Certain Relegation/Championship - 2020/2021

Nonsensical to say we should have attacked Sheffield United when we can't score goals.

Our attack is absurdly wasteful, so no matter how many chances we create through attacking play we never score them, we then concede the first goal and then get done on the counter over and over. It has happened for months now.

As long as we don't concede there is always a chance we can score on the counter, but once we concede the first goal it's almost always game over.

 

Yet again you ignore the 'elephant in the room' hb1. That elephant being - played seven, points two, goals conceded twenty. Whatever else we'd tried previously hadn't worked. We'd been the better team in some matches, dominated possession, been unlucky with VAR and missed 'gilt-edged' chances. But nothing had actually worked and the glaring statistic remained. So time for something completely different.

That made the opponent and the venue irrelevant. It was simply our eighth match and the imperative was to 'fix the defence'. This was achieved by chucking another 50% of CB on. And it worked. Should do really. Three are more likely to get it right than two. Now we know we can play that way and succeed defensively. We have 95 mins of precedent to take to Spurs.

Had we played this way against Brighton I would have agreed with you. But it wasn't in the optimism of a new season. It was 7,2,20. Rock bottom of the league.

Wolves play five at the back. They rarely dominate possession. But their counter is superb. So, if we're going to play this way in the future, we need to develop our counter too. We certainly have players fast enough to do it.

Confidence is an ephemeral commodity we're trying to bottle. So, would you say our confidence is higher or lower now than it was on Saturday morning?

 

Lower

 

Park Life!

 

Agreed, lower.
It's a flawed logic to say that because we have conceded shedloads and barely scored that we should focus on not conceding rather than scoring at home to SU. Clearly the defence needed tightening. There is a logic to playing 3 CBs, and being less reliant on the WBs to defend, giving them a remit to push forward which they are better at doing. I get that. That would have been perfect for the away games at Wolves and for the coming Spurs game. But at home to SU ? Their bubble will burst and our terrible luck in front of goal will change. GD & Welbeck are class players, can and will finish, and Sarr clearly has some pace about him. Gray, well he misses a fair few but until recently had a decent goals per minute ratio. I would have preferred to see us go for it at home to SU and I believe we would have conceded but won. The fact that we drew 0-0 won't have helped confidence. It's not a great result when we need to win 10 games this season. Any confidence picked up by the defence from not conceding will be matched and nullified by the strikers losing more confidence due to being unable to score at home to SU, and the manager having so little confidence in the team that he brought in another CD and surrendered possession at home to a promoted team.

 

Well, you'll not be surprised to learn, I beg to differ. Mine's higher.

 

Absolutely agree. We were 1 goal away from a total disaster......and that threat was there for the entire game. Sheffield United nearly scored in the final minute, but motm Kabasele threw his body at it and blocked the shot. But had that gone in, what would people have thought? Lost to a last minute goal.

We'd have been kicking ourselves for being so timid and not trying to beat a team we HAD TO beat.

There are not too many games like Sheffield United at home, that come along. A match where we're actually the favourite. We have to take full advantage of it.

When the Sheffield team saw we had 5 across the back, it would have given them a massive lift. "Look boys....they're terrified of us".....it's an easy team talk. We are paying them the ultimate compliment. They knew they had a easy match ahead of them. All they wanted we 0-0 and we obliged.

 

Definitely lower among the fans, looking at the reaction at full time and the body language and people's talk as they left the ground.

And I can't believe the players took much heart from the clean sheet. Some maybe.

 

Between the two international breaks we trebled our points total!

 

2014/15 was more enjoyable than any of the Prem seasons to me. I'm up for dipping back down to the second tier, re-signing Vydra, Forestieri, Abdi, Tozser, Angella etc and having a fun season and then enduring another 5 year slog in the Prem thereafter.

 

Interesting article on the footballwhispers website about Watford.
A good read.

 

What, this one?

 

https://www.footballwhispers.com/blog/relegation-walk-park-watford-fans-hope

Decent article, not much we as Watford fans don't know already but a good read for someone who doesn't know much about the club (so half our fans).

 

I think this bit is incorrect:
"As for Cucho Hernández, Luis Suárez, Filip Stuparevi* and Adalberto Peñaranda, the likelihood of them suddenly being parked at Vicarage Road for a promotion push when they’ve hardly set foot in England – albeit due to work permit issues – is incredibly slim. Particularly if Troy Deeney and Andre Gray, proven Championship forwards, remain on the books."

