Southampton 3-0 Watford (fac 4th Replay) Tues 6/2/24

Bookies said Leicester were 5000/1 to win the Premier League in 2015. If we lose the next couple of games, which I expect will happen, then the odds will certainly change to a more even look.

 

Norwich, Rotherham, Huddersfield, Millwall, Swansea, Coventry, Birmingham, Preston, Hull and Sunderland are all very winnable. All of those sides are below us or within 4 points. Ipswich away is tough but they are falling away now. Boro away could easily get something. In fact apart from Leicester and Leeds at home plus Southampton away I don't think that's all that bad. I don't think we will make the play offs but I can see us finishing top 10..... IMHO of course!

 

Millwall was very winnable. We've been pretty wretched at home all season, and I think we've massively rode our luck in those recent away games. I think the results we had on the road has fooled everyone as to where we are as a team. The home form is far more reflective of it.

 

Yeah but not in February.

 

But it shows bookies get it wrong all the time. Reflecting on the here and now, bookies will see it as more likely we'll go up than down, because we're closer to 6th place than to 21st, but it's just dummy thinking. We'll lose on Saturday, and that could show 7 points from 6th and 10 points from relegation, depending on other results. Lose then at Norwich, which is think is also likely, then we could be closer to the bottom 3 than the top 6. So by this time next week the bookies will probably show an even split or even we're more likely to go down than up. If we win either of the next two, then I'll happily say the team is better than I'm giving it credit for.

 

Play the U9s and be done with it. Will be great experience for them and who knows, they might nick a result.

 

Wasn't that long ago you were saying that our home form was great and our away form was terrible! Unless you're one of the top (or the worst) teams in the league, form will naturally fluctuate

 

Well it was then, after we'd beaten Norwich......and the away form was terrible before we played Swansea. These comments were valid in the time (if I did actually even say that). Not sure why do people always like to quote out of context to try and dismiss someone's current point. I've no memory of what anyone says on here, so it always surprises me when I'm held to account over what I may have said, in context, in the past.

After Norwich the home form was 5-3-2 and we'd only won once at Swansea and away form was 1-3-4.....so in context that comment would have been pretty valid. Move on to today, that's all changed which changes my current opinion of how things are. Both points at the time they were written were/are valid.

 

Of course, I'm not saying they're not valid and both points indeed were/are correct at the time - I'm just saying things can change quickly in football. We might (unlikely but there's a chance!) win our next 3 home games on the bounce which will again change things up.

 

Well I hope we do win three games. That would be remarkable, but unfortunately there are too many limitations in the way we're currently playing for that to happen. We might win one on a good day, but I'm expecting nothing more than three defeats which will change the landscape on people's perceptions of how this season is going.

Already, after the defeat to Cardiff I'm hearing murmurings from the social media savvy supporters. How will they react to 4 defeats (including Cardiff) on the bounce?

 

It's The Championship, We will probably end up beating Leicester and losing to Huddersfield, just not worth predicting it. I will say that, the first team, with the addition of Dennis, is in my opinion top 10 and if we can avoid a lot of injuries we have a chance. I know you have said all season that we are a bottom six side but I don't think we are and in fact we have proved that over 30 games. You can say we have been lucky but over 2 thirds of a season to be where we are shows we are doing more right than wrong and are better than team in the bottom six

 

The squad is bottom 6/8, but that is just opinion of course. I think the way Val has gone about things he's squeezed a lot more out of the team than I thought was possible, so a lot of credit goes to him for that. This is what has elevated us, that plus the lucky away results.

I call those away results lucky, as in no way did our performances deserve wins at Preston, Blackburn, Hull, Swansea and QPR. I think we had everything go our way in those games, all the key moments, which doesn't usually happen. It creates a false illusion that we're better than we actually are. Swansea had a perfectly good looking goal ruled out when it was 0-0 in the 77th minute. We go on to take all three points with a very late goal. Preston should have been out of sight, but for Hamer heroics. He doesn't make those incredible saves we go on to lose. Blackburn were all over us in the first half. A truly dreadful performance from us, yet we somehow score two late goals out of the blue to win. Hull, get a penalty and were on top at the time. If that goes in we go on to lose. Then we score that freakish Hoet goal to win. QPR, again they were well on top, but we score 2 goals from our only 2 shots on target, and even then we have to rely on another incredible save from Hamer at the death to hold on to the win. All our away wins this season, have been against the run of play......IMO and have masked where we really are as a side. The home form is far more accurate, as these are results which have, on the whole, been far more reflective of the performances.

