Typical when we score goals that the focus is on being aggressive or route one. Nothing about the passing for the first or GD's run to set up the second. No they discuss the third and its long ball and Troy's aggression.... No real mention of Foster's MOTM saves either but lots about Stanislas and Fraser. This is why I stopped watching MOTD a long time ago. They did show Howe waving an imaginary card though.....
And the relevance of your comment to the summers lack of centre back recruitment is minimal. Irrespective of good work elsewhere in the squad over several seasons does not mean that they cannot be critisised for going into a season with Mariappa as first reserve centre back. The fact this was done after the Richarlison sale is even more damning.
It's hilarious that you come out with these sarcastic posts every time Deeney does well. Less hilarious, is how often you are able to - about once every 10 games. He scored his first goal because, instead of standing still like he normally does, he actually made a little run to find space in the box. He scored his second because he actually sprinted 50 yards to get involved and got the deserved lucky break as the ball was deflected to him. And he took both chances brilliantly. Good striker play, make and find space, be mobile and take chances. Just wish he would do it more often than once in a blue moon. Then it was a shame that, as our captain, he didn't keep his head better as he stupidly give away a needless free-kick that started their comeback - it was a time for calm heads to see out the last 10 minutes of the half with a two goal lead. Although, tbf, maybe he was surprised that little Fraser was capable of running so fast, just minutes after appearing to have been almost killed by Doucoure's tackle.
They all love Bournemouth and Deeney.. To most outside neutrals us fans Troy is still our best player and most dangerous threat in their eyes. It does seem he plays better away from home when the opposition fans wind him up...
You can come out any time you like. You are with friends here and your sexuality won't affect our view of you one little bit.
He's right to. For once he's using his big gob in our favour. I'm happy that we've a classy coach who doesn't use every post match interview to moan about injustices from the officials, but it does go against us. The reason Muff, Dyche, Colin and others are all over the media moaning about how hard done by they are, and then in the refs ear all game, and hasslimg the 4th official, is because it works. We don't get the rub of the green but we don't play that game, which is to our credit somewhat
Or our disallowed goal (rightly I feel) but since all the key decisions in that game could've gone either way it was worth mentioning
Definitely not a penalty although as most have alluded to the annoyance is more that it would have been given against us, or for Bournemouth v anyone else. I'm more interested in Deeney's disallowed goal. Didn't look like a push to me but then he didn't complain afterwards...
I was at the game and they really were rolling around at every opportunity. Foster made some great stops and despite being two up I think a point was fair. Having seen the footage on motd I think it should’ve been a pen at the end for us. I didn’t see anything wrong with Deeneys disallowed goal either, he challenged for it with Ake who promptly dumped himself on the floor. Love Deeneys comments after, I think he was spot on. Doucs was lucky to avoid a red, but let’s be honest so where they too. Unsurprisingly Howe didn’t see it that way.. or our penalty shout... funny that!
I think we should be happier with a point than Muff, we move up the table a bit and two players that have been pretty bad recently scored some goals and that has to be good. But then we have two players, in Bobby P and Dele, who were pretty anonymous throughout, particularly Pereyra - again. He does this too often, disappearing for long periods, or recently for whole games. Muff are not the team to play with only nine effective players on the pitch. I think Gracia got one of his subs wrong, I think Quina was a player that could have calmed things down and kept the ball, something we desperately needed in that second half. I am not so negative about the defending for the goals as others are. I thought their second came from a blatant dive that fooled the ref into giving a FK, and the header was almost unstoppable. He was was facing and moving away from the goal, and it looped into the only part of the goal that would beat Foster. Their third was, in my opinion, a very good goal, with two excellent dummies beating the defenders. If we had scored it, it would have been a brilliant goal. Then, as a defensive (and GK) unit we held out after being pummeled for the whole second half. In the past we would have collapsed into a humiliating 6-3 hammering. We have to remember that Muff have a far better forward line than us in all ways. More dynamic, more mobile, better finishers and much quicker, probably the best outside the top 6, and it showed. Then with Pererya not performing. Stanislas was able to romp up and down the right-hand touch line, in an unfamiliar right-back role, at will, and with Brooks down that side - they ruled that second half. We also have to accept that we are just not that intelligent, whilst Muff are. Infuriatingly, they know how to set us up for falling foul of the refs, and we fall into it every time. With the crowd joining in and the Muff staff pressurising from the sidelines, it is not nice, but they do it well. We shouldn't be lunging in, we should be containing, preventing, staying on their feet and goal side and keeping physical contact to a minimum. Easier said than done though. Oh, and not a penalty. But, all in all, not bad.
Last night was Gracia's 38th match in charge of Watford. So that represents a full season in terms of matches played. We have won 13 drew 9 and lost 16, picking up 48 points. That's not a bad return and would be Watford's best points haul had that been a full season in total. Right now though, we seem to be chugging along. Since that wonderful winning start of 4 wins and 12 points from the first 4 games, we're just averaging 1 point per game. We've picked up 17 points from 17 matches, which would equate to just 38 points per season. Of course, we cannot discount our first 4 games, but the recent run is almost half a season. To my mind, Gracia is doing a great job and we are probably under the points total we should have, but recent matches have seen a downturn in certain aspects of our performance levels. Maybe it's down to the heavy fixture schedule over Christmas, but we do not seem as efficient up front or defensively unified as we were in the earlier part of the season. The solution, IMO, lies away from the club, in that we desperately need a couple of Premier League standard players just to boost things. I think you can say, even though he signed a long extension, Prodl is probably not part of Gracia's plans and Britos is not good enough. That leaves just Cathcart, Mapps and Kabasele. That's not enough quality or personnel for an entire Premier League campaign. The strike force also needs strengthening, but we all know this. However, the goal scoring stats are surprisingly good. 30 goals scored from 21 games is decent, so that's more down to the way we play and the volume of good chances we create using wide players and midfielders that has given this boost in goals. No one can complain at being 8th in the table, but that's a precarious position, where in one match we could potentially drop down to 13th. We are happily in this bracket, but do need to pick up more than 1 point per game in order to stay in that company. This month is an important one, and one in which we need to spend money and spend it wisely on strengthening the first team......no more squad players please. Not much needed, but it needs to be done, or else I fear another campaign of promise just fizzling out as we nudge over the safety line.
