Watford Fc 1-1 Brentford - 15/12/2020

But why didn't the players start the match with some intent?. They have to take some responsibility too. I think that may have been why Deeney was getting frustrated in that first half and talking to the players. We had games under Pearson that were the same, i.e. where there were contrasting halves of football.

 

A manager from the former Yugoslavia will be sacked in the morning following a 1-1 draw tonight.

Sadly for us it’s Bilic, not our clown.

Pity.

 

He's been making basic errors like this for years. If he grew a brain he'd be a good player but at his age I think that ship has already sailed.

Also starting to think Troost-Ekong is actually ****.

 

I don't think one up front is inherently negative at all whatever level you are at, nor any other formation - it's what 4-3-3 is based on, after all, and that is as non-negative as you can get. It's purely down to tactics within that starting point of a formation, and coaching. So yes, in this case, it will be negative.

 

Yep I was jumping for joy when I saw that until I started to read the comments

 

No reason we can’t play 4–3-3 with Perica at the front

 

Just back from the game (how nice it is to say that again).

I went with my eyes wide open, expecting a poor game, but I wasn’t going for the football. I just wanted to see live football at the Vic.

The first half went as expected. I won’t speak of it again.

The second half was much better and at times it appeared a game of football might break out. I got 2 penalties, a red card and a dubious disallowed goal for the price of my ticket. I got football!

Frustrated to be denied the win, but a point was fair on the balance of the 90 minutes.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

• Capoue is better than Chalobah. A lot better.
• Sarr is being coached to hang back. It’s very frustrating.
• Sema is insanely good at hitting the by line for a cutback.... when he is playing full back. As a winger he never does. Very odd.
• I really like young Ngakia.

 

To be fair, Nath has a point about most things, and I don't think we're going up this season, but he's one of those people who is going to find issue with anything, I'm quite new here but I remember him moaning even when we were right in the thick of a European race. Whatever floats your boat I guess, forum people are generally about 50 times as negative as regular people!

 

Dunno about you, but if I am a footballer and other players abilities aren't better than mine then I would expect to play. Regardless of what a fan or two might think of me.

 

Again, as I've now said many times before, why do people take my posts on a forum quite so seriously and look for some sort of deeper meaning in them?

I'm honestly not sure where the assumption comes from that anything to do with Watford actually has any sort of affect on my - or anyone else's - day to day life because of "angry" forum posts around match time.

I can assure you that within an hour or two of another of our awful performances it means absolutely nothing to the rest of my life.

 

Kiko Femenia deserves credit for the way he has played this season, I thought he'd get eaten alive in this division and was looking forward to him ******* off. But he's playing really well at the moment so fair play.

 

This is my last comment on this as I'm going to bed now. I've not argued we shouldn't have been behind at half time - this is you saying I said that. I've not argued that fact. You brought luck into this -apparently we were lucky not to be 4-0 down at half time. I'm not hung up on it. I just find it strange when people massively overstate things to try to get their point across.

 

Was that when we were "right in the thick of a European race" or when we were absolutely blowing it and sliding down the table to finish 11th? Which funny enough was the start of the slide to where we are now.

 

If Sarr is being deliberately coached by Ivic to hang back in the Championship then Pozzo is setting his own money on fire. Surely even Pozzo is not that incompetent to stand for that.

 

Not me mate.

 

If being completely outplayed and dominated in every department whilst our opponents miss multiple chances and almost score repeatedly but coming in at 0-0 isn't "lucky" then I really don't know what is, in a footballing sense.

 

But that response doesn’t relate at all to your original point. You said you don’t know why he’s getting stick...

His defence can’t be ‘I know I’m bad, but they are worse...so you can’t give me stick’.

He’s getting stick because he’s been crap for weeks and for the majority of his time with us. Forget others.

 

Sarr is not being deliberately coached by Ivic to hang back.

 

Yet again another game without a goal from open play. Yet again another home game without a goal from open play. 3 shots on target (including the pen) at home against a team down to 10 men for 30 mins. It's just not good enough. That first half was poor. At home, if you're not fast off the blocks then the manager/coach is not setting you up/sending you out with the right mentality. It's happening almost every bloody game.

 

It is one of the coaches fundamental jobs to influence what intent the players start the match with, and it is what all the training and preparation is geared towards.

I don't understand why you hold Deeney in some kind of separate dimension, where the players didn't start with intent so he gets 'frustrated' and 'talks to them', when the reality is that he started with as little intent, as well as competence, as anyone, and he is not set apart above them in some way and so deserving of 'talking to them', he's just doing his usual thing of whining to distract and apportion blame away from his own myriad limitations.

 

The first half was dire but some of that is down to our midfield and striker not being good enough. Brentford obviously scout and sign players to fit into a style of play that looks after the ball. We just sign players in a haphazard fashion as individuals rather than any eye on a system. Chalobah, Garner, Cleverley is a desperate midfield trio. None can beat a man, none can drive forward with the ball, none are consistently good passers nor excellent tacklers, or good at shots from outside the box. It's just so one paced and lacking in any creativity.

