FA Cup Final - Manchester City 6-0 Watford FC - 18/05/2019 Match Thread

BBC quoted something like 23 shots to 11. Like you I can only remember about 2 or 3 shots.

 

On the way out I saw the family that sit behind me in The Rookery.
The patriarch said " Well Friend really stitched us up there".
Was the beer that strong?
Splendid buffoonery!

 

IMO, the squad is a mixture. We do have a Premier League midfield. Pereyra and Deulofeu are clearly Premier League standard as well, so is Foster. The rest are Championship level in all honesty.

If money is such an issue to Watford, and of course it is, then we really have to cut loose the deadwood. I've identified 14 players in our current squad that are not contributing anything to the first team (on the pitch at least) and would have no impact if they left. That's 14 salaries and in some cases transfer fees also to be recouped.

Moving on as many as 14 players would fee up a lot of cash to reinvest, and with that we just sign 4 or 5 better calibre players and the books would probably still balance.

 

You were Lucky you reached the Bar, I struggled to make it to the toilet and back in my seat before the second half kicked off, a queue of two sets of fans both going opposite ways, hopeless!

 

Just something to bear in mind.
At 3-0 in the league our subs would have been a little more conservative. Let's minimise the damage, make sure we don't completely kill morale and confidence for the next game. No real point in chasing a game we won't win and suffering a hammering.
But what do you do in the Cup Final, our first for 35 years ? Bring Cleverley on, go defensive and accept a 3 or 4 nil win ? But this might be our last visit for another 30 odd years ?
Bringing on Success and Gray and playing 3 upfront seemed madness at the time and certainly risked the thrashing we got, and possibly worse. But put yourself in Gracia's shoes....what do you do ? I think he gambled on the tiny chance that we might score a couple to get back in range, and maybe give us a goal to shout about.
The same thing struck me about the starting 11. As I said I'd have dropped RP and played an extra defensive player. Tried to hang on and keep the score close and then maybe nick a goal. But remember the stick Brighton got for their defensive damage limitation show in the SF? Respectable score but they never really gave themselves a chance. We probably would have been equally damning on them for "not giving it a go" if we'd played really defensive and quietly lost 0-2.
With hindsight probably the wrong formation and the wrong subs, but neither were an easy decision.
Gomes though. That was an easy decision !

 

P&D are top 6 20% of the time and championship the other 80%. Nothing inbetween. I may be being generous.

 

The reason as to how we have managed to stay in the division these last 4 seasons is more or less down to having good starts and then just doing ok, maybe a little better the last season in Jan/Feb/March which helped us get to 50 points!

Although West Ham lost something like their first 5 games and still finished above us, I feel that Our first few games next season will be a real measure of the season we will end up having!

 

really? Where were you sat? I was up in the gods and thought the bar situation was excellent.

 

Taking off deulofeu killed our chances. If we're chasing a game you have to leave him on. It was depressing to see him taken off and hastened my exit.

You cant quite see isaac success doing a wolves.

 

Totally agree.

 

Yes I'd never allow Success on the pitch - I guess he felt GD was looking lightweight, little impact upfront and nothing covering back. I'd have left him on though and let Success go home. Slight injury perhaps ?

 

You live and die by the sword. If Gracia saw it the way he did, I can't argue with him as he's got a lot right this season. Trouble is, he's not got a lot of genuine quality to work with.

It's just my opinion, but the form of Kabs and Maps was so poor leading up to the game, that I would have considered brining in Britos. Same with Kiko. He's been on a real downward path as the season ended, and Janmaat should certainly have played. Foster would of course been stronger in goal, and would have probably made 2 or 3 amazing saves just to have made the score respectable.

The way we played at the Etihad would have been perfect for the FA Cup final. I'm very surprised he didn't do this.

In that game he played a 4-5-1 system. The team that day was Foster - (defense) Janmaat, Kabasele, Britos, Masina - (midfield) Success, Cleverley, