonathan Hogg was also dismissed by Michael Oliver as he picked up his second yellow card during the second half

Kachunga receives medical attention after sustaining a leg injury in the first half as referee Michael Oliver looks on

Huddersfield’s opening goalscorer had to be stretchered off with Tom Ince coming on in his place after just 19 minutes

By half-time, those murmurs of disapproval from the stands developed into boos.

It wasn’t to get any better, though. Done with torturing Adrian Mariappa, hauled off in the first half, and later Daryl Janmaat down Watford’s right, Huddersfield took to attacking their left side.

Jose Holebas will not want to watch the horror show of the third goal again. He fell to the floor inside his own area when trying to challenge Tom Ince, allowing Depoitre to charge through and stick the ball beyond Gomes with a delightful finish.

Huddersfield’s travelling contingent were going through their full repertoire of songs by then and were not even swayed when Jonathan Hogg clipped Richarlison to earn a second yellow card, levelling the teams up again.

It did inspire some fight in Watford at last, though. Marco Silva through on Andre Gray for the listless Capoue and Huddersfield retreated.

But Abdoulaye Doucoure’s thumping strike from 20 yards at a rebound from a corner was doomed to end up as a footnote to the story of this game.

This was the first time the Terriers had hit four goals in a top-flight game since 1956 and they are now up to 11th in the table

 Watford delivered argubaly their worst performance of the campaign so far and are without a win in their last five matches

Watford pushed on, Richarlison alive again as he danced around defenders, but they lacked the clear openings to cut the deficit further.

In fact, Huddersfield went on to restore the three-goal margin, Doucoure tripping Depoitre inside the area to concede a penalty which Mooy stepped up for — slamming into the bottom-left corner beyond Gomes’ dive.

This was the first time the Terriers had hit four goals in a top-flight game since 1956. Their fans believe they might have another Premier League year in them now, and why not? They rise to 11th, a point behind Watford.