Leadership is so important with no crowd to motivate them. Ivic should be telling them to constantly talk, shout, encourage eachother, irrespective of whether a pass, shot or tackle is good or bad. They need to motivate eachother but seem silent on the pitch. Perhaps we do need Deeney on the pitch afterall ?
Decent performance!??? Did you see how many time we passed the ball straight into touch and how isolated our forwards were? I thought it was a very poor performance all round bar a couple of exceptions.
Urgh. He’s going to use the lack of genuine left back as a stubborn reason to go down with the ship, rather than compromising with Kiko and getting more out of Sarr/JP/Sema. On borrowed time.
Infuriating. I am giving serious consideration to wetting the bed here. I am sick of these stubborn managers who refuse to make changes when it's crystal clear their current approach isn't working. I don't even understand the logic. If he sticks to the formation, the blame is all on him. We know it's not going to work. If he changes to a 4-3-3 or similar... If it works he'll be a 'tactical genius'. If it doesn't, at least we can see he's trying and the blame is more likely to fall on the owners or the players. It genuinely seems sometimes these managers are trying to get fired...
I hope he's not on borrowed time, as that will be another disaster and would probably be fatally disruptive to a promotion push....although it did work out with the Joka, not so sure that trick will continually work. However, he is proving to be a little too cautious. He's waiting for players to be 100% fit, mentally and physically, before selecting them. He doesn't want to switch to 4-3-3 because we don't have a natural left back, although Kiko can play that position perfectly well. Another example, where he brings on Gray after 76 minutes and Hughes on 82 minutes. It's far too late to change the direction of the game at that point. He wanted to just give some minutes to players with these substitutions rather than use them as game changers. He was concerned 10 an extra minutes would see them get an injury. He's got to throw a little more caution to the wind. 3-5-2 is not working. Let's be honest here, we've attained more points than our performances have deserved and we're far too easily defeated. We concede the first goal then we've got nothing to force the game our way. This philosophy has to change. 8 goals in 9 games including three blanks, is just not good enough. We all know what the target is this season. We all know how Gino works. If we get a string of poor results, he'll be gone. Surely he's not that naive to be unaware of this.
After a rancid few days I've realised we are just playing the role of a typical relegated team and are highly likely to finish outside the top 6 this season. It rarely happens, we have most of the squad that got us relegated and they are a mix of lacking confidence, defiant they should not have to get kicked to bits in the Cship, new manager, completely different tactics, it's just goi g to take 20 games to settle things down and work out our best players and formation. Sure GP wants immediate promotion but there are a dozen teams there that are practiced in this division and feel they have a chance. Their tactics are perfect against us, very old hat but it works, and we need to grow up as a team with a few leaders out there, which we don't currently have. I know a lot will disagree, but I think immediate promotion this year could be bad for the club long term. If this young bunch got promoted we would be canon fodder next season, we need two seasons to build the basis of a decent bunch. (OK I guess we need promotion to keep the club safe and afloat but from where we are I dread to imagine next year in the Prem.)
He's probably realised he was lied to about what type of squad he'd be left with after the transfer window(s) slid shut, has come to the conclusion the GP-SD-Floppo axis is impossible to trust & so has decided getting sacked is the best financial solution for him. At future job interviews he could just say they promised him 2 acceptable players for each position but forgot to add the rider "except LB, of course, where you will have zero", so he was forced to play a system with which he was not happy. Most other clubs would probably shrug their shoulders about the "Watford malaise" & decide getting sacked by us is actually a positive on his CV.
I hadn't really considered Stoke as a threat this season but he does seem a good manager and they've made a decent start, beating Brentford too. Their squad doesn't seem too exciting but looks like they could challenge for top 6.
Capoue particularly ! I hope it was just him having a bad game rather than a sign of his attitude to come !
I have low expectations of our team and passing. I don't see our squad as strong as others do and think we will be in with a playoff shot at best. Beyond Capoue none of them are creative or good passers of the ball, and his first half was extremely poor. I do agree with this though. We don't have a left back so instead of playing one player out of position, who is in actual fact a fairly viable option there, we'll play two youngsters out of position inhibiting their undoubted talented and threat if used properly. 4-3-3 is the way to go in order to bypass the lack of attacking quality in our midfield, but even that is hampered by having no centre forward being fit. 5-3-2 requires a midfield to transition the play while wingbacks get up the pitch, or to pick the pass for the forwards - we don't have that 4-3-3 requires a focal point in attack to create space for the two wide players and when not in possession set the tone for pressing to win the ball back. We have shown we can be organised and not concede, but to start scoring goals we need to solve one of or both of the two above issues for me. Even then we don't need to score bucket loads. 2 teams in the last 10-15 season have averaged scoring 2+ goals per game.
Oh dear, "best system with players at his disposal"....... 4231 or 433 are the best systems with the players we have Vlad. We have a great defence with plenty of experience that can look after themselves really, concentrate on our attacking play and ffs stick Sarr and JP on the wings.
Lots of experience in the Stoke squad. Quite shocked they havnt been nearer the top 6 the last two seasons.
I think they've been infected with a similar squad malaise, mainly due to a scattergun recruitment that brings in mentally weak or lazy players.
We must push for promotion and to hold back is madness. To think we would be cannon fodder with this team in the EPL is probably correct but it would strengthened by Deulofeu and new signings bought with the EPL money, and keeping a more experienced Sarr and Pedro.
At least we’ve been consistent in this area for the past 2 or 3 seasons! Watching Ward-Prowse, now Sotons Captain with his brilliant free kicks made me weep. Weren’t we in for him a while ago? Come back Almen Abdi/ anyone who can whip in a corner/free kick.
That's a red herring; if we got promoted, we wouldn't be playing 'this young bunch', just like last time we got promoted, and like almost every other team ever that has. There would be significant investment to bring the squad up to the level required to compete (or, indeed, the level required minus one or two absolutely key areas, if recent history is anything to go by). If we don't go up, we will be in so much worse a position, and without much real reason to consider ourselves likely to do it again in the immediate future once our remaining talented players have left next summer.
And I seem to remember a lot of posts decrying the very idea of signing him as ‘we should be aiming much higher than that type of signing’.
Foster Cathcart-Wilmot -Kabasele Navarro-Chalobah-Quina-Cleverley-Success Murray-Gray You know you want to Vlad
Same for me but Hughes swaps with Quina And Garner in for Quina. Cathcart possibly on for Kabasele , not sure really.
Two straight wins will see us back on course for promotion and all this 'bed wetting', negativity and pessimism will evaporate. But in the meantime I can only see this being an emphatic Stoke win
Pretty clear Hughes and Gray won't be starting from the press conference today. And Ivic seems really pissed not to have a left back or left side centre back. And how does Masina go from being back in November, to back in January to back in February and then needing time to get up to speed? Be amazed if we see him play again this season. Do we even know what his injury was? Also, they've never explained what was up with Hughes, they said it was a non-football related injury at one point but no-one has ever explained what it was. Accept that he has a private life but seems a bit odd in this day and age to not release any information at all.
Tendon injury for Masina I think. https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/18703000.watfords-adam-masina-injured-november/
My word,I've just realised this is Wednesday not tomorrow! Can't watch it anyway now. Great,no work from Wednesday and no football! Bah humbug!
