As the floodlights flickered and dimmed at Vicarage Road, the light also appeared to run out on Claudio Ranieri’s Watford tenure. Norwich’s win in this crucial relegation six-pointer, delivered by Josh Sargent’s sublime backheel flick and towering header, lifted the Canaries out of the Premier League’s bottom three and dropped Watford into deeper trouble.
Sargent’s first Premier League goal on 51 minutes was a brilliant moment of quality that had been desperately lacking until he turned Teemu Pukki’s cross off the underside of the bar. Moments later, play at Vicarage Road was halted for around nine minutes due to a partial floodlight outage. It wasn’t resolved, as the pitch was still covered in enough light to continue, but when play resumed Sargent rose to leave Ranieri staring into the gloom.
