I'm marvelling at the perfect straightness of HB1's fringe on the right of that photo. Not many people style their hair with a helix ruler.
My team for Cardiff would be Foster Kiko Kabasele (ONLY JOKING- Mapps) Cathcart Holebas Gerard Doucoure Quina Pereayra Success Deeney I understand why Javi wanted to use Sema vs Everton as he is a bit more solid defensively, but I'm sure we can afford to play Gerard at home v Cardiff
Just a thought - Deeney for make-shift centre-back? He is a very experienced player who knows his way round a football pitch. Frequently we see him display good defensive nous. And nobody is going to go through him .
The only way in any shape or form that we would have made Silva feel uneasy last night was by having a player he froze out score the winner and celebrate the winner right in front of him. For that reason Okaka should have been brought on. Gracia out.
Everybody has always demanded consistent refereeing! Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the ref add on 4 minutes at the end of the Man City game - and while we were doing standard time-wasting last night, they took it to a whole new level at the Vic. If the ref learned at half time that he'd cocked up with the Walcott offside, wouldn't it have been fair if he's been a bit relaxed about stopping his watch in the final stages of the match? That wouldn't have been cheating, just exercising discretion in a subjective area.
Drop Holebas after one of his better games? Why? Kabasele was poor but we need to get over this syndrome of only looking the previous 90 minutes - Mariappa was declining game by game before he was dropped, so why should he come back? Personally I think it should be Wilmot but knowing it won’t be, I’d stick with Kabasele. And Chalobah is a tough one. We know how good he is and he has no chance of recapturing that without games - Cardiff is a game he can get through I think but don’t forget they have Arter who won’t think twice with a late niggly tackle. Plus playing alongside Quina seemed to bring a few sparks of the Doucoure of last season back. If no Wilmot, I’d go with the same team again. Sema deserves another run too.
That thought has occurred to me too. The problem is that we need a quick defender to partner the rock at the back, and our best defender is our existing rock, Cathcart. Troy could turn out to be better than Prodl or Mariappa as an understudy to Cathcart, though.
Cathcart is not a ‘rock’. He’s just our most consistent defender but let’s not kid ourselves that he’s any better than he is. That not me slagging him off, I just don’t buy us making out our players are better than they are. If we signed a great CB, we’d soon realise Cathcart is pretty ordinary, yet reliable. I think however, some on here are forgetting or not realising playing as a CB is an art in itself - and to I don’t believe you can learn to be a PL centre-back at the age of 30+ when you’ve been an average PL striker. Deeney puts himself about, wins a FEW flick ons and has little pace. It’s a ridiculous idea.
Apologies to those whose posts I've just read say the same thing. I promise this idea came to me independently. Zeitgeisty-thing, as Holebas might say.
I had a bit of time to contemplate the outcome of the free kick last night as having read it had been given in the shoutbox, i reverted to watching it on a stream that was a bit behind the time. So i'm thinking.. "Keep this out and..... First ever win at Goodison (in 14 attempts) Up 4 places in the table. Off the foot of the form table. First ever win in the Premier League having been trailing at half time" and not least "make up for the earlier decisions that went against us" So with so much riding on the outcome.. the inevitable happens! Been a long time since i felt so deflated over an away draw.. and one which we hadn't played half bad in. We take positives and all that but there was one thing that occured to me. I could be wrong but i have a feeling the only victory we have this season against a side that were above us in the table was Spurs. That right?
I did think about that actually. Guess they were above us on alphabetical order when the game started but at the moment we beat them we must have been above them in the table.. the "live" table at least
By "rock", I meant a relatively static defender who can guard the middle alongside a more mobile colleague. It wasn't a value judgement. Nevertheless, I think you underrate Cathcart
I was not trying to be smart, I agree with your original sentiment. One of my pet hates is FAs searching for people who could play for them when they have no current link to the country and players playing for them, as they will never make the team of a major nation. As an aside, the “home grown” rule is pointless, if the English FA want more players to chose from it should be “English qualified”.
Actually, being realistic, none of us have to be. We're just a bunch of football followers yabbering away on a forum. We don't have control of anything in football.
I think that criticism of our overall defending is a bit unfair, Kabesele's mad rushes of blood aside. I don't have stats available, but I am pretty sure that our defence is quite frugal when it comes to how many chances we allow the opposition comparesd with other teams. None of the defenders are world beaters, but they defend well, in my view - backed by nothing more than my personal recollection
24 hours later: That was one of the best Watford games I've seen this season: Goals, controversy, keenly-contested and I thought we had the moral victory there. Everton know they got away with one. The penalty save by Foster was excellent - his foot wasn't there by accident and he cleared the ball, didn't just stop it. Quina looks really promising - a really good player. Deeney and Sema decent. Pereyra arguably the best player on the pitch. Who would you rather have - Richarlison or Pereyra? Pereyra for me. Richarlison may well develop into a fantastic player, but my guess is he will always have his weaker points - such as his striking: Not bad, but not instinctive or great, either. And he still falls over and complains too much. Did he do that in his 'favela'? (And I wonder a bit about that - makes a good story and no doubt he was pretty poor, but..?) Doucoure had a much better game, I thought, and that header was just what both he and we needed. It was a style of goal rarely accomplished by Watford these days: A storming header from someone running onto a cross from the wing, with the defenders static and helpless. We should try that more often - a striker (well, midfielder in his case) running onto the ball in the box. Maybe that will improve his confidence. Delefeou coming on as a sub worked, I thought, and he has an assist to his credit. Holebus excellent. When he keeps his temper he is one of our better players. Yes, I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me and yes, losing his temper is often a big problem. (Actually, I was in full sympathy with him at the end of this match and felt much like he obviously did). Javi showed again that he has good imagination and experience, is not in thrall to any one player, and can develop and modify game-plans thoughtfully. He doesn't always get things right, but very few coaches do in the Premier League. He certainly won the battle of the coaches last night. BUT---- Kabasele! He lost us two points and very very nearly three. Importantly, this was not a one-off. I repeat from my post yesterday - he is a liability. It is no good looking our best defender for 88 minutes when the other 2 minutes cost us the game. Kabasilly. I'm still angry.
Yep. I basically put all my favourite teams (the big ones) at the top and then Watford always around the bottom when I appoint referees. Just you wait until you see who I’ve given us this weekend...he’s basically a beginner.