Guess it’s a case of perception. I watched the replay carefully and it looks to me like he purposely puts that much power into it whilst giving it a proper run up. Looked like a very clever bit of play to me but I do understand it’s a tough call!
Was a bit of a strange set up today as well - was neither 3-5-2 or 3-4-3. It was more of the latter - but with Cleverley playing the LH striker role but also dropping deeper which Sarr wasn’t expected to do on the other side. We looked better in terms of attacking shape today I think and forced many corners, and also Sema was a bigger factor in the final third because of it. But Cleverley doesn’t suit the role he was asked to. I think Ivic is going to have to drop a player he doesn’t want to at some stage if he wants to keep that shape.
IMO Ivic likes to mix things up a bit so not to be predictable. Sema has been wing back and attacking mid Different players have occupied the no 10 spot etc We will attack down 1 flank in the first half then switch 2cnd half
Just watched it again on Quest. He 100% means it - but I defended Foster on the shoutbox and said he naturally steps out with his back line as the ball is semi-cleared...but he doesn’t. Instead he makes an inexplicable move forward by a couple of yards as the player runs on to the header. Not a total error and doubt it’d be repeated. But he didn’t help himself for sure!
We're a quarter of the way through, I don't think that there are many clubs in this league who would be able to rotate and maintain a certain level like we can. The December fixture pile up looks horrible and I hope we just throw away the FA Cup3rd round match, we really do not need an additional distraction.
Such a shame that Ferguson took all the joy out of his game. Wasted years having to pretend he was a ball winning midfielder
The bit that makes me smile are the people who say we had a great window who then go on to give laboured excuses for our lack of consistency in attack, our wobbly defence and our stubborn adherence to a turgid and constipated formation.
The one thing that I do seriously appreciate about Ivic is that he calls it as we see it as well. He's not afraid to own his mistakes or let the squad hide behind typical clichés when they win poorly or give up results.
Nah this was far better than Wycombe, Cov had a few good chances that they should have scored even apart from their rather smash and grab goals in the second half, but we were generally on top and could have nabbed a few more ourselves. We were bossed by Wycombe, who not only missed some gilt-edged chances (with us creating very little), but they were so unlucky to have a goal ruled out at the end. I'd rather play 4-2-3-1 all things considered, but I think we've seen in the last few games that we can make something out of 3-5-2, though it very much depends on personnel (as JP gets little out joy out of playing with Sarr), and we could do with having a settled defence (within reason given the fixture pile-up)
For what it's worth, I was banging the drum for Mason to play that Brighton game after Holebas got sent off in the cup...surely he couldn't have done any worse than Britos? Dan Phillips is very raw, but there might be a player there, who knows, if we blow this season and find ourselves stuck in this Godforsaken hellhole named the Championship, he might be pushing for a place in the team with Cassidy in the next few seasons Vlad clearly reads these forums then!
I can’t believe after 64 mins they were so up, big wins all over the pitch! But then unexplained GOALS were dumped from nowhere! Time to prosecute. FRAUD!!!
From November to Christmas our fixture run looks tough. I think Ivic will rotate a lot and he will do well to keep us in the top 2
You don’t start a season with 32 points from 13 games through pure luck when you have King, Henderson and Johnson in your team to score goals/create chances though. We won many games pretty convincingly as well so for the most part we weren’t nicking results. But that was also part of the problem in the long run, in that our squad was too reliant on a few players (one of them a short-term loanee) and we lacked the funds to augment it or even hold onto our better players to maintain our high position. Once the goals started drying up due to Aidy’s one-dimensional tactics and/or one of our strikers was sold (as happened with Hendo and King respectively, although the former still ended up as top scorer, which shows how poor the rest of the team was in the scoring department) it was clear that the team would fall out of the auto promotion picture (though amazingly we still had a chance to go top as late as the Barnsley home game, where instead we produced one of the worst Watford performances in modern times). We largely played well at the start, not always convincing at home, but we got results. But the West Brom footballing masterclass seemed to deflate the team’s confidence (it seemed to have the same effect on the team that Man Utd in the League Cup apparently had on us in 2000/01, and it was like the players felt it would be more of the same if we went back up), then it was a mixture of really good and (mostly at home) really bad until the Leicester home game, after which the bad became the norm. This season feels different because although we are playing worse than at the start of 2007/08, it feels like we can improve because we have more depth, more money and a better manager who’s willing to try different things, and we know clearly we can improve our away performances without being blinded by a few narrow wins, and again we have a manager who is keen to identify the root of the problem which bodes well.
999/1000 times the opponent wants to head the ball back into the gap between the defence and the keeper for an onrushing forward or similar via a flick or deflection . Foster was positioning himself to close that gap and imo he's in just about the right position. It was just a freaky header. I have seen Blissett score from a similar position in the 80's and seen Helguson nearly score from that area, but thats it.
There is a lot more skill in players individually than we have had in this division before, by that I mean we don’t have any cloggers but every player has a higher skill level, it’s just a case of putting those skills into effect to make a team! We are in the transitional stage, the finished product will see some more convincing performances!
Either way I think the comparisons to our team now and that Boothroyd team and how it ended up are a bit silly. The only two things that are the same now as back then, is that we’re still called Watford and we’ve just been relegated. Everything else couldn’t be more different.
Actually he did have a couple of dodgy games, but overall I would prefer him on the right and Kiko on the left in a back four.