A season in the Championship could be beneficial for all of them - both to get them acclimatised to playing regularly in England and to hopefully build some confidence up for if we were to get promoted again. Also, if the club had some sense they would sell Deeney at the end of this season anyway - his contract expires in 2021 and he does not deserve a new one. Long-term, if the club is truly to progress we need to look passed him.

Bachmann
Navarro - Wilmot - Cathcart - Masina/Estupinan
Dele - Chalobah - Quina
Choochoo - Suarez/Stuparevic - Penaranda/Success

Could have the makings of a decent, exciting team.

The article claims that: "But thinking Watford will brush aside all before them and breeze back to the Premier League with a swashbuckling young side comprised of homegrown youngsters and the best prospects from the farthest-flung corners of the globe is na*ve."

Sure it may be a tad idealistic, but that's not to say it's impossible.

The biggest question mark were we to get relegated would be the futures of Sarr. At this rate I can't see any other clubs taking Sarr of our hands again for close to what we paid for him, and I doubt the Pozzos would be eager to take a big hit on him straight away. Perhaps a season in the Championship might also not be dreadful for him to get adjusted to England, but he might also see it below him. Could he perhaps go on loan to Udinese until if/when we get promoted again?

 

Depends if they're in Serie B by then I guess.

 

We have to win at least a third of our remaining fixtures, if our players looked up for the fight we might have a chance but they dont.

 

Article in the Watty Obs points out that about half the clubs who have had a similar start as us after 8 games survive. Somehow though I don't feel the odds on us staying up are 50-50. Changing managers or a couple of players does not look like it will make the difference in attitude we need. I do not think grinding out 0-0 s draws against teams we could beat will save us.
At some stage the manager has to take a different approach and use players who do not already think we are beaten when they walk onto the pitch.

 

Oooo, get your claws out

 

Lose away to Spurs and home to Muff and it’s really all over for us.

 

We are 4/6 to be relegated now. 2nd favourites. This is probably as low as we'll go if we beat Bournemouth on the weekend.

I still firmly believe we'll finish above at least 3 other teams. Norwich have grinded to a halt. Brighton look awful. Newcastle equally bad. Sheffield United will drop I think with no strength in depth. Southampton are also looking pretty weak. We only need to outperform 3 of these.

You may say "yeah but we only drew against 3 of those teams listed so how can you possibly see wins against better teams". Yes we did, with Gracia at the helm for 2 and our first clean sheet in 20 games v Sheffield in what was the start of the rebuild under QSF.

I think 33 points will be enough to survive this year. I think we'll get at least 33 points.

I'm sure there'll be enough of you coming back at me saying to justify it with facts. I obviously can't. It's just my strong opinion.

I'll put my money where my mouth is and lay on a wedge on us staying up.

Feel free to rinse me for this post in May if I'm wrong. I'll take it!

 

The power of positive thinking. Let's keep positive for the team until things are mathematically confirmed.

There is a long way to go and the recent performances have been much better, giving up hope.

 

I'm with you. I also think we'll stay up.

While we've put out some terrible performances this year, we've also been horrendously unlucky with VAR decisions etc. and a couple of back to back wins will still lift us out of the relegation zone.

Confidence is clearly in the toilet, but I suspect as soon as we get a result we'll see a significant uptick in form (which makes the Spurs robbery at the weekend all the more galling).

 

Yeah Sheffield United are as good as down....

 

No strength in depth. Will see how the second half of the season goes.

To be honest Arsenal have been atrocious. Even at 80 minutes they were passing it around the back 4 for a couple of minutes as if they were winning. No urgency at all. David Luiz made more backward passes than forwards.

I can't account for a piss poor arsenal I'm afraid.

 

Good result for them today. many on here lambasted us for drawing with them.

yet they have beaten arsenal (5th), palace (6th) and Everton (15th).

 

Mathematically confirmed? We're nine games into the season!

 

The Chelsea game is at Vicarage Road so I feel if we get a win Vs. Bournemouth we might be able to sneak something out of the Chelsea game as we’ll be up for it.

 

I think you may have misread what he wrote, perhaps?

The suggestion was to keep positive UNTIL the maths is hopeless, not that it already is.

 

So despite what some of our clueless lot on here say, that 0 0 with Sheff Utd wasn't as bad as it seems.

A win on Saturday and we could be just 3 points off 12th.

 

I did not misread you, I was meaning to reinforce your point to all the doom mongers who have already written us off.

 

Yep. Anyone who is questioning our performance after not winning for 13 league games sure is “clueless”.

Incidentally we can’t be 3 points of 12th by winning Saturday.