So Val's good team bonding, fitness levels...and events going our way in our recent away run, has kept this team from bottom 6/8. But I firmly believe that will all change and we'll now go on a losing run. However, there is hope if we ever get Dennis fit enough to play a meaningful amount of minutes. He will change us in an attacking sense. He's the one chink of light I'm clinging on to that he can fire some excitement into this rather bland and boring team.

 

Hornetboy has turned into a massive troll .

 

Sometimes I read these threads and imagine someone sitting in front of a mirror arguing with the person on the other side, plucking a guitar with no strings.

 

Which equates to, he has a different opinion to me. The forum should tolerate opposite views, as long as they make some kind of logical sense which I hope mine do. Just because you have a different take, doesn’t make anyone a troll. This forum is very intolerant if you stray from “the party line”.

But to make sure I don’t offend too many people, we are going up as Champs. That should nourish your positivity banks for a little while.

 

Sometimes I read these threads and think to myself, I wonder if i should be a sheep and wonder if others think everyone else should be a sheep

 

I've seen you mention the away games before and as I've said to win away you generally will require more luck than at home but,
Preston - Should not have been out of sight in the first half, we also had chances ourselves including missing an open goal. We were superb second half and maybe 5-1 flattered us but we certainly deserved to win
Blackburn had a lot of possession but didn't really do much with it
Hull got a penalty and didn't score so to say we go on to lose is irrelevant
QPR were awful and except for the last few minutes it was comfortable
The home form you say is more accurate
Plymouth - draw - should have won easily
Blackburn - lose - Should have won easily
West Brom - draw - Probably should have won
Boro - Lost - God knows how we didn't get anything out of that
Millwall - Draw - Should have won and had the chances to do so
Southampton - Draw - Probably the better side
Ipswich - Lost - Shot ourselves in the foot when on top
Stoke - draw - Man sent off after 50 mins but still had chances to win
Cardiff - Lose - We weren't great but certainly did enough to get at least a point
Maybe rather than less points, with a fair wind we would actually be better off if we had got what we deserved
It's all swings and roundabouts though, some games you'll be rubbish like Sheff Wed at home and come away with a win, others like Ipswich, you'll play well and get nothing.
Either way 30 games is easily enough games to say what a team is like and we are safely mid table with half a chance of the play offs but virtually no chance of going down.
It's a tight league split in to 3. The top 3 will probably be Southampton, Leicester and Leeds. Ipswich will probably have enough for the play offs due to early season form. From 5th down to 14th or possibly 15th at a push are the teams hoping for play offs. 16th and below are the teams in the relegation battle. 16th place are 8 points behind us and are averaging just over a point a game so would take 8 games just to get to the points total we are currently on. We are in that middle league and the stats prove that

 

You're only looking at one side of the coin and not also comparing the games where our performances deserved points but didn't get any:

A win against Blackburn (home) where they barely created anything all game and grabbed a winner from a near impossible angle,
Cardiff (away) where we drew 1-1, again they created very little, scoring from a corner. Asprilla missed a sitter from one of our own corners and Ince missed a good chance towards the end
Millwall drew 2-2 - they created barely anything from open play, scoring twice from corners. We battered them from open play and missed a couple of sitters (Raj + Asprilla)
Deserved at least a point against Boro etc

The disallowed Swansea goal was not perfectly good, their player had Kayembe in an arm hold and basically didn't let go until the ball was in the net. It's natural for there to be contact in those corner situations, but holding someone like that for 4/5 seconds certainly isn't allowed and was a good spot by the referee.

 

I agree with most of your examples, although disagree with the disallowed Swansea goal. I'm sure you can make a case technically, but it's extremely rare for that have have been disallowed for that type of offence. The ball wasn't going anywhere near these players, so I consider us very lucky to have got away with it. Referees rarely blow for this type of action....and that is a fact.

Millwall and I would say a draw was a fair result. We scored in the 90th minute to get a point. Blackburn at home I totally agree with. That was a smash and grab from them, but we did the same at their place, so that cancels each other out somewhat. Cardiff away, we did shade it, but again a point was probably a fair outcome. I'd go further and say we gifted Boro a win at home, and we should have at least drawn that.

