The Championship 2020-21

The problem is that for every one game where Deeney does anything, how many games are there where he's totally ineffective (bar a few headers away)? I mean, in theory, he could have been useful in telling our players not to take ****, but there have been more performances like Coventry away than Stoke away, and besides, let's not act like he never loses his head

 

I don't remember too many posts pre match suggesting that Pedro should have been dropped today and replaced by Deeney? However with the goal-less Pedro sent off it now seems to have always been the obvious choice ?

 

Ridiculous. Deeney took part in most of the games with muff in the recent era and did his presence stop any of their antics, no it didn't. He has had a great career but he is now a busted flush and him in a 442 patently wasn't working.

 

I think if Deeney has any purpose or role left this season then probably a game like today for the last 15-20 minutes is probably it. Might be clutching at straws, but when the heads have gone, having a club legend come on to lift everyone and give their players something to think about, wouldn't be the worst in the world. And even if he didn't impact the game, he'd probably still put a few crunching tackles in on their players.

 

Being told to give up supporting a current Watford player, and legend to boot. What has this forum come to?

 

Just out of interest are you still empathising with Bournemouth and considering our fans teenagers and pathetic?

 

Pretty clear from today's game that Woodgate has Bournemouth DNA or whatever (following on from our discussion the other day). Incredible that even after the departure of Saint Eddie that cheating culture is still so central to their identity. Lerma constantly at the centre of it all - constantly trying to trick the ref to get his cards out.

 

Culture takes time to change. They’ve been the masters of bad sportsmanship for the best part of a decade. We all know that. What is incredible is apparently our team didn’t. Our team should have been the ones screaming with every tackle, rolling around the floor, constantly in the ear of the ref, and and crying foul from the touchline every few minutes.

 

This is unfortunately a big problem that we as a club have thanks to our high turnover of managers. Mainly because many of them have very little, if any knowledge of English football teams and how they play. This obviously applies to our other opponents and not just The Cheating "Muff" Barstewards

 

Good point

 

Was it my imagination or was Will Hughes playing particularly deep yesterday? I don’t know if that was deliberate, but if it was it was stupid because that is in part why we lacked creativity.

 

I think he was playing the same role he usually does, and his heat map basically backs that up, it's just that they didn't give him the freedom of the midfield and our attack, particularly in the second half, was barely firing at all, so the part where he comes up the pitch and brings it into attack/plays a forward pass was much less evident than usual.

He also lost possession nine times, and no, I'm not blaming him or even saying he had a particularly bad game, but he and his role were far less impactful yesterday than he/it has been since coming back in (to the centre).

 

Strange that you say “around the top six” and then forget that we’ve beaten Barnsley (who will go above Bournemouth if they win their game in hand, a home game against Derby), Middlesbrough, Stoke (x2) and taken four points off Bristol City, although the last two are outsiders at best. I see no reason to think we can’t get through the semis if we get any of the chasing pack, and we have a good chance in a one-off game against Swansea who are like 2014-15’s Middlesbrough, who we beat comfortably that season after our record against the top sides was just as bad if not worse than it is now. If we get Bournemouth/Reading in the semis or Brentford in the final though I admit that it’s pretty touch-and-go.

And what do you mean when you say we usually choke in the play-offs? Our record in five attempts: two promotions, one final, two semis.

 

In total fairness, that's three failures out of five then, isn't it; a majority. So it's not very difficult to interpret what HB means when he says we usually choke in the playoffs. It's mathematical fact.

 

You can add Barnsley if you like. Another team we've not beaten on aggregate and not scored more than one goal against. We beat them 1-0, thanks to a penalty and lost 0-1. We never looked like breaking them down in either game.

We've struggled against this type of team all season, even when we're on a good run.

We're a cut above the bulk of this league, but we do struggle to create chances against teams in and around the top 6. For this reason, I do not see it changing in the playoffs. Obviously I hope we get the breaks and get through it, but Watford always seem to fail in the big games. Had we won yesterday, that would have taken us 12 points clear of 7th, 4 points clear of Swansea and joint with Brentford. But yet again, we choke. I see no evidence to suggest this will change, but of course I live in futile hope.

 

Dunno. 4 teams contest each playoff so I’d say mathematically our record is pretty good.

 

Under Xisco our record against teams around the top 6 is thankfully a little better, but I agree we create less. I suppose that's not that surprising when you're playing better teams though.

Norwich (H) 1-0 WIN
Swansea (A) 2-1 LOSS
Barnsley (H) 1-0 WIN
Bournemouth (A) 1-0 LOSS

Suppose you could include the wins against Stoke and Bristol City as they're close-ish to top 6, but that's a stretch.

 

But the only goal, and therefore success, in the playoffs, is winning the final and getting promoted.

Besides, if you bring 'choking' into it, we all remember what that other final performance was like, and choking is a pretty accurate description of what we did against Palace to my mind!

 

You'd have thought Gosling might have warned the squad of what was coming...

 

Have you seen any improvement between Ivic and Munoz when we play a side from the top quarter? Personally I've not seen it. We do not score goals against any of the likely teams who will be in the playoffs. We either don't score, or max out at one.

We've struggled to breakdown these sides under Ivic AND Munoz. Look at our results against potential playoff sides. Barnsley (0-1, 1-0), Cardiff (0-1), Bournemouth (0-1, 1-1), Swansea (1-2), Reading (0-1), Brentford (1-1). The record is very poor and there's no evidence, as far as I can see, why we would suddenly do really well against any of these sides.

 

Add to that Ben Pearson was immense in a spoiling cu*ty way. Exactly what we are missing.

Shame he didn't want to join us/wanted to stay in the north/thinks our club's a circus/our scouting team didn't even notice him*.

*Delete as per COG level

 

If we had spent the 75p or whatever it was that they got him for, not only would he not have been playing against us, but we could have replaced Chalobah or Cleverley with him as well, instead of only being able to make one midfield substitution per game.

Plus, have any midfield depth at all and have him available for all other games in the second half of the season, of course.

 

And their wrongly allowed second goal? Swings and roundabouts.

 

We still interested in what Norwich do or are they out of sight?

 

From what I can see, we've played 8 games against the current top 7.

Scored: 5
Conceded: 6

So you're right that we struggle to break these sides down, but they struggle to break us down, too. I'd imagine our play off games with be tight affairs, that could go either way.

 

Depends on whether what they do is lose every game conceding 5 each time, or not.

 

Play-offs are completely random, Fulham were doubled by Brentford last season (and for the record got smashed by them this season in the Carabao Cup), but the game that mattered most, they beat them. We got a win and a draw against Palace in 12-13 but that meant nothing at Wembley

 

Yes, which makes it far too in the balance. It's a toss of a coin, and if you add in our anxiety as a team, then you can see it easily going against us. Virtually every time we have a key match (in the Pozzo era), we've come up short by choking. I see no reason why that would suddenly change.

 

How many clubs have a 100% success rate at winning the play offs? Bar maybe a couple who have only been in one I’d say the answers probably 0. So by that reckoning every team chokes in the play offs. So we can rule that out as an issue.

 

Buendia + Pukki again

 

I think the clear issue with the play-offs is you need to win 2 out of 3 games against good teams, and we’ve managed just 1 win in a lot more games against these teams so far this season.

I thought to myself yesterday and mentioned it in the shoutbox, that if we conceded a goal we’d be absolutely screwed, and so it was the case.

If things stay as they are in terms of approach and character, then we’ll be absolutely done for the moment we let a goal in during any of the playoff games.