Newcastle United FC 1-0 Watford FC - 03/11/2018

Well, that was a total waste of your money, then.

 

I support everything Gracia did.

Leave Okaka alone

 

Didn't watch the game.

Speaks more sense that those that did.

 

Just watched highlights. Staggered that professional footballers can miss so many clear cut chances - Delefeuo, Gray, Okaka, Mapps!

It is just disappointing - the game should have been over at half time. It is quite shocking - £50 k a week and some basic misses

 

A good run home on the A1 was the highlight of the day, just pipping the all day breakfast in the Pontefract Morrisons. On the game, we were far superior in the first half, but petered out in the second. Personally I thought Mapps had a poor game, Hughes never got going and seemed out muscled by his opposite number. Success was ineffective. Despite his miss I thought Okaka did ok winning the ball and making good linking passes. Gray did not break sweat. Which just shows the value Deeney brings to the first team. Him in instead of Success and I think we win the game.

 

The first two paragraphs are what I was talking about when I say an over reaction. First paragraph says we had no plan at all. Did you watch the first half? Second paragraph says we are weak in defence yet we’ve conceded 1 goal in 3 games!
We are 8th in the premier league on merit not luck. We are a decent team that today created 5 clear cut chances. Teams take 3 or 4 games to create that many chances and we did it in one. We didn’t convert them but unfortunately that’s the level of player we have and will realistically always have. Proven goal scorers at this level will not sign for us unless we are taken over by a rich Arab who can afford to offer £300k a week

 

You're confusing Watford with the hokey-cokey

 

Do you honestly think Glenn Murray is on that kind of money?

Seriously, Watford can afford to sign players who are better than we already have. It's just a matter of do they want to. Personally I think we need a stop gap. Maybe a good player for this position on loan in January. We have young players coming in for this position, so the future looks promising, but for the here and now, we need someone who can take just basic chances. There are plenty of those around and I'm sure we could get someone in. Who would have thought we could attract the likes of Pererya or Deulofeu, but we managed to sign them. We're not talking about Aguero, just a player who is remotely competent would fit the bill.

We've already screwed up the Fulham and Newcastle matches purely because of a lack of a striker. We should not drop points against these clubs.

Watched Richarlison's finishing for Everton tonight. What I'd give to have a player who could do that on our books. Two wonderful strikes.

 

I was out with Mrs Mazzereth in Bath doing some shopping, 0-0 after 60 mins with us having the most chances, there was only one way it was going to go, despite frantically hitting 'Refresh' in Paperchase at 16.51, it was still 1-0.

 

I wonder what Elton’s been texting tonight.

 

No I don’t think he is on that money but I can imagine the meltdown if we had signed him in the summer and players like Murray are not the norm. Who do you think we should go for in January and I’m not trying to provoke an argument because I desperately want a goal scorer but don’t think there are many available at a price we can afford. There is a reason we got Delofeou, he is not good enough consistently

 

Big game coming up for Gracia. Lose this and he could be Sacked 2 games into a new contract .

Probably best he’s given his orders tonight so the new manager has enough time to prepare for the Soton game .

 

Yep totally agree with every point on your post . Just felt after the great points you made that making any reference to how you weren't gonna criticise the manager was unnecessary.

 

It's unlikely we'd be able to sign a striker of the quality we need in January on a permanent basis. This is why I said we should look to the loan market.

We did have Alcacer lined up, regardless of what others might think, so that is the quality we were looking at in the summer. In January there are usually a few players at top clubs that cannot get a game. This is what we need. A player at a top English or Spanish/Italian club who is on the fringes but would like a loan move to a club where he's going to get game time in the Premier League.

West Brom got Sturridge last season, ok that didn't work out, but there are good players out there. Danny Ings went to Southampton, Origi is still out of the picture at Liverpool.

How about El Haddadi from Barcelona? A good young striker. Doesn't get too much game time, but would be excellent at Watford.

When it comes to strikers, the bar is set quite low at Watford. It wouldn't take too much to improve what we already have.

 

You’re

 

Alcacer maybe a player we wanted but was out of our league eventually in terms of money and ability.
The players you mention would be a risk for different reasons and are only available as they haven’t been good enough. Ings obviously had a bad injury but wasn’t deemed good enough. Currently has 3 goals. Origi has never scored more than about 6 goals a season and Sturridge is a liability injury wise. I’ve not heard of the lad at Barcelona but Sturridge aside, none of them proven at this level and Sturridge would want a kings ransom

 

Troy is not a lone striker. Never has been never will be.

 

I struggle to understand the criticism of Mariappa and thought he was probably the pick of our players.

There were at least three occasions when brilliant tackles or blocks saved us. I thought he was really good.