So you can lay a fair claim that we deserved to beat Blackburn at home and a point at home to Boro.....so that's an extra 4 points on the plus side. But it's small change really compared to the undeserved results we've profited from. I don't believe we've deserved to win ANY of our away games. Of course not saying they should all have been defeats, but we could play them again without the heroics of Hamer, refereeing decisions etc and lost the lot with exactly the same type of performance. It's hard to explain this if you don't want to really be open to it, as far too many people just look at the result and nothing more. They think we won therefore it was a good performance. (not saying you think like this btw, as I know you're into your analytics. )

The rest of the results have been roughly fair. So, I would say we're certainly in credit by quite a margin of getting better results than we've really deserved.

 

There's commentary of the game on 5 live extra tonight..but no streams anywhere it seems.

 

Blackburn I agree with. Hull you would expect to score from a penalty when we were really on the back foot. I disagree with your opinion on QPR away. We were awful and should have lost. Two out of the blue goals from Livermore changed the result, and this is exactly the type of thing I'm referring to. We won, out of nowhere, when usually it would have been a routine 1-0 defeat. Plymouth and Blackburn I agree with. West Brom we were lucky not to lose. Bachmann made a brilliant save in the 80th minute. We could have easily lost but I would consider a draw fair as it was a monsoon. Boro we deserved a point. Millwall draw was fair. Southampton draw was fair. Ipswich draw would have been fair. Stoke draw was fair, Bayo was an idiot getting sent off although the referee was a disaster in that game. Cardiff, we didn't deserve anything from that.

 

I agree that they rarely blow for those sort of fouls (especially in a non VAR league!), but it was a good spot and whether or not we got away with it - it was the correct decision and the ball was definitely going near to Kayembe who was fouled - the #6 who Kayembe was trying to mark ended up putting pressure on Livermore which in turn contributed (albeit slightly) to the goal

I agree we've been more lucky than unlucky, but I wouldn't say it's by a huge amount (and the metrics back that up). I think our position in the league is pretty much where we deserve to be overall. I still think we'll drop a couple of places from now until the end of the season, but think we'll finish 11th-13th

 

It’s a fair take from you, but I only disagree with the swing our way of undeserved points. I would say we’re around 10 points better off than we should be, all things considered, but then that’s just opinion.

It’s good to be lucky sometimes, as I’ve lost count over the years how many times we’ve not got what we’ve deserved from games. This is a rare season where so many things have gone our way.

 

Might be able to follow the game on the FotMob app which has updates of shots etc in graphic . Dunno if even they gonna bother for this one though

 

When you are talking squad depth, by dipping into the U23's or U18's, you are talking squad numbers.
We have 23 players, so do Norwich and Coventry
QPR have 24, Leicester & Southampton 25 , just two more than us
Some of the teams at the bottom have far more, Blackburn, Huddersfield & Sheffield Weds all have 30 & Birmingham and Stoke 31,
Squad depth means very little to be honest.

 

So goalkeepers' saves and ingenious and skilful shots don't count towards a team's performance?

 

I was waiting for this obvious question. If you have Messi scoring hat tricks every week by dribbling single handedly from the kick off shooting straight into the net, the team is benefitting from an individual brilliance, which is non team related.

Watford have been benefitting from a keeper(s) who has excelled beyond his normal level on a regular basis. Be it the purple patch of his career or whatever, there is no way Watford legislated for a player getting to a level he’s never reached before.

I need Reids or someone to confirm this, but I expect Hamer will be top of the list at saving goals. As in making the most difficult saves in the Championship. If you’ve got someone doing that it’s going to increase your chances of winning, but even if Hamer is playing the form of his life, he still has only kept two clean sheets.

If you’re so reliant on someone having to make world class saves, or at the other end scoring hat tricks in order to win, then there’s something fundamentally wrong with the team, as relying so heavily on just one player is a single point of failure.

 

6th in the league (interestingly Bachmann is 7th - although there's a big difference between them) for goals saved above average, so he's definitely up there.

 

Yes, it’s no surprise, and it’s no surprise to see Bachmann 7th, as he too has made some great reaction saves. I bet those above Hamer have played a lot more games too, or is it based on averages and not totals?

 

It's an average based on the quality of on-target shots faced. Really shows how good a shot stopper he is when you look at where Hamer has conceded his goals - a lot in his top right corner and a few slightly lower on his left - both areas which are naturally hard to save. He's usually very solid in most areas (although the 3 goals to his low right aren't great!)

 

Lol. Perhaps. the hornetboy should take some of the medicine he doles out to the forum and tolerate differing and logical views, as opposed to blocking the posters who make them.

 

Who are the top 5?

 

(sorted by Goals Saved Above Average - basically the post shot xg minus the goals conceded)