Watford FC 0- AFC Bournemouth - 06/10/2018

We got what we deserved.

Woeful performance

 

Ref may or may not have got the pen and 2nd booking right, couldn't tell from the family stand. But the challenge on the keeper for Kabasele's first booking looked harsh.

On paper i am sure that all of the yellows he gave us were potential bookings, yet he wilfully ignored equal fouls by their players time and again. It was an extremely one sided application of the rules.

I thought we played some nice stuff until their first, but without any real edge. This is worrying to me because playing about with the ball but creating few chances as we have been doing of late is not good. We lack the ability to finish clinically and we appeared to be going through the motions somewhat today.

Kiko was wildly out of position when they broke forward, meaning our remaining defenders were all pulled towards the space he'd left and there were 2 muff players in acres of space on the far post. It was napping across the board.

Many of our players are good on their day but capable of awful mistakes. Kabasele has been given enough warnings of late but he completely ****ed up today. Not with the lunge itself, but the way he completely got wrong sides by Wilson in the first place.

Javi has to be held accountable for his rigid refusal to make any changes unless forced. On the one hand there is some benefit to stability, especially when you're winning and playing well, but a coach needs to recognise weaknesses and address them earlier.

We went 3-0 down today with 10 men on the pitch and still had not utilised Success, Mariappa, Chalobah or Delofeou. I'm not sure what would have been the optimum switch, but we needed a change of some kind.

Javi's failure to react to changing circumstances from match to match and during games is stark. It's a terrible Achilles heel which has probably cost is 6 or 7 points already this season and today at least might have saves our goal difference.

Many poor performances and a miserable cap to an all round miserable day for me.

Oh well, the international break gives us time for reflection and then, as sure as the sun will set, we will go again.

 

Wilson and King were superb - pace, power and quality on the ball. A stark contrast to our pair who had a poor day.

Kabasele has a real issue in that he gets too tight to attackers in stupid areas (eg out wide) - he’s been doing it for a long time and it needs to be sorted out. That said, the first yellow was a terrible decision from that **** Moss. The challenge was not reckless nor was he out of control.

Following the red, the lack of action by Javi was odd and directly responsible for goals 3 & 4. Most posters on this thread did not want Mapps at RB but he needed to come on for Gray at CB as soon as the red was given.

Lastly, us Watford fans are a funny bunch aren’t we? A lot of empty seats at ko but I was really surprised by how many people left at ht. I know people can do as they wish but by general agreement this team have started the season well and put in some good performances with plenty of effort (unlike last season). Therefore more support when things go a bit pear shaped and some sticking with our team would have been good.

I’ll get my tin hat...

 

Four (5?) points of note:
1 Good cases can be made for saying neither goal 2 nor goal 3 should have stood: A - the linesman should have flagged for a foul by the Muff player before the penalty was given and B - I thought the build-up to goal 3 involved a Muff player receiving the ball in an offside position. It was only 0-1 before that.
2 Several Watford players seemed below-par: Cathcart, Doucoure, Perayra come to mind.
3 It looked like Watford had not done their homework properly: Bournemouth were allowed to play their game and they stopped ours very convincingly.
4 Bournemouth were the better team: Their attackers were too good for our defence and their defence snuffed out practically everything in the way of a Watford attack. It has already been said, but WFC look at least one good goal-taker short and they too often play the wrong final ball. Comparing movement off the ball and pass-timing, Bournemouth gave us a master-class compared to Watford's laboured efforts.
(5) Could our substitutions have been better? Probably, yes; although I think by the time we were 3 goals and a man down, it's difficult to know what could have been done to pull the match out of the fire. A lot is currently being said about subs-timing, but, on this occasion, it was only ever going to be too little, too late.

 

Don't know in what world we were dominating this game.

 

Disagree. I thought it was a moronic, reckless challenge. He was never, ever going to outjump Begovic and he ran into a keeper that has just made a static jump at full stretch so couldn't really defend himself. Challenges like that haven't been accepted for years and the only chance he had of avoiding a yellow was if Moss let him off as it was early in the game.

