Gerard Deulofeu is likely to miss the remainder of the season after scans confirmed the Watford winger suffered an ACL injury in Saturday's 3-0 victory over Liverpool. I know it’s under the team bus section but feel like most people on this forum don’t use that section considering watford is their ‘b’ team. He’s likely going to be out for 6-9 months, miss pre-season, and by the time he’s match fit, I’m guessing we won’t see him kick a ball for us until around this time next year. We know we need to sign a RB that will push Femenia for a starting place and a CB (or 2) that will be the first name on the team sheet in defence. Now we are going to have to sign another winger. Could end up being an expensive summer window now. I love the way he has given it his all this season in tracking back. He arguably gave the best RB in the world right now, a torrid time before VVD deliberately fouled him for making their world class defence look as poo as L****. I wish him a speedy recovery, going to miss the little scamp. Selfishly the one benefit for us is that he won’t be sold in the summer, which had we stayed up, I had no doubt Milan or someone would have come in for him.
I'm glad someone has pointed out that van dyck cynically caused this injury by shoving deulofeu when he was off balance. Petulant twatt knew deleufeu had that defence on toast and didn't like it. He epitomises that awful club.
Horrible injury... I guess the only potential silver lining (for us) is that if he is out for that long, he won’t be leaving in the summer?
Shame. I actually think he deserved a move this summer. His decision making is poor and his finishing powder puff, but during this terrible season, he's never once hidden or gone missing.
We've extended Janmaat's contract. With Dawson signed and Wilmot coming back from a loan, don't expect to see the Pozzos try and improve at centre back either. A cheap LB to understudy Masina and the Pozzos will consider it job done, if we manage to survive. They will learn nothing.
Surely we have options with Wellbeck, Penaranda and Pedro (not to mention the unmentionables)? Keep Sarr fit and he will keep any defence busy enough to give other attackers opportunities.
I don’t want him injured and wish him well, but lets not get too carried away with his loss for the team. I would rather have him available, but would have him on the bench now we have other options fit. Having scored some great goals last season cutting across the top of the box he got carried away with this option. This season he has had 3 shots per game, but only scored 1 goal for every 16 shots. Many times there have been better options but he went for glory. His tracking back and defending has definitely got better, but he gave the ball away so often by just hitting the defender in front of him when trying to pass past them. The Man U game was particularly bad, with two incidents leading to them scoring. I know if he was always good he would not be playing for WFC, but lets not be too down about him being out injured for a long time. As long as the other players stay fit we will not miss him.
The thought of Peneranda starting regularly makes you realise just how pointless it is filling a squad with bodies to make up the numbers. Maybe Adalberto needs a run of games and will somehow show why he was so promising early in his career, but right now, if we had the prospect of him starting our remaining 10 games, or Success, I think we'd all consider that pretty ****. It's all well and good having bad players as 3rd and 4th choice, but when they are needed, you realise they are pointless if they can't step up and do the job. We have probably 10 players in our squad who are taking up a squad number but who nobody really wants to see play.
The problem with Deulofeu being out of the team is that it might cause the same problem as when Sarr was injured, ie teams may target the left side as the weak part of the team without the threat of GD’s runs. Granted, this weakness will be compensated for by having Sarr back on the other side to a far greater extent than having GD on the left when Sarr was out, but it’s still a bit of a worry.
The question is which Pereyra will we see in the coming weeks ? The disinterested one who contributes little going forward, slows our breaks down, and considers defending beneath him. Or the one who gets involved, plays with passion and is a real contributor, like on saturday. Over to you Roberto.
Welbeck, if he can last 10 games, is a more than adequate replacement. Even Pereyrs got stuck in on Saturday as well. I just pray Sarr stays fit. He will be targeted now.
Without doubt more of a team player especially under Pearson. Still a match winner on his day though. Wish him a speedy recovery.
I was gutted when I seen him go down and initially thought to myself that's us relegated and then we go and put in a performance like that for the next 70 minutes. Hopefully a combination of a fit Danny Welbeck and Bobby P will be able to do a job.
Quite. Peñaranda won't play a single minute for us, he's only here as it's marginally preferable for him to not be playing for us and stinking out the place than not playing for some bobbins Belgian team and stinking out their place. Bertie P must be about tenth choice to play on that left flank behind Pereyra, Welbeck, Pedro, Pussetto, Success (lol!), Hungbo, some other youth teamers, a recalled Jerome Sinclair, Heurelho Gomes and Craig Shakespeare. If we were safe we could give him one final go just to rubber stamp that he'll never make it but given that every game is likely to be important, he'll have to make do with being a glorified cone for people to run around in training.
It was right in front of us and looked nasty. Capoue had a real go at Van Dijk about it when the medics were on the field. He didn't shout at him, just stared Van Dijk out, shaking his head and saying "you've done that to him". Van Dijk basically scuttled off to hide behind some of his team mates, pretending he had nothing to do with it. Offended by everything, ashamed of nothing.
