There was no more effort than normal, we just fluked results with worldies, favourable refereeing decisions and half way line goals. They eventually dried up and this is the true level of the coach. It was a myth peddled by the podders and their ‘I’m very protective of Val and what he’s done’ nonsense. With the exception of the first half against QPR on the first day, it’s been absolute crap all season.
The fact that his time has been so strictly limited again if anything surely supports the fatigue reason, otherwise they surely would have at least once said sod it and chucked him on with more minutes to help us get a result.
It is great to win, but if we had nicked a 1-0 win today it would have been unjust and hidden some major problem. We are a mess at the moment. The attitude is starting to mirror the previous two seasons. It can’t all be down to the manager. There must be some contagious negativity seeping from every pore that makes up the club. Rajovic is a problem, although I do not in any way think that he has a bad attitude. I would level the charge of poor attitude today on Kobe, Kayembe and Lewis. Rajovic is just not able to play the game, which means we are under constant pressure. There are many ways of playing football and you devise your tactics to suit your players. We do not have a forward who can hold up the ball, yet we insist on fizzing the ball up to Dennis (1st half) and Rajovic when he is on the pitch. It can’t ******* work with either of those players. I actually feel sympathy for Rajovic, but his wages will make up for his shortcomings. Playing TDB at right back also makes no sense. I have got to accept that we are a club coming back down to our level in a slow, monotonous and even torturous manner. If I had money (and wasn’t a super fan) the last place I would want to invest in is WFC. This disastrous run comes after a spurt of successful results, but we are in the midst of relegation form. Really not sure that a change of manager will improve things.
LOL we are ******* awful, felt sorry for anyone that paid for a ticket/stream to watch that Cheerio Ismael
Just back from the game. At 0-0 we were so bad, (2 subs at 26 minutes anyone?), that I bet on Huddersfield to win. But at 1-0 we had the chances to be 3-0 up before they scored. Our no 9 is honestly shocking! Some youths fighting by the coaches afterwards was the most passion I saw all day. We're screwed, it was that bad.
Initial thoughts ... That's on Ismael today. Piss poor preparation by the looks of it and still trying to put square pegs into round holes. Crap performance. They deserved it as they wanted it more. We were so slow to react to everything. Asprilla didn't deserve to be on the losing side. What even is Rajovic? Terrible footballer. Don't believe for one second that he was scouted thoroughly. Why can't we get a progressive German coach? No way Huddersfield are a more attractive proposition than Watford.
I didn’t stay for the end but it sounds like Hoedt wanted the players to come and clap the fans but most of them ignored him and went down the tunnel. All we need now is some of them to whinge to Pozzo about Ismael and it’s all change again!
Kone looked tired more than anything, he's played a lot this season without much rest, especially since TDB has been used at RB (although his reaction to the substitution was petulant). Kayembe didn't look match sharp, I hope that will come soon, because he's been great for us, which is more than can be said for Lewis...
Hoedt waved for them to do it, they ignored it and then Hoedt looked sad and moped around taking the applause of the remaining dimwits.
Enjoy Yaser whilst you can, he’ll be the last remotely exciting player to watch in quite some time. We’re championship fodder now, mustered enough points to more than likely be fine this season but my word we’re ripe for sleepwalking into a relegation scrap next season.
We won’t be in a relegation scrap. Doubt we even need 50 points. Next season we are toast as Pozzo scrabbles to keep the lights on.
We *may* already have enough points to stay up, but it could get uncomfortably close, and that's with our good players...
When we win games by scoring "worldies" it's meaningful, but when we lose games by missing sitters it's irrelevant? Very odd.
It's hard to judge individual performances in such a dysfunctional team, but... Hamer - 6 - Possibly could have done better for their first, but not really to blame. Solid claiming corners. Lewis - 4 - Doesn't do anything constructive, ever. Always checks back. Hoedt - 6 - No problems with him, but also didn't do much with the ball. Pollock - 6 - Fine, solid performance. TDB - 4 - Definitely not a right back. Livermore - 6 - Does his job and not much else. Kone/Kayembe - ?? - Wtf...!? Both deserved to be hooked after 25 mins. Awful. Chak - 6 - At least he tries Ince - 6 - Like Chak and got into better positions, but really should have scored. Sema - 1 - Sorry, love the guy obviously, but that must be the worst performance ever. Nearly got two assists - for Huddersfield - under no pressure, and was generally poor throughout. Asprilla - 6 - Clearly our most talented player, but ineffective most of the time. Not his fault. Dennis - 6 - At least he tries. Good goal. Martins - 3 - So much potential, so little end product. Looks uninterested and lacks concentration. Rajovic - 2 - Just not good enough. Andrews - ? - Unable to impact the game.
Only side with worse current form is Rotherham. We are only nine points above the drop zone and with another three months of games that is pretty concerning but we are where we are. Sheff Wed, QPR, Millwall and Swansea all won today. If we lose at Millwall and at home to Swansea in our next two, it's possible we could be even closer to the drop. I honesty do not think we will make 52 points looking at the attitude and defeat of the players body language today. Either they've had enough of VI or cannot be bothered to put in a shift anymore. Either way, it's VI who will face the full punishment, new contract or not. Gino will just increase our debt a bit more for the payoff.