To then compound that stupidity by making that second challenge in the area after 30 minutes is just incredible. Worse than when he went down with cramp at Bournemouth that other time, at least I could understand what he was trying to do that time. Today, Kabasele has been a total moron and cost his team any chance of getting something from the game.

 

Cathcart’s glaring miss from that header at 0-1 was a key moment.

Could have been game on, instead just minutes later we are 0-2 and a man down.

We’ve now missed 17 big chances as they are classified by the stats people, more than any other club bar Man City this season.

As the season goes on I believe our inability to sign a top notch forward over the summer will cost us. Alcacer got a hattrick today. Maybe we will pay too for not really reinforcing our central defensive options.

I believe we’ve also seen both the very good and the not so good aspects of Gracia so far this season. Lots of positives and yes he’s proved me wrong in showing he’s most likely a perfectly adequate coach for the level we are at, but as others have already commented his Achilles heel could well be his unimaginative and slow use of substitutes.

A bad day at the office today, but I wouldn’t mind betting at some point this season we will do the same to somebody else. Such is the often crazy unpredictable nature of life as a mid-table club in this division. It’s rarely dull. We aren’t at a level where we will get great performances out of our players every week. For every Spurs win there will sadly be days like today too.

 

The warning was there before the first goal, if I remember they had a couple of quick breaks that cut through us and both Cathcart and Kabasele made lunging tackles. The key moment was Gracia choosing to do nothing.

The warnings were there also against Fulham when we visibly started to run out of steam, again key moment was Gracia did nothing.

 

Agree entirely. What sort of a simpleton must you be to still have been there by HT??

 

First off it was a very poor performance and with 10 men it made things even more of an uphill struggle after already being 1 goal down. However, I don't want to be too negative as these results and poor performances do happen every so often. It's been an excellent start to the season and we knew we would hit some bad form eventually. I do think Javi needs to freshen things up now as I think opposition managers are able to limit our effectiveness and today we did look flat.

I had a good view high up in the Sir Elton John stand which helped me analyse the match from a tactical perspective. I am writing this without having seen any replays of the major incidents of today's game so will keep this quite general. Defensively we were extremely poor. Cathacart and Kabasele both had shocker's. Both were off the pace and mistakes are slowing creeping in to there performances. Kabasele is too often getting caught the wrong side in the box and subsequently fouling the opposing player. Happened at Spurs in the cup, at Arsenal on Lacazette and today. This is costing us big time. He needs to improve his acceleration and react quicker to potentially dangerous situation. Whereas Cathcart is looking a bit tired physically and mentally. He has had a busy schedule with international fixtures. We should have done better business in the transfer window for a quality centre back and a striker and today highlights this. Does Javi think Capoue is a better centre back than Mariappa because if so then it really does emphasise our weakness at centre back. Surely he had to bring on Mariappa as soon as Kabalsele was sent off to shore up the defence.

Upfront we looked lacklustre with nothing really productive coming from any interplay between Gray and Deeney or any of the midfield for that fact. Capoue started well before being asked to play centre back. Pereyra and Hughes were trying to inject some pace and tempo into our play but didn't really amount to much especially due to then being down to 10 men. Doucoure's performances this season haven't hit the heights of last seasons. It's still early days but he is not grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck and forcing the ball into the opposition's penalty box and creating goal scoring opportunities. I can't think of any player today who scored more than a 6 for performance today.

As others have mentioned Javi needs to learn from these last few games and be more proactive in managing games. Even against Spurs in the cup it was unnecessary to bring on Kabasele when the defence were doing well against a strong Tottenham team. At Fulham changes were needed early in the second half in response to Jokanovic's changes. Arsenal we were unlucky and should have put some of our chances away. Although, Javi seems extremely reluctant to play Chalobah even when Capoue or Doucoure are tiring. Today we were unable to stop Bournemouth from counter attacking and Javi failed to respond and adapt tactics when going down to 10 men.

I was in the ground until the end but couldn't wait for that final whistle. It never looked likely we would get back into it as that third goal before half time really killed us off. Fair play to Bournemouth they came and did a job on us. Didn't think the ref was as bad as what has been made out, however, I haven't seen replays so will reserve my full judgement once I see the highlights.

As long as we can regain some defensive stability then I think we can start seeing some positive results again. We don't have it in us to outscore teams as we don't have enough quality and goals upfront. I'm still hopeful that we can get a top 10 finish as long as we learn from our mistakes and not get too complacent. Javi has a lot to think about over the international break and hopefully he will have worked on a plan b when things are not quite going to plan. Today's game was just one of those days but our form has dipped in terms of results. Let's keep positive and hopefully we will see a revitalised side after the break.

 

First goal was against the run of play and I suddenly thought just before the half hours mark: "It'll be a red card and penalty soon..." I switched off and carried on with Ozark Series 2.

I absolutely dread playing the Muff Divers.

 

An awful day, hold ups on the M25, car parks rammed, rainy autumnal day all backed up with a dreadful result

Thought it was an even game even after the first goal. The penalty and the sending off made a comeback unlikely and so it proved

Doucoure taking too long on the ball, Deeney back to his last year self, defensive frailties and Bournemouth clinical with their finishing

Disappointing after such a good start to the season, think we will get battered at wolves

 

No win in 5 and people are still harping on about a good start?

LDLLL. Guess what, that's relegation form.

 

I stand corrected.

 

We need to rotate players a little bit more now we have less injuries. It helps keep players sharp knowing that if they don’t have a great game they may not be in the team next game but it also doesn’t help the opposition knowing exactly how you are going to play and set up every time. With Chalobah, Deulofeu & success, we can easily switch formations and actually give us some width. It’s so predictable knowing Pereyra & Hughes are going to cut inside 95% of the time

 

Today I was disappointed to see no tactical reaction when we went down to 10 men. Kabs going off was a massive turning point in the game, but we didn't reduce the impact by being clever and sacrificing a striker. If Gray was an incredible player, who could score goals from nothing, then I could understand it, but he's not. If you're going to put Capoue in defence, then you need someone else in midfield. Chalobah is perfect for that. When is he going to be integrated back into the side? He's not even being used as a sub to gain a few sneaky minutes in building himself up.

Seems like Javi has his favourites and it takes a lot before he trusts others to break into the side. I think now, even though performances have been good before today, results have not. Once the emotion of a game disappears all you're left with is the result. People will see a gradual decline and say Watford are tailing off as they always do.

The second half seemed a hopeless cause, which was a disappointment. Watford did nothing to give fans any glimmer of hope. We've been in this position before, losing 0-3 at Arsenal and United in previous seasons, yet we've fought back and made it a game in the second half. Today there was none of that, it was just a question of how many would Bournemouth get.

Now is the time to shake it up and make some changes. Next game Holebas and Kabs will be suspended, so there will be two forced changes. I would go with a different formation as well at Wolves. We need to be less gung-ho and a lot more compact.

I think you need to bring Deulofeu and Chalobah back into the side, and tweak the formation, so they can be part of the side.

 

Took my 6 year old to his first game today: not an ideal start against the town where we live.

He still loved the day out though which i guess is all that matters!! Bloody football....

I haven’t read the previous comments but I’m not sure how the linesman missed the shirt pull on Kabasele in the build up to the penalty incident. From where I was watching I wasn’t sure that Kabasele had to dive in? I thought the angle was getting tighter and would have fancied Foster to make the save.

There are such small margins in games: if Cathcart has put that header away things might have been very different.

Fingers crossed we don’t pick up injuries over the international break to add to our suspensions...

 

Yes our last 4 league games has only resulted in 1 point which is relegation form. However, two of those games were against Arsenal and Man U. Even so we should have come out of both those games with at least a point. I think what has been encouraging is the spirit and fight we have shown in these games. Unfortunately today we didn't see any of this.