Its a terrible shame for Deulofeu that he misses the rest of the season and at least half of next season too. Even if he gets back to his best its going to take at least a year out of his career. Is also unlikely to make a move the following summer either as he will be unlikely to make a big impression next season, so it is a real shame. Some of our fans serious need to stop blaming Van Dijk. It was an innocuous challenge that should of been a free kick but was not even worthy of a booking and the type he probably makes every game without injuring an opponent. Do you think he would be a great defender if he was scared of challenging a player and just allowing them to run past him. Unfortunately a lot of injuries occur from innocuous challenges. It was unintentional and I am sure he feels terrible about it and he did show concern for Deulofeu afterwards ( he was not hiding). Think objectively. The foul by Deeney on Alexander Arnold shortly afterwards could also have been a serious injury. Luckily it was not. I am most definitely not a Liverpool supporter but no need to blame Van Dijk for an accident, if he never tried to defend Liverpool would not be top of the league.
I'm not sure that's a silver lining at all - out of all the assets we could get a decent fee for he'd be top of the list of ones I wouldn't mind sold together with Pereyra. This could mean that if we need to raise funds to strengthen elsewhere, or to cushion the blow of being relegated, we might have to turn elsewhere, meanwhile Del remains an expensive burden on our books.
It's going to be Pereyra to replace Geri, isn't it? Dunno how I feel about that, played well on Saturday, and is probably better suited to replacing Geri than Sarr, but, you know, bloke's the most frustrating player at the club. Not that I've seen an awful lot of Pussetto, but he does seem to be pretty quick (more so than Welbeck and Pereyra), so hopefully we'll see him play more of a prominent attacking role against tiring legs
It was an unnecessary challenge regardless of whether he meant to injure him or not. No attempt to play the ball whatsoever. And perhaps people might be a bit kinder to Van Dijk if he hadn't spent a good half a minute wagging his finger at Deeney lecturing him about his tackle on Alexander-Arnold which caused no injury whatsoever, a mere fifteen minutes or so after he himself had caused a fellow professional a serious injury with a cowardly push.
I like watching Gerard Deulofeu play for us, he often is too greedy, too wasteful and takes the wrong choice, but he's fun to watch, always looks dangerous and its a massive shame for us he is out.. I don't want 11 Gavin Mahons, Jurados or Nordin Amrabats on the pitch, no offence to Gavin Mahon or Nordin Amrabat. However I think Pererya is a better finisher, Pussetto will get a game and it could just work out ok for us. It'll be nice to have GD back though next Christmas.
You've got a point, however Success has had multiple opportunities and been ****, can't really say the same for ol' Berti!
Ruptured ACL and torn meniscus according to the club’s Twitter account. I seriously think that’s the last we’ve seen of Geri in 2020.
Real shame, he isn’t the best decision maker in the world but with Sarr down one side and Gerry down the other we did look scary. Was interesting how the pundits dismissed the VVD tackle, when I watched the replay it looks totally intentional , I’m sure he didn’t mean to do the damage he did but still has a case to answer. Bobby P (Or Maxi as I think I hear big Nigel called him) has the talent let’s hope he has the desire where does JP play ?
Watford fans defending Liverpool players over Watford players. Absolutely pathetic, and utterly unsurprising.
Calciomercato reckons September. https://www.calciomercato.com/news/ex-milan-rottura-del-crociato-per-deulofeu-fuori-sei-mesi-81443
Yes, but it could be any duration. Ekstrand was out for a year. Anything between 6 to 12 months. Hoban was a long time also. At this stage it's just guess work. I'm gutted for Geri and for Watford that he has this injury, but the only silver lining is he will certainly still be on Watford's books next season, probably for the entire season too. He's going have to repair, then rehabilitate, then have a mini pre-season, then time in U23's before he'll be considered for the bench. That all takes a lot of time. Probably wont see him much before the January transfer window and it's unlikely any clubs would come in for someone straight after such a serious injury.
I think GD is often underrated by some of our fans. His work rate has been really good and he’s perfect for the pressing game and has stolen the ball off defenders quite a few times placing us in strong attacking positions. His pace on the counter means that he helps get us into the opponents defensive areas quickly and regularly. He has scored a few, assisted a few and set up some good scoring chances directly. Yes his end product can be a little off, but certainly not massively bad. He’s got composure in certain areas, the one I’ve noticed quite a few times is when he gets near the byline with the defender backing off, he just stops and then picks out a pass into the box - like the one Doucoure had a shot with this week and the one Hughes (I think) dummied for Doucoure the week before. And on top of all that, he’s just got the ability to do things many other players don’t, and I like watching him play. Plus I get the feeling he seems really happy here and wants to be out there playing for the club. Will be massively missed for me personally and I just hope he can come back the same player as before.