Seen CP, Hull and Cardiff. Seen Watford oc a little bit more than those teams. But the quality difference in the game is so big that its infact amazing that this team didnt go up. Its a mix of unlucky happenings with refs, Zolas manager misses and players doing the rest of it. We where a lot more better than all the 3 clubs that went up. For the overall picture (soccer) it isnt so big thing but for the club and fans its hard to take. As a feeder club these are the opportunities you have to take advantage of. Now we missed it due to nervousness att field (Cassetti) and manager (Zola). How do a former creative player and attacking player dont play a similiar player more? Forrestieri didnt get that time on the field that he was supposed to get. As an intelligent player as Zola was i dont infact understand how he thinks this true? A damn big mystery to me! Then - with 15 min to go of extra time...i didnt see some attack. In soccer its too late to focus on last 1-2 minutes. Thats ok in ishockey but thats a quicker game. In soccer u have to act quicker. We did get some chanches last 5 min but if we had pushed before we cud had equalized. Too passive from an former offensive player.
Unfortunately despite all the 'sexy' football Hull. Cardiff and to a more limited extent Crystal Palace were better at grinding out results. One area to be worked on if we are to do better next time.
Defensively not quite good enough unfortunately,and we didn't get going properly until October/November.
A slow start, whole defensive out injured, some shocking refereeing and a bit of tactical naivety from GFZ. Ironic that the home game vs Palace we were 2-0 up and coasting yet capitulated and ended up with one point instead of three - the difference between autos and play offs....
WFC vs CP was a SKY game and we saw it globally. Totally dominated 45 min without killing the game off. 2-2 after 90 min was a quit chocking result. In that respect it was somewhat choking to come to Wembey vs CP and see this game and u knew that we have the better team and game. Its hard to be a fan.
^^^ Agreed, if we had even played to 75% of our best this season it would have been different. Sure, they had some great chances and were fully up for it but that is the point, we were mostly awful and a shadow of our best. I hope lessons are learnt and next season we get a bit tougher, a bit smarter. And hopefully some decent refs.
The Wembley performance (particularly second half) was one of the worst Watford performances for about 5 years. Even completely ****e games like losing 5-0 to Chelsea an occasional hoof-come-defence error created half-chances. We didn't even really have that.
We probably put in 2 of our poorest attacking performances in the 2 games we needed to win most...just sods law. Couldn't even blame outside influences against Palace! :dismay:
Actually the defensive display makes my previous post wrong, that was very good. It was the worst attacking display I've seen from any Watford team since the Vialli Era, particularly taking into account the importance of the game, and the defensive record of the team we were against. Shocking.
The Leeds game was the real problem, Cardiff had given us a chance, there is no way you can expect to lose two goalies in one day, if the pen had been given on Hogg we would have won 3- 0 ish, the 6-1 had prob come back to hurt us in a strange way. Never thought we would get to Wembley. Millwall away was a banker three points for me, just a few days after a Wembley Semi final, also when the Bristol game got called off. The final, hate to admit it, but their Manager got it right. Defo Pen, lucky to take it to extra time. I would have much rather played Brighton in the Final and was gutted when they lost. Time to stop moaning, got a lot more right in the season than we got wrong, the owners and the Manager deserve credit for that. The real test of a great club is how they react. I think we will either walk it of be mid table. COYH
A lot of excuses can be made and you can make your own luck but we didn't have a lot. How many penalties that we actually got were dodgy? Can't think of any. How many that we didn't get were stonewall? How many given against us were debatable? How many teams can afford to lose 4 centre backs and still compete? How often does a team lose one goalkeeper in a game let alone two before 20 minutes are up? 2 out of our best 3 strikers were not fit for the final, although our fault we hadn't given Geijo enough game time. That is a lot of bad luck. I know we must have had decisions go our way (Wolves should have had a last minute penalty) and I know I'm biased but the bad luck seems to far outweigh the good. Also take in to account when most of our players arrived and how much game time they've had over the last couple of years it's actually a tremendous effort to have the season we had. All of this has been playing on my mind since the play off final and now I've got it off my chest I can move on. Bring on the new season, I reckon this will be our year! COYGB
Hey, don't be too harsh English is Kimmo's 3rd language. I think in feeder club he was referring to us being a 'selling' club in the grand order of football rather than directly to one team. Also read this
Knight GT. Dont really know why the admiration on Geijo? Was very poor. Didnt run and search for passes, when was given a decent ball and had the chance to produce someting was physically very weak. Seamed as a junior vs a man game. Shudnt make any new deal with this player. Weak is weak, want strong players attacking players. The Blissett and Deeney way is our way. You cant say that he hadnt the game time - newertheless he has trained with 1st team whole time so he is physically fit but didnt match it against the 1st team opponents. Infact IMO GFZ shud have played FF up front instead. Quicker foots, quicker passing, quicker thinking = quicker. When we want to get something happening we want the players to get somehing to happend. Those players producing "happenings" are the quick thinkers and the quick players and the players that dont always do the normal things. In this aspect GFZ;s decisions is somewhat strange. I really dont understand him. Wud be nice if he cud comment on the decisions. FF only speak Argentinian? Some language issue? GFZ shud IMO LOVE a player like FF - doesent seam so.
LOL. Infact always wondered in the 80s when i listened to Saturday Sports Special on BBC ShortWawe with Paddy Finney when you speaked about soccer. Always been football in Finland and Sweden language directly translated. Dont know the history behind the soccer name. Sorry for the terminology miss. Have a nice summer all fans!
By November when we're doing ok and Palarse are getting humped by everyone, we'll be enjoying ourselves far more. My biggest regret about losing the final is it slightly taints the amazing Leicester game. No more than that.