The second half was entertaining, we took the game to them but poor decision making by us and the officials let us down.

But Ivic did try to win that game and certainly wasn't negative. He put Perica on for Garner and Gray for Ngakia. I think the players let him down second half with their collective decision making.

 

Surely it's a matter of rotation, because he's our best striker. Deeney is alright at this level and can take a mean penalty lol, but he's not a lone striker, and he does seem to have linked up well with Perica

No, this was when we were 7th after about 30 odd games I'm talking about even before we imploded. When was the last time you actually enjoyed watching Watford? Because seasons where we actually have success and play well are like gold dust, they can't all be like 14/15

 

Fair enough. Do you not see by your relentless and repetitive nature though why people (myself included) may think this?

Anyway, feels like a case of letting sleeping dogs lie here now. Nothing against you Nath and some things I’m with you on, but it does get a bit boring like Ivic’s style after a while!

 

He’s not being coached or told to play to his strengths either. It’s obvious.

 

I think one thing that is abundantly clear and that we can probably all agree on (but bizarrely Ivic somehow cannot see) is that sitting back in this league DOES NOT WORK.

You need to press hard from the front, the moment we did that a previously impressive looking Brentford started creaking, culminating in them just passing the ball out for a throw as they had nowhere to go.

 

Technically you are correct but Perica's goal was not offside

 

He's only missed 1 game I heard. Must be doing something right. I think he's alright, nothing special, just alright, no worse than our other midfielders available.

His defence wouldn't be 'I know i'm bad', that is your opinion of him.

 

A glowing endorsement.

You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t place a high value on him continually being picked by a manager who is tactically out of his depth in this country.

 

That was fun, buzzing for Saturday

HMS LTL stand strong

 

Ivic out.

 

I enjoy watching us whenever we play with some passion and/or attacking intent. It's not my fault we have become mostly completely devoid of both of those things as a football club.

I'm sure you could argue that I've been harsh at times where it's not so warranted, but this past 18+ months has undeniably been horrific. From being boned week in, week out in the Premier League to playing quite probably the most ugly, negative, joyless football I've ever seen in the division below.

 

Deeney didn't have much support up top that first half, the 2nd half he had more players in support in the final 3rd. I'm not a massive fan of Deeney by any means, that is just how I saw it tonight.

 

I was impressed with Deeney's sign language and coaching skills. Don't know if they were implemented by his lads, but he seems like a decent fella, even if he got booked for saying something to the beer belly ref. Great pen too

 

Nice to be back at the stadium, seemed to be well run although the kittens I had at 7.55 when the stupid bar code wouldn't work set the theme for the evening.

What stood out to me seeing the team in person is just how static we are. The whole reason the defenders knock the ball around so much is because absolutely no one shows for the ball in midfield. The defenders have to wait around for the fullbacks to find space and when they do, they are generally facing their own goal and the process begins again.

So we launch it long, Deeney either doesn't win the header and when he actually does, the wide attackers are so concerned with staying wide and closer to the fullbacks that there's no one around.

At points, we had Chalobah, Cleverley and Garner almost in a line and Brentford just held their shape. Chalobah constantly giving the ball away had a lot to do with it. Ngakia started to hit the ball flatter towards Deeney but again, with little support we either start again or it goes wide and the fullbacks and attacking wide players look backwards and we lose the ball or start the process again.

The static nature of our play bleeds into our setpieces up the pitch. There's little to no movement on corners and throw ins in the final third are almost laughable. Players all standing around to the point that Brentford almost let Garner become free so the game would resume.

Beyond Deeney, there's little in the way of loud voices on the pitch. It's very much a strictly regimented depressing robotic like attempt to move the ball forward.

We seemed to abandon all that in the second half which makes me think its by design.

Capoue came on and immediately starting looking forward all the time, which to me is not what Ivic wants for a full game. This probably explains why he's not starting.

I couldn't see our shape as much in the second half but it looked like Sarr certainly didn't bother defending and was in more of a free role. At one point we didn't have anyone on the left to support Ngakia yet the ball found its way over to him and he went backwards.

Ivic clearly has one style of play but doesn't have the players to implement it. This is why we spent a lot of time with 5 at the back and now, out of sheer bloody-mindedness he's just playing that style and, to coin a famous phrase, it's not working. This is why we can't score from open play or get many touches in the area. It's quite awful to see how many players don't really know what they're doing or playing a role completely unsuited to them - Garner and Sarr are the most obvious examples from the tonight. At times they were running in circles, seemingly scared to do the wrong thing.

These are all things that I've never really seen on the TV coverage of our games but have generally suspected.

As for Ivan Toney, I think he's going to play at a much higher level than this. Strong, mobile, decent touch and can jump a mile in the air, he's everything Ivic would want in his style. Quality player that a relegated side like us should have taken a risk on.

 

For the PL, sure, but for the Champ he's very good - even with his mistake today he's prob still one of the top 3 Champ CBs this season.