 

I personally thought the Pereyra volley at the back post followed by a bit of a scramble proved the difference, had he just put his foot through it ala Brighton we’d have won that comfortably. First 10 we were well on top. After that it went to pot. I like Kabasele but he repeatedly gets caught out of position, did against Fulham, spurs in the cup, arsenal and today, at his age needs to sort it out. It was a penalty but the red was a bit harsh, Moss wasn’t going to do anything until their number 3 came whimpering in his ear. Everyone was poor, a complete off day, it happens.

 

But shout out to Foster for his save just before the first goal; one of the best saves I’ve ever seen.

 

What can happen with keeping the same side week in week out is that on occasions those players become complacent and think they can just stroll around and get a result without being organised and concentrated from the start knowing their positions have been safe.
As others have said we might need to freshen up the side, bringing in Chalobah for Doucoure/Capoue and Deulofeu for Hughes isn't a bad call.
Defensively I don't know what we can do as we are short in some quality there.

 

The worry for me is that the enforced changes at the back make it even more unlikely that Javi will make changes elsewhere in the side.

I hope he proves me wrong, but if he starts vs wolves with the same midfield and attack formation then it shows he's learning nothing

 

But top notch forwards don't come to a club with one of the lowest wage bills in the league, and that have no European football. Alcacer is an irrelevance to us - he went to a Champions League team that play in front of 80,000 people. He was never coming to a team like Watford, it just doesn't work like that.

Our status is such that we can't sign a proven top notch forward. We either take a punt on an up and coming forward, go for one that's prolific in a lesser league or pay a lot of money for a semi competent Premier League striker like Gray. If we get lucky and one might come good, otherwise we'll be stuck with what we have... a selection of lower Premier League forwards who will do a job sometimes and offer next to nothing other times.

 

Some stats, which shows we are the dirtiest team in the Premier League.

Since our promotion, we've had more red cards than any other club (13)

We've conceded the 2nd most penalties (19). Only West Ham have conceded more.

By the same token, during the same period, Bournemouth have received the most penalties...….which I was amazed by

 

Sooner or later the sample size becomes big enough that excuses like " we deserved more out of those games" doesn't stack up.

I hope you're right and that it's just bad luck and it will turn, rather than that it's inherent weaknesses in our set up, such as bad squad use, poor finishing ability and defensive concentration issues, which I believe it is

 

We didn't even buy a ticket for the "unearthed a gem on the cheap" lottery though.

 

Agree. Unless you count buying an Isaac Success shaped ticket a few years ago, mislaying it, finding it down the back of the sofa and crossing our fingers it was still valid.

 

Just watched the goals again. Kabs got the ball but he got the player first so cant have too many complaints. Cathcart played their player on for the third.

As someone else said we were well on top and then just threw the game away. Too many players had an off day. Disappointed in JB for not geting Mapps on after the sending off despite seeminly have him warm up for the rest of the half, through out half time and into the second half. That failure to act cost us two goals today. Bournemouth are distinctly average and if Pereya doesnt make a hash of his effort early on then perhaps we go on and win.

Now we have players coming back from injury I hope we go back to 4-2-3-1 as it suits the players we have. If we stick with two up front then give Success a try

 

Distinct lack of dignity whilst winning.

 

I don't feel quite so bad now. Yet another away game without a goal though......not good.

 

What pi55e5 me off most,when 0-3 down and the contest basically over, why didn’t Gracia bring chalobah on to gain some more match fitness ? We need to freshen things up against wolves, surely bringing chalobah in to the starting line up is a must., having 45 minutes under his belt would have been beneficial

 

Said exactly the same thing. Same goes for Quina. Get him on the bench too for times like that.

 

Change in formation (4231) needed for the Wolves game I think. Get Deulofeu, Hughes and Bobby playing together with Success up front solo. It's clear teams have sussed us out already and if we are to win games, we need to try and outscore them because it's evident that our defence and it's depth is just not good enough... Mapps as first choice replacement for Kabs says it all really.

Perhaps even bring in Chalobah over Doucs or Capoué to show them that they haven't got guaranteed starting places.

If we can take a thrashing against Bournemouth at home, Wolves away will be a fun one...