Everyone saying Mapps is just not good enough which I agree, although he has done a lot better than we all thought when he rejoined the club, however what has happened to Prodl as I always thought he would be challenging Cathcart and Kabbs for starting. He was a automatic starter last season!
We are a strong and physical side but it doesn't mean Muff have the opportunity to roll around like a bunch of tarts at every opportunity. A lot of other clubs do say the same about them so it can't be a one off whenever they play against us. They are a bunch of divers.
Thing is someone said earlier VAR would help but most of the time it wouldn't. They play to draw fouls. We really weren't cute enough in the second half last night as time and time again we let them put their body between a Watford player and the ball and go down. Then at the same time we didn't hold on to the ball remotely well enough, meaning we couldn't do the same to them. Yes there were some clear fouls by us too (Holebas took Brooks out off the ball for example) but it was clearly out of frustration. The thing was in the first 20 minutes or so Bournemouth did none of that and were 2-0 down, so you can understand why they switched it on.
Quite. If they wouldn’t invest in the obvious centre back issue when they had the whole summer why would they be incentivised to now given we are in such a strong position? I think this will be a very quiet transfer window.
Agree. VAR might have helped on the penalty though as those close range ones look worse in slow motion.
They always said before that we'd only buy in an over inflated January market if it was absolutely essential and it doesn't feel too essential right now. We aren't going down so it would only be to secure a higher position which doesn't seem to be their way. I can't see too much being done this month even if we do lose a player or 2 unless it's a loan with option to buy.
I don't think the referee had much of a direct impact on the result (I don't think it was a pen, for example), and we can't really complain about any of the cards, but he did seem out of his depth and very inconsistent. He seemed to let a lot go in the early section of the game and then suddenly switch to very whistle happy later in the first half. I can understand why the players got frustrated. Saying that it was a bit weird quite how ill-discplined we became for a while. I don't know if it was frustration at the ref, or just a general hatred of Bournemouth amongst our players! I think probably the latter as it's always a high-intensity game between us. This ill-discipline ended up really hurting us as Capoue and Doucoure were both walking a tightrope and couldn't play their normal game, which really shifted the momentum and possession to Bournemouth and we struggled to regain it even when Doucoure was taken off. We completely lost the midfield battle last night. Sema played great, I didn't know he had that in him and may be guilty of writing him off too soon. But did anyone see his attempt at a right-footed pass in the second half?! Let's see how he gets on in his next performances. Deeney had his best game in a while and scored not one but TWO goals from open play. New Year New Troy? Foster was superb and has been a brilliant acquisition. We need a centre back, as everyone can see. I'm sure Gino's working on it. Entertainment and shredded nerves again, par for the course with this Watford team. Got to be happy with a point all considered, we could easily have lost that. We. Go. Again.
I would say it is essential due to the fact Prodl is still unavailable, and we cannot cover 17 remaining EPL matches with only 3 viable options at centre back. Wilmott is here to develop and Britos is here as a last ditch emergency. Navarro seems to be well down the list of alternatives also. I'm pretty sure a centre back will be signed, and if not, then it won't be for the lack for trying.
I've just seen the Sky clips,with The Sainted Eddie and Troy and the AFC Bournemouth mascot. I would say it's better to take an immediate dislike to Howe. It saves a great deal of time. It looked like Doucs and Sports Centre in WGC now managed by Betterware or something similar were fortunate to escape a red card. Was it a penalty? Never for us but better than 50/50 probably, for others.
Given that experienced EPL refs are, by and large, terrible, I'm all for giving some new blokes a chance, but the one last night was p1sspoor: constantly off the pace, not wise to the south coast Scummers' gamesmanship and how he only produced a yellow card for the foul on Cleverley is anyone's guess. Would have taken a point before the match, but to draw after being 2-0 up is frustrating. What a sh1thole Boscombe is
Yep, the only chance of January signings are if a bargain crops up that the pozzos see a potential future profit in. In other words, some foreign type we've never heard of nor will ever see play. Anyone thinking they'll blow £10m+ on a centre back to appease the fans are deluded. They probably think we're a right bunch of whining ****s (and they'd be spot on with that assessment).
I thought about that earlier and I think the referee completely lost control once Muff turned on the gamesmanship. He had very little to do in the opening period as we went 2-0 up. Probably lulled him into a false sense of security. Then suddenly the game exploded into life and he seemed unable to influence it at all. Obviously refs don't dictate the pace/events of the game but I've always thought they have a responsibility to facilitate the best game possible. And, frankly, Deeney was right when he said that stint before half time was like non-league nonsense. The ref definitely contributed to that.
Sounds like the sort of thing the morons would sing. Certainly not the 1881 though, they wouldn't do that sort of thing.
Special mention must go to whoever managed to smuggle a flare in to the ground. Always good to see yellow smoke drifting across Dean Court. Might make us look a bit tinpot if we let any off at Woking though
They were, of course, thrown out of Hampshire, who said 'We've already got a proper team who play in red and one in blue. We don't need you, go away to Dorset'.
