Hate to break it to you chaps, but we're going to lose this one. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Don't shoot the messenger.
Our fixture list is prime "we could go on a good run here", but the reality is that we will win one or two and draw/lose too the others. The Norwich performance was good because we had Capoue on song. Been hopeless since.
Leventhal said on his podcast that if he was Gray he would not be happy at being pulled off at half time and playing one game and missing the next. Apparent we would be best off perciviering with him until he gets a goal and "breaks the duck" a bit like he did after his goal at Coventry then.
This is in part because I hadn't actually finished listening to it I am continuing it now, and what I will say is that they've now turned to the transfer window, Parkin asked Leventhal if the Pozzo had done enough in it to sort the problems out, and Leventhal has answered sort of ramblingly that if we're stuck with players on huge wages not doing anything, then we're quite hamstrung, however you can be bold, and we see other teams like Arsenal and Aberdeen (IIRC) in this window do that, and move players out on less advantageous deals that gets the deadwood out of the door and allows you to bring some in to be brave and give that a try. After that, he has gone on to criticise the performance of the strikers not really actually pressing/pressing half-heartedly, and mentioned how he has issues with Deeney not actually even winning that many headers or flick ons these days (a drum we've been beating on here for rather a long time now). Has just said - "We've seen other strikers come into other clubs and make a difference, and Watford needed that...they looked at other options, but it's just trying to make things fit when you've got these players who are drawing so much cash, and aren't attractive to anyone else; if they could shift out some of the players they would, but they can't, because no one wants them, that's the problem." He then went on for a while again about how something must change, and why not do something different - as he remembers us doing in the past, why not play a youth like Hungbo instead of Gray if Gray is not doing anything.
Not saying Munoz is the answer but love to know who we will get when we sack another manager after a few games though. Might as well let the players themselves run the team. No-one of any note is going to be interested in the job if they hardly get a chance to make any progress. Maybe if they fancy a quick pay-offs!
Especially if they are going to be told which players to pick & who not to pick, which from the outside looks like it could be the case.
I'm taking his quote to mean something like a change in style rather than formation. Hopefully meaning the players will look like they give a **** and the team know what they're going to do when they get on the pitch.
In fairness, we shouldn't worry too hard about the prospective candidates for the coaching position and our relative attractiveness if Munoz does get the boot, because we have now opened it up to non-managers and no longer require any qualifications, so the pool we are swimming in is actually rather enormous.
Quite an apt analogy at the end there, as there's every chance our next appointment will be a swimming instructor from a local leisure centre
The first half at Stoke was also as dreadful as anything we've seen this season. It was only the impressive Sarr goal and the fact we won in the end that has made people forget how bad it was.
The Stoke match was poor, but with a 5 minute burst of top quality which won us the game. Those moments have been as rare as hen's teeth. This is the only reason we won, not because of the way we played, but because we strung together a couple Premier League standard moves in quick succession. The same could be said of the goals we scored against Bournemouth and Derby. These were out of the blue moments, completely out of character to what went on before or after. It's just a little reminder that Watford used to be a Premier League team. Before a ball was kicked this season, we were a Premier League team on loan to the Championship. Now we're looking more and more like a side befitting the Championship. In other words, our decline has not yet stopped.
Almost the entire performance after the second goal was also pretty dire, as we sat back and got compressed further and further back towards our goalline as a team, unable to push out or mount a relief threat at all and resulting in us conceding one goal and still desperately hacking and hoofing away for dear life in the 95th minute to preserve the win.
Fair to say we definitely haven’t got the best squad in the league now and probably never did really without recruiting a striker or too. The hope of running away with the league quickly evaporated.
Thanks for posting. That makes horrendous viewing. I don’t buy into the sentiments others have posted about Munoz having this game to save his job. A better performance on Saturday isn’t going to the change the fact that he’s tactically inept, inexperienced, and lacking the clout/******** in the dressing room to force people to fall in line. He’s been exactly what he was always going to be, which for whatever reason, is what Pozzo wanted.
I've given it a listen and to be fair, Leventhal does get all uptight and says the immortal words - 'this isn't working'. You can tell they are all desperate to bedwet but can't as their actual mortgages are probably based on keeping the club onside. I would feel sorry for them having to toe this line but then I heard the Bet365 advert.
I see there’s talk of a “new system”. I hope it’s something like either of these, but I’m well aware the chances of an XI without the fatman shuffling about in the middle of the pitch are non-existent.
We're in exactly the same position we were with Quique before Norwich away last season (though that feels like it was about 5 years ago) and Ivic before Rotherham - it's very clear that it's not working, and that the coach in charge is not capable of achieving the stated goal, yet they will be given a relatively 'puff' game to stumble through and be granted a stay of execution to work their wicked ways on a couple more matches. In this case, it's even more drastic, because our squad is worse, and the coach in question is not just butting heads with the team, or the wrong style of coach entirely, but in actual fact not really a coach at all and inept, entirely.
To be honest, I'm a big fan of Sarr, I'm glad he's still here and he's made a few decisive interventions in games, without which we would have fewer points than we do. That being said, I'm a bit sick of him having **** game with a cowardly, restrained performance after **** game with a cowardly, restrained performance, and still being rewarded with an unquestionable starting berth in his preferred position. Starting Hughes on the left has been madness, and pathetic, and we've gone over that enough, but even so, if you feel you're lacking in wingers, why the fuccing hell didn't we move Sarr over to the left and start Zinckernagel in his preferred position on the right, where he has a double chance to show what he can do in terms of getting a start, and playing where he has been most impressive in his career to date? This is one of the things that really has to end - Zinck is potentially our most/only creative driving force, and we can see some of that even just in his performance against Utd, or the cross he put in for WTE to miss, inexplicably, from about 4 yards, in one of his first games in the country. Saturday really has to see Zinck start, outside of any other considerations about the coach. If he doesn't, I think that will tell us everything we need to know (and also already do).
If we absolutely have to play Deeney, then 4-4-2 is probably the best system to play as long as we actually have a left winger, that way we line up with 10 1/2 men rather than 10... Ideally, I'd go with your second option, but Deeney has to play, so we'll be ****
'Watch the monitor and see if anything occurs' - sounds like rather an apt description of Munoz' role, for sure.
If I was Xisco I would be tempted to just tell Sarr go and play on the opposition's last man and have Zinckernagel playing on the right hand side with Kiko supporting and Ken Sema on the left. At this stage I wouldn't mind us reverting back to Sarr and JP up front. Xisco is not going to drop Deeney though.
Is HSM PisstheLeague back sailing again this Saturday then lads? You best she is! Sweet Caroline FTW. Up the Watford.
Yeah, I don't rule that out at all, I'm just thinking that the dumptruck will be parked in the centre of the opposition's half, making a lot of noise, so it would involve replacing Pedro (or Gray ) with Sarr and I'm not averse to that, I just see it as less likely. We could even be revolutionary and give Sarr a game off - any manager of actual substance should be able to cope with a player being unavailable for one single game, especially when he has a direct replacement/rival for his exact position waiting in the wings ready to be unleashed. Sarr has played 2,119 minutes this season - the next closest is Ben Foster, on 1,980, and then the closest outfielder is (surprisingly) Chalobah, on 1,927 minutes; 200 minutes fewer, in a far less explosive/up and down position. He's only had one game off in the last 22. What's the harm in giving him one match's rest? He might even come back refreshed as a more effective player for it.
I'd rather have Zinc behind Pedro and keep Sarr on the right, but pushing inside between the FB and CB occasionally, and staying high up the pitch. Zinc can always drop back to cover.