'Scrabbles' is a generous description of anything Gino has or might do - at least that would suggest some awareness and urgency. I think 'fiddles' is likely to be more apt, when the time comes!
That was shocking . What the hell was that shambles of a first half ? Shame that we had a bit of momentum when Dennis went off . The goal was a rare bit of quality, but we deserved to lose that . Chak and Ince were an improvement on what went before , but it’s a low bar. I really don’t want Val to be sacked as we are not going down , but I have to say that had the feel of an end of manager type performance . The worst I’ve seen this season.
Shocking first half, good for 15 minutes after the break, Dennis then went off and we went back to being a glorified pub team. Ismael quickly identified our issues and attempted to fix them, but it speaks to how poorly we were set up that wasting two subs and one of our substitution windows after 25 minutes was the correct move from our manager. What a misfire it was to play so passively at home against a side 20th in the table. However, our subs did, on the whole, improve us, with one notable exception: Rajovic, as usual, looked like a competition to be a Championship striker winner - and certainly not a competition which involves some performance of football skill. It was easier to overlook his deficiencies when he was prodding into open goals from six yards out regularly enough to justify his £1m fee. However, since his goals have dried up, he has been horrific at more or less everything he has been tasked with. No ball control, no spatial awareness, no pace, and no footballing intelligence. Can anyone imagine him ever scoring a goal like Dennis' today (receiving the ball, taking a deft, non-ballooning touch away from a defender and finishing emphatically past someone standing in his way)? Me neither. Blag about his earlier goals to the most gullible club we can find this summer and get him out of the door. Sema had an uncharacteristically awful game, with several misplaced passes and a complete lack of creativity from his side. He looks another one jaded from the demands placed upon him by our small squad and a wearing season. We know full well that TDB is not a right back and shouldn't be playing in that position (another issue that lies firmly at the feet of the head coach) but, to his credit, he has been OK there in the last two games, the odd wobble aside, and not the biggest of our issues. If Ismael has fallen out with Andrews, I fear he is now just cutting off his nose to spite his face, given our lack of natural options in that area. Martins looked a lot better than some of his other recent performances, and Chak continued to add attacking intent to our midfield. Moreover, I thought Pollock was very impressive, and probably our best player across the 90 minutes. He looked composed, mature and reliable, with neither of the goals being his fault from memory. We'd do well to continue to nurture him, possibly as a regular first-teamer, next season. Livermore wasn't great. Lewis was anonymous, as was Asprilla, bar his good work for his assist. Our home form is a joke and it's been thoroughly confusing working out how we're supposed to be playing for too long now. I don't believe we're in 'sack the manager' territory yet, but he needs to buck his ideas up for the rest of the season, because after a great 2 months prior to Christmas, we're now threatening to finish with even less of a whimper than our conclusion of the previous campaign, with the freshness of our new approach this time around suddenly feeling an experience from a long time ago.
I actually felt a bit sorry for Rajovic today when I’m sure the whole stadium Laughed when he went for a flick on and missed it completely. It’s not his fault he is so technically poor
Not a great performance obviously but still quite an enjoyable game, I thought. Felt sorry for Rajovic who on another day would have had a hatrick within 10 minutes of coming on. To his credit he didn't hide and the fact that he gets into so many goalscoring chances is cause for optimism. The beauty of the Championship is that everyone is capable of beating anyone else (Trade Mark )
On a positive note, my boys won their games today. A 10-3 hammering and a 3-0 dominating performance.
I agree with much of what you say, but what do you mean by 'down to our level'? The way we played today, we would have likely lost to most Watford teams in the past 25 years.
5-10 or so proper dud games or so a Season can happen, especially with the squad we have. The problem is we've had 5 of those back to back and it's getting worse. The fitness and mentality I liked earlier in the Season has simply degraded and vanished leaving us watching a team that's now stopped performing at a level we know they can achieve and have more damningly looking ominously like the team of last year or the year before. VI must take responsibility for having to rotate two midfielders within 30 minutes and not adapting our shape to deal with Huddersfield's more effective press. That's the manager's duty. Individually only Livermore, Chakvetadze, Asprilla and Dennis came out of that with any credit. Bar Koné and Kayembé who were rightfully subbed already Lewis and Sema were shockingly poor today whilst Ince did a lot of good to stabilise the midfield felt a steady presence only to waste that credit by missing some big opportunities, bigger than Rajovic's misses. I actually felt sorry for Rajovic today. It's clear he's hit his physical wall much like Pedro a few years ago when he didn't have a break for 2 years and I don't agree with heckling him. He should have done much better with his chances and he's deserved his criticism for his short comings but leave the donkey noises for after the game if you must as it doesn't help any him or the team. In the programme notes today he's basically said as much so the player is well aware of the fan's sentiment of him. The squad has hit its physical limit. Hoedt is not passing it like he was with that verve or purpose and Pollock's better defensive instincts is undermined by his lacklustre passing. That much is clear and VI needs to find a way to adapt the squad to that as I feel he's very poorly managed this squad's fitness these last 2 months and is now paying the price like with the Soton away game. Give a player like Grieves his shot as can't have been worse than Sema there for example.