Although this defeat is galling, it was just a bad day at the office. Okaka hasn't played in goodness knows how long and was unfortunate with his miss, but it was a long way from the our worst miss of the game. He battled well I thought and caused their defence different problems. Success worked really hard and was unlucky. He was very well marshalled and they doubled up on him a lot of the time. I thought their right back had an excellent ga,e. It was a shame that Deeney wasn't on the bench as the change might have been Deeney/Gray on for Success/Deulofeu to try something different.

Of those who had a bit of an off day, I thought Hughes, Holebas, Capoue and Cathcart were off song. Even in the first 5 mins or so, there were a number of passes going astray. Where in other games we seem to emerge from tackles with the ball most of the time, in this one it was the other way round for some reason. Complacency? Commitment? Urgency? Desire? I'm not sure.

 

The Cup game aside, this is patently incorrect.

 

You're always the one around here to start having a pop at people if you don't like a view, no one else does it. They might disagree with an opinion, and that is cool, but it rarely gets personal. Except you. There's absolutely no need for it. Can't you handle your booze or something? Maybe you need to stay off social media until you've grown up a bit.

 

Totally agree about Holebas...his delivery is not as good as in the first few games and he keeps getting booked. Give Masina a proper run in the side and see if Holebas can control himself.

 

Hi HB1...very good points. A few of us were pointing out the striker issue in the close season. However I think Origi although expensive would be the type of player we need. Not played out wide but down the middle. Pace, shooting outside the box and fantastic in the air. Okaka has to go along with Sinclair. I would give Success a bit more time and pressure needs to be maintained on Gray/ Deeney.

 

Spot on...we are ultra critical. Most of the pundits said we played well apart from our finishing. We should try and remember all those dreadful performances away at the end of last season to get perspective.

 

I think I added the bit at the end just to stress that after my previous six months people might expect me to be one of the first on here criticising Gracia every time we lose a match, but that’s not the case.

I’m actually happy reading this thread today and seeing how many people are so annoyed. That’s a good thing. It shows how much higher the bar has been raised this season. We do expect to win such matches as yesterday’s and feel angry/disappointed/let down that we haven’t. This season is on course to be our best since promotion and setbacks are frustrating.

 

The suggestions given would all be an upgrade and on loan would be feasible. The common forum response to anyone critical of the summer transfer performance is “we can’t afford anyone - give me names”. This poster provided a list of reasonable names so If the response is “no they are rubbish” then we can’t win.

 

We cancsign better strikers. I think it makes a massive difference where we are in the league and how we demonstrate our ambition.

In the summer, we were the bookies favourites, and many pundits favourites, to go down. Most of our fanbase seemed to think that, "if only we can escape relegation, it would be a great season." All that stuff sends the wrong messages to potential signings with ambition. In addition, the sort of football we play is also important. That is why those chances we create are so important. Any natural goalscorer with the ambition to break into the Premier League would be licking their lips with anticipation, knowing that we can be a stepping stone to a top club.

I'm not suggesting we can go for a proven £40m striker, but there is no reason why we couldn't get a better striker, with more goalscoring ability, than the likes of Deeney, Gray or Okaka.

Just as important, in my view is that we should not spend (waste) more money on our defence at this time. I totally disagree with some on here that say our defence is weak. It isnt. It is strong enough to cope with any team bar the top handful. Yet again, like probably 80% of our games this season, our opponents yesterday had very few actual chances. We were just unlucky in defence yesterday. It was our goalscorers that were short in ability.

 

It's not that we can't afford them, it's that we won't pay for them. Alcacer was a pipe dream, Ings and Sturridge would've been too big a risk with high wages and their injury records. Would've liked us to go for Origi, he'd have been a worthwhile punt.

 

They had an off day for the same reason as I left a meatball in the dish and didn't put it out for the foxes and my neighbour hasn't returned my book.
We make mistakes and have below par days.
Hopefully the team will atone next Saturday.

 

Jesus Christ, you must be a troll at this stage.

 

Criticism of Success after yesterday is bonkers - he was our best player and laid chances on a silver platter for Deulofeu, Gray and Pereyra. He should have got at least 3 assists.

 

It already is, hence why we go again and keep posting it.

 

Correct. But it’s a circular argument. Pozzo won’t pay for a risky expensive striker (or seemingly an established centre back) so we need to hope one of our young prospects flourishs in due course. Until then if our misfiring strikers miss a bundle of chances or one of our budget centre backs makes an error then it’s not Gracia’s fault. What can he do? All he can do is hope the excellent midfield where we do seem happy to invest papers over any cracks and dominates games enough to outweigh that (and that thankfully seems to be happening more often than not).

 

Tbf Gray scored 3 goals in 6 games before the Bournemouth game which isn't bad.
Gracia decided to try a new look side after it all went wrong against Bournemouth.
It's worked for a couple of games but not yesterday. These things happen.
It's hard to know what is the best XI because not everyone will play well every week.