I am as well, but in reality one of the things that this stat does not show is the effectiveness of winning those aerial duels. It's one of the long term complaints of Troy, that his idea of winning an aerial duel is to get his head on it at all, and immediately flick it on somewhere. The problem is that no one is quite sure where that somewhere is going to be, including him, and more often than not it's not a space any of our players are occupying or, indeed, even threatening to occupy. It's almost like he's desperately obsessed with stat padding solely in the 'aerial duels won' category; that is his own personal Waterloo. As long as it bongs off his bonce it's golden, never mind where it's headed. And don't even talk to him about the idea of bringing it down and controlling it. How very dare you.
It's strange when it comes to Deeney, even a positive stat associated with him is twisted to find the negative side. Had he not won any duels then that would be a negative stat. Being second in the league for winning the ball in the air is very commendable. This is not just for strikers, this includes central defenders winning the ball from corners etc as well. How can he bring it down on his chest when he's contesting in the air against his opponent? Seriously....you've got to be fair to the guy.
I'm not a fan of panic early-season sackings, especially when our two star signings haven't had a change to bed in and show what they can do. Even if they play the next 180 minutes, that isn't enough for somebody coming back from a long-term injury and another starting out in a tougher league in a foreign country where he may well not know the language.
Let's wait and see. Obviously if we get well behind Gino would need to act, but setting managers or head coaches points targets never works.
Yes, and I think West Ham will not be very happy with their start to the season, either. So there might be a real battle on Saturday, and not necessarily a sportsmanlike one, either.
Well......they mugged us off last season, or rather Antonio did with his diving antics, which of course Kavanaugh fell for hook, line and sinker. We owe them one. If we are to turn the tide, it will have to start on Saturday. I'm confident we'll win that and will be back on track somewhat.
I think there's a lot in that. You mentioned Aubamayang (?) a while back - he was plainly fouled by Kabasele last year, kept on his feet to shoot and was not awarded a penalty. Advantage rule? No, he was stumbling. It was clearly a penalty, but he didn't go over. But Peyreyra and Deulofeu need to practise falling convincingly.
Ah, that makes sense then, thank you for informing me, I am not very streetwise when it comes to this type of thing.
Er....there were definitely Watford forums in the 90s. The internet might not have gone mainstream, but they still existed. There were also IRC channels and other mediums of interaction.
Yeah but only the most speccy of computer nerds 1. had a computer capable of having the internet and 2. had the nerdiness to go to online forums. Most football fans in the 90s did not fit this profile.
Obviously there was some dramatic licence in that comment, but yes, I do take your point. That being said, are you contending the main point, that a great deal of the headers he wins are poorly placed/wasted possession?
My first forum was in 1982 and ran on my ZX81 Spectrum It ran like this: 10 Print “please post your comment” 20 wait 60 30 Print “great post” 40 Print “I agree” 50 Print “wow you are so clever” 60 go to 10
No my point was the thickos have always been there. You computer types have just given them an audience of billions.
Lacazette. He should have been given a special award for sportsmanship/benched for the next month for naivety.
No not really. I think we profit greatly from his headers. If the move breaks down or no goal scored, that's not down to him. Of course, he's not perfect, but I think a fair percentage he wins set us up for at least a chance to score/build an attack. I certainly wouldn't be complaining about that part of his game for sure.
If he is winning that amount in the air maybe some of his team mates should look to occupy these positions.
Surely Mawson, as a (one time) u21, can come any time. Grew up in Hillingdon so should be ours anyway.
If he’s winning that amount in the air, maybe he should think about heading it into the opposition net a lot more. 16 headed goals for Watford (6 in the PL) out of his 123 goals. Nearly 1 in 8 goals. For someone supposedly with such success in the air, couldn’t he be more effective with it?
We don't score many headed goals as a team though. We have wingers who don't cross, 1 out of 2 full backs that have a 1 in 10 decent cross ratio.
Unfortunately, you need to be inside the opposition box to have a realistic chance of scoring headed goals.
