Predictable. It is the same match against Stoke every season,just different players and score. I never thought we would score today,for the first time this season. A small,very small piece of me has a grudging admiration for Hughes for winning ugly,in true Brad Gilbert style. I must say I have been disappointed with Carillo in the last two games and Capoue missed an opportunity to shine,not for the first time. Not sure what Deeney was doing and I understand his frustration but that's not leadership Troy,just thuggery.
Yes - usually some experienced international player - Crouch/Walters/Fletcher and Adam to name a few. (They even had some ex Dutch guy scoring against us a few years back)
I'm happy 1. I don't live in Stoke. 2. My team tries to play football. 3. My team's main tactics aren't wasting time for 90 minutes and trying to get throw ins. 4. I don't live in Stoke. 5. That's home to Stoke out the way. 6. I don't live in Stoke.
Not saying Gray is any good, but in 30mins he had 5 shots (I think) whereas Deeney had 1 in the entire game. He just doesn't shoot or get in the position to anymore. He did take on Joe Allen at the end though, in a real show of cahonas.
On 3 minutes I took this photo. The bloke in blue stayed in the 4th officials ear for the rest of the match. How are teams allowed to get away with this?
They did sing that. I requested "Elton Johns Taylor Made Army", but after offering to sing us a song they then decided not to. Very confusing.
I’ve heard that Hughes once fined a Stoke player a months wages for bringing a football to a training session.
This was another match against Stoke that goes into the mental garbage bin. In fact this was a carbon-copy of last season's match. I think they even scored in the same minute. It was such a shame and has dented our fantastic start. I mentioned in my pre-match comments, this could be a dangerous side and could be the start of a mini bad run. Back-to-back defeats with a difficult trip to Goodison to follow, and I always have left matches against Stoke feeling dejected and depressed. You can't fault Stoke though. They produced the perfect away performance. They must love playing us. They've won all 3 games at the Vic and have won 4 on the trot since our promotion. They even should have won 2-0, with Charlie Adam outdoing Richarlison's miss of the season. It was a ridiculous miss, after he rounded Gomes, with an empty goal, but somehow manages to hit the post. Today we were slow and ponderous. Exactly all the hallmarks of a Mazzarri team. We just didn't have any tempo or zip to our play. I think today we really missed Pereyra and Chalobah. I rate Capoue but he tends to slow the game down. He seemed to look for the safe pass far too often. Doucoure did his best to move the ball forward, and did so single handily on many occasions, but others were not quite on the same wavelength today. I cannot fault the player's desire, but too many were off their game. Carrillo has not been the same since the international break and since those comments over going back to Benfica surfaced. Our defence is a real problem. We're such a soft touch. One bloody corner, and yet again, it's in the back of our net. This has been a problem for years, and we need a clear out or rather a top quality addition at the centre. Richarlison had some good moments, but this was probably his quietest game. Cleverley did his best to get things going, but nothing came off for him. How many crosses did we put in, and some of those were very good, but there's no one ever on the end of them. This leads me to Deeney. He's just a shadow of the player he was 2 seasons ago. He can still play well with his back to goal, but he's too slow to react and is not sharp. He's just not a goal threat anymore. Same can be said of Gray, who looks like an expensive mistake. He does run around a lot and you can't deny he tries, but he's just not what we need. He's not a goal threat either. I thought Holebas and Kiko were decent though, but we could play that opponent again next week, and I still think we'd lose. We just are not effective against this type of team. Too weak to keep a clean sheet, but not smart enough to break a packed defence down. Apart from that last minute winner against Arsenal, our home record is poor. Something of a surprise when you consider Silva's track record previously. Including the cup match, we've won only once from 6 games, 2 draws and 3 defeats. We're struggling to score goals at home. This is the third blank, so Watford's entire season has hinged on the impressive away form. Home fans have largely been short changed in this promising campaign so far.
During both little fracases, all of their men in blue tracksuits was off the bench getting involved and to the officials. Hughes was moaning to the Lino all game. Horrible little team.
I was not knocking Deeney in the Chmpionship that much at all. Neither was I when he was banging in a few goals alongside Ighalo in the Prem. But 14 goals in open play from 83 odd games is just not good enough as main striker. Six/seven goals in open play a season? He is a good penalty taker mind you, but we must assume that most of the 11 penalties he took (missing 1) would still have been scored by someone else anyway. Yes, since we have been in the prem, I have been extremely annoyed at Deeney arriving at the start of the season, clearly unfit and overweight. As Captain and our talisman, and on his wage, he should have been more professional. This season, he seemed to make more effort pre season as he looked physically better in August, and then he got the injury which was bad luck. So, whilst I feel more content with his professionalism this season, I am still pretty certain that he is not good enough to lead our attack. We can do so much better.
He is just too slow and immobile, takes few chances like a real goalscorer does, he doesn't create space for himself and rarely attacks the near post.
Same as last season,we concede they break the game up in every way possible. Players substituted just happened to be on the GT side of the pitch, cue the long slow walk to the bench, pausing to clap the away fans on the way over. I don't blame Troy for not giving them the ball back when they kicked it out for a fake injury. Thought Cleverley and Kiko best players today. Sounds like sour grapes but that was awful to watch, no wonder they don't sell their away allocation. They managed the game very well but that is utter tedium and crap to watch. Did Pulis leave his manual on how to kill a game at Stoke when he left to bore WBA to safety?
As embarrassing as it is to lose to the great unwashed from oop nooth, we must admit that the reason Stoke won was because: a) they did their homework on us b) they wanted it more Fair play to them, and to their fans. They created quite a racket. The only highlight for me was finally seeing Hughes play. However, the less said about us, the better.
The trouble with shoutbox has less to do with time zones and more to do with fxckwits having access computers.
Silva out for me. I mean that seriously, he's had 10 games now and we ve not won a single trophy. How much longer do we give this guy/muppet/idiot? I think all those idiots doubting the collective footballing knowledge of shoutbox posters need to understand that modern football is not about the players, managers and pundits but about the twitter followers that watch the game on tv.
Yes, Stoke fans are real fans, give them that and they really support their team. Did they want it more? - I'm not sure, I think they set up to settle for a point. On many other days that corner set-piece could have gone into the stand. I don't think we lacked commitment. We just didn't know how to break them down... I do think we're in an important moment of transition from staying in the premier league to being a top half of the table team. Not all performances were the best today, but don't think anyone was not committed - though, I do wonder how Bournemouth beat Stoke...
Don’t really know where to start apart from saying that Stoke are an absolute disgrace to football. I feel mugged. An equaliser would’ve felt like a win. We were slow and ponderous because Stoke had every player behind the ball. In the second half they had at least six players lined up on the in the six yard box with more players in front of them. We couldn’t break them down. They were like a wall in that area and they separated our players so that we couldn’t play through them. They may have well just had 10 men on the goal line. They had no interest in getting the ball off of us until we got into the 18 yard box. Richarlison and Carillo were given a welcome to England. Richarlison missed the chances he had because he was fearful that he’d be clattered. He won’t be featured in papers this week and probably would’ve rather been back in Brazil with a gun pointing at him. Carillo was also scared witless, at one point he was running towards goal with the ball well ahead of their midfielder and should’ve left him for dust but never got up to full pace because he was worried about getting tackled. Stoke did a job on them and they bottled it. Capoue - hasn’t changed, he has no desire, Flays his arms about in a Gallic strop and tries Hollywood balls. I can’t bring myself to praise Stoke in any way. I can’t believe we lost. Football died today.
Somebody texted 3CR when I was on my way home to say ‘imagine Stoke vs West Brom, what an exciting game that would be’
It was amazing to see a team in the Premier League come to our ground and basically camp everyone in and around their own box. Just seeing the acres of space in front of the defence as they strode forward or passed into midfield for the 1000th futile attempt was a strange one. They rarely even bothered to chase lose balls down back into midfield, they seemed happy just to let us have it. We are obviously better against teams that try to score too, and we’re not good enough to deal with what happened today yet either. I’d say we missed Peyrera and Capoue is just not up to it, swap those two and it could’ve made the difference. Obviously then scoring completely ****ed us as we just didn’t have it in us to break them down, but it wouldn’t have suprised me if they’d played like that anyway to go for a point.
Woke up this morning thinking it was Sunday and we had lost...least tomorrow that will be the case. We played exactly how i feared we would against a team playing for one free kick/corner..Deeney stupidly gave away the free kick which lead to the corner which lead to the goal. Capoue was woeful slowed everything down everytime he got the ball. Carillio was to narrow and wasnt great either. Richardlison was poor as well, missed 2 great chances in the 2nd half which had they gone in we could have gone on.. Cleverly and Kiko were our 2 best players today. The arguments over Deeney show how far he has fallen IMO. He didnt do anything today other than start a fight at the end. His movement today was non existent and he didnt win a header all game. Gray for all his running has a poor touch and really doesnt look like a 18mil Prem Striker. A striker is a must in Jan if the fall out with Okaka cant be mended. We need another option up top if its not working. Finally if you give it like he did after the Arsenal game you cant be doing what he did at the end today. For me he will always have a special place in Watford history. Finally, Stoke. They for me like WBA and Jose M are anti football. They made no effort to play football and it was a dour game. However fair play they won which is annoying as it encourages more of it. Stoke will play and win like this 11 times to stay up. Like WBA. Even Dyche at Burnley plays this negative style which is why he is over looked for jobs at bigger clubs. Hughes is the sort of manager I hate always playing the rules to the limit and not really trying to play football. We didnt like it for one season under Wally imagine the WBA and Stoke fans who have seen this for years... Big game now at Goodison next week, we really need a result just to settle the nerves again...Still think we were over achieving and think 10th -14th finish is more realistic.
Sadly Deeney is turning into a Devon White..... thought Stoke fans chanting 'you fat *******' summed it up. Lacked workrate, touch and any impact on the game apart from the melee at the end
I see another media witch hunt has started, this time over Deeney. Graham Poll has had his say again, saying the Deeney will get a 3 match ban, and Steve McManaman piped up saying the review panel didn't do anything last time over the Richarlison dive.
Maybe it's time to bring in the big guns. Spoiler Britt Assombalonga Middlesbrough 177 minsper goal 1240 minsplayed 7Goals scored 0 Assists Matej Vydra Derby 109 minsper goal 654 minsplayed 6Goals scored 2 Assists
I missed what started it. Stoke were playing for that kind of stuff. The ref probably want to just end the match well before that point.
