Watford FC 1-2 Manchester United - 15/09/2018

Spot on.

I believe we should all take great heart from the fact that for the first 30 minutes we were the equal of a Top-4 side, and for the last 30 minutes we bettered them.

Its the way we played in the second half that will count in the long run.

 

What I woke up to this morning! At least breakfast is sorted!

 

That's just reminded me of Holebas' comedy dive, definitely lucky not to get a second yellow there...

 

d anyone watch that video on YouTube posted by the club this week where gray, deeney, Hughes and some others were training with some little kids? Gray ****ed up pass after pass and lost control of the ball several times. It was remarkable really

He's dung.

 

Excellent to see you in such good spirits after your exertions of yesterday.

 

I'd rather see a game like that where we lose than watch us grind out an undeserved 1-0 won.

Does that mean I'm not a true fan?

 

Good finish yesterday, perhaps some of the kids taught him a thing or two

 

Yep. I feel sorry for him a bit, I think his unpopularity bothers him. None of the kids had his shirt on or said he's their favourite player.

Pereyra seems to be the kids favourite. He's my sweetheart too.

 

Just read the press , apparently we had a plucky fight back, odd thing is while I was watching it I was convinced that they were desperately holding on and had a lucky win thanks to some magnificent goal keeping , bit like when one of the Minos beat the top 6

Didn’t really think they were all that yesterday , thought spurs looked much more of a threat

As others have said, ref was a ****, can you imagine Mourinho reaction if the ref had blown the whistle in the first half before we could take our free kick and blown the whistle in the 2nd half before we could take our corner

Gray seems to divide opinions, which is an improvement, last year I dont remember a lot of people with any view other that he is crap. For me he isnt the best, but he has 2 goals so far and I think he is getting better game by game as everybody starts to know where they should be. I do wonder what we would look like if success started instead of gray , he seems to be a little more alert and able to run at people.

Last time we lost I was in a mood all week, this time , I kind of think we just played one of the top 6 and if we had another 10 mins could have won

 

That's shyte to hear. I hope you reported it mate.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...ray-smalling-goal-report-latest-a8539601.html

The Independent sports section really puts the others to shame at the moment. Jonathan Liew is the best current sports writer.

 

As previous posters have said, don't let it lie, it needs to be dealt with. I'm just appalled it actually happened.

 

I think it is tactics, yes. But I disagree that it's playing averagely: This was United we were playing. They are a team full of very expensive, high-quality players, coached by by one of the World's most successful current managers, like him or not. But, to your point, Watford's second-half action is lung-bursting stuff and they are conserving themselves for it. Also, Gracia tends to change things at half-time; and the advantage of doing that is the opposition coach has much less opportunity to counter them. Eg: Yesterday Doucoure was moved further up the pitch from a defensive role to a more attacking one - and it made a heck of a difference.

 

The problem is people want to forget those. Who remembers Andy Porter, Vega?

 

Good write-up.

 

Maybe. But I'm not sure I'd try out too many experiments against Man U unless I was really sure of them.

 

Good write up as a balanced view. Thanks for posting

 

Down the years, all players who have paired-up with Deeney up front have immediately improved hugely. Coincidence? No.

 

Funny old game. Watford beat Brighton. Brighton beat United. Spurs beat United. Watford beat Spurs. United beat Watford.

 

Statistics...........Jesus.
Gray played a good part in a high-quality match yesterday. But are you telling me he compares with any of those four?

 

Vega was overpaid, but he was never as bad as history paints him.

 

Good God! True supporter.

 

I'm not sure I completely agree to be fair . I don't think we started badly yesterday , in fact quite the opposite but after about 15 minutes the better players (not better TEAM) got on top and made the most of their superiority with 2 goals originated from set pieces . What I am excited about is that we clearly have a manager who can affect things as we have seen from all our second half performances this season . This along with our obvious fitness levels should give us great confidence for the months to come

 

I don't remember Andy Porter, who was he?

 

No, however how Giroud has won a world cup and sits top of the league without scoring a goal is beyond me.

Just trying to point out that he's nowhere near as bad technically as people make out. He's scoring goals and people still slag him off, laughable really considering the start to the season we've had.

 

Some people are having a go at Gray but that is missing the point a bit as the Gray we have brings out a lot more than having Deeney on his own up front with an extra man in midfield (as last season) . It is no coincidence that Deeney is back to playing how we know he can, by having Gray alongside him means he is seeing more of the ball and has help instead of labouring by himself!

How fans can find negatives in our performance because we ran Man united close and should have at least taken a point is a bit rich, the ovation at the end shows what the majority of fans are feeling! COYH we go again at Fulham!

 

I thought Deeney was the weak link yesterday, got nothing against the man mountains in the centre, failed to hold the ball up and influence the game apart from his decent shot in the first half.

 

I'd agree with this, Smalling and Fellanni marashlled him very well keeping him quiet, whereas Gray seemed to be more successful in both holding up the ball and playing in others. He'll have better games but it wasn't a lack of trying.

 

Thankless task against fellani in the air.

He did force a good save from de gea

 

A great player - so good that Londoners named a beer after him.

 

OK. Let's look at his style for a moment. Gray is not as fast as we were given to believe, but he is quite quick. He plays most of his football at that speed and that engenders plenty of mistakes. Involvement in patient build-up type play exposes his weaknesses - particularly that he has poor ball-control. But playing at high speed with one-touch football is his strength. How often do we see that the differences between good sides and not-so-good sides are not the skills they demonstrate, but the speed at which they perform them. He is playing at that sort of game, willing to make plenty of mistakes just so long as one or two moves actually come off, severely testing the opponent's defence. Thus his two goals this season: First-timer, goal-of-the-month challengers.
He is a big part of our change of style from last-season-pondorous to change-of-pace rapier stuff this season.
Gracia, who I regard with ever-increasing admiration, is the brains behind this change, making use of what we have, skilfully.
One could extend this description to our two most recent opponents: Both Spurs and Man U have an abundance of top players, who can move the ball accurately with a single, quick touch. There was an excellent demo of this yesterday: Watford were pressing Utd's defence high up the pitch and they were doing it very well, in a concerted movement. And yet the Utd players still moved the ball with a sequence of (I think) five one-touch, accurate passes into attack, despite each of these players being under intense pressure. (It is a measure of how well Watford are currently playing that they gave these teams a very thorough testing).
But - Gray as good as Giroud or Lukaku or Kane? Not for me.

 

Third Division, under Ron Burgess - really not very good.

 

I will write to the club - funny thing is they thought I was a Man Utd fan and had a right to tell me off as a brown-skinned kid no older than 7/8 celebrated a United goal, yet I've been in the same seat since 08 and haven't seen them before!

 

Steve Butler anyone ? Or is that too long ago ?

 

We were low key against Spurs and Palace too first half. It was only second half that we started to play with intensity and got on top.
Wright on MOTD last night said he's watched them in the 3 games and noticed the slow start to matches.