It's a good point. Very often we switch off on that right side. I like Kiko but he does get out of position quite a lot. He tends to let his pace get him out of trouble, but his positional play is suspect at times. Same goes for Janmaat or Mapps who occasionally plays there. They often get caught out positionally. It's one of our (many) weaknesses.
I'm assuming we are the blue line which totally supports the point. Burnley outpassed us, which is made even more laughable by the fact that they spent most of the second half with Pope just trying to kick it over our defence for Vydra to run on to. But of course, our completely clueless defenders have zero confidence or ability on the ball so routinely put it out for a throw in deep in our half as they are utter tripe and can't handle running towards their own goal. Only way that Burnley could get in our half and we happily obliged every time.
Also remember Foster calling for a ball coming back to him to catch only for Bambi Legs Dawson to take the ball, turn like the Titanic and hoof it out of play unchallenged. Not a Burnley player anywhere. It was bloody hilarious. At least he held his hand up to say sorry, was only around 5 minutes to go after all.
Haha! We are comically inept, could only have been better if Sarr had pulled his hamstring again because Kiko had fallen asleep on the halfway line. It wasn't even like we were hit on the break, Pearson said the goal came from a goal kick.
Kiko was probably running across their back line ready to break through, avoid the offside and score, once we cleared it.
I think one of the problems we've had since Gerri's injury is a lack of balance in our team. Pearson transformed us by playing players in their best positions but yesterday we had Cleverly and Welbeck out of position running around aimlessly. Means teams can focus on our threat of Sarr and we're no longer stretching them. I really hope on Sunday we play a genuine left winger - Pussetto must be worth giving a go surely? Then we could put Welbeck central and have an actual mobile striker in the middle.
Most of the players see us as a stepping stone and we seem to sign the sort that when the going gets tough, hide. Which is slightly odd if they are in the shop window. The ones that do seem to care are mainly crap - e.g. Deeney and Mariappa.
Agree with everything except the Masina comment, I thought he had his worst game in a Watford shirt last night. Kiko was the only one who could walk away with some credit, tried to get forward and make things happen. Wasn't getting any cover from Sarr either.
See my line up for Sunday. Pace and mobility upfront. And no little invention. Not more lumping against a strong Southampton physical defence.
Masina played well. Made some defensive interventions,comfortable on the ball, made some runs down the left in the second half and unfortunately could not keep his header down. He is ahead of Holebas for a reason.
I have to say, so starved of striker movement are we, that Welbeck getting forward and moving for the ball was a welcome sight. If only he didn't have 2 years of ring rustiness in his touch and control, he might be deadly.
That header he missed was a great chance which he should've done better with in my opinion. Also he was caught too narrow when he left Brownhill on his own in the first half who headed wide. He's better than Holebas but I've seen him play much better than he did last night.
I am genuinely embarrassed by that performance, it was nothing short of a joke! We looked really disjointed and had nothing going down the left hand side at all, we kept forcing it to Sarr and Burnley knew that and they just over loaded the right hand side. We just played into Burnley's hands I was screaming at my telly to stop going long because Mee and Tarkowski will deal with long balls all day, even when Deeney did manage to win anything our players needed to be closer for knockdowns, (I also thought this against Leicester). Danny welbeck is wasted on the left needs to be down the middle, if we don't have much on the left side without Deulofeu could Sarr just keep swapping sides? Overall a very disappointing day in the office but I kind of always expect us to lose away from home with or without fans, only positive really is that we are just out of the relegation zone for now.
Thought Vydra played really well. Would love to have a striker who was actually effective at something.
Pussetto has almost never played on the left wing. Striker, behind the strikerare his positions. Joao Pedro, Welbeck, Penaranda and Pereyra are the 4 players that are proven to at least be able to play it.
Agreed, I thought when we were bringing on Gray to save the day what a bad decision it was to let him go, super Mat is a far superior player, reads the game better, has a better touch is probably faster and is a brilliant finisher. Having said all that we had the best forward on the pitch yesterday but he was playing left wing.
We could play Sarr left wing, I don't think it makes too much difference which side he plays its his pace that does the damage.
Very very disappointing. Our home game against them last season always sticks in my mind, that was disappointing because we hammered them for the majority of the game and then they ended up flukeing a win in their typical parasitic fashion. But this was something else, a completely gutless performance that got precisely what it deserved. Burnley didn’t have to resort to their usual frustrating tactics, they just comfortably held us at bay without getting out of second gear, completely unforgivable. Maybe, just maybe, if we had been in the bottom three we might have approached the game with more purpose, but in reality this was a completely free hit, we need wins at this stage so I just can’t get my head around that performance.
It's one of the most baffling things I've seen from us in a while. You can tell because my brain couldn't comprehend in the moment that the player I thought was Kiko was actually Cathcart. Anyway, I had to go and look. Here's the full second half highlights: https://eplfootballmatch.com/burnley-vs-watford-full-match-premier-league-25-june-2020/2/ And here's Kiko when the goal kick is taken (ball is higher up, above the play symbol): [That's a picture by the way, for anyone who has spent a frustrating minute trying to press the play button!] He'd taken a throw in on 71:35 probably half way into their half. Sarr then overplayed a pass on 71:50 which left Kiko stranded in the 6yd box as he tried to run inside to the byline. Pope took the kick pretty quickly but it went straight down the middle so unlikely he spotted the gap at RB. So I actually think it's a team failure. Someone needed to cover RB and didn't. Maybe it was Sarr's job but he was up the pitch too as the kick was taken. No one else covered, Capoue never really got involved with challenging for the second ball after the knock down from the goal kick and, once they worked it into the massive gap, we were screwed.
I know it’s a matter of opinion, but what I saw from Masina yesterday made me think he was genuinely the worst player on the pitch. It was league 1 standard the amount of times he spurned possession or aimlessly launched it up field.
They weren't the worst by any means but Dawson and Cathcart continually reacting slowly and knocking the ball into the stand rather than keeping it alive after we went behind, was right up there with the most annoying things yesterday.
Yeah Troy has scored 43 and Welbeck 42 but how many would Troy have scored if he wasn't on penalty duty? Edit: I have just checked and Deeney has scored 15 of his Premier League goals from the spot and Welbeck has scored all 42 from open play.
If only we had strikers who could miss the two great chances they had in the game and not score, all our problems would be solved. I loved Vydra when he played for us and he is still a good player, but I wish people would stop thinking he would be the messiah.
And how many would Deeney have scored playing for United and Arsenal at the peak of their powers? Swings and roundabouts mate. Point is, Welbeck was never very good. A bang average English striker when we didn't have many of them that happened to play for Ferguson and Wenger as a bit part player. After all the injuries he's had, he's not even that level now. Was worth a shot signing him, I guess. But a reputational decision based on overhyping by the media in the past has proved a bit of a disaster.
This is very optimistic imo. Foster, Masina and Hughes would probably leave. Don’t know enough about Pussetto to know if he’d want to stay and play second tier football. Doubt it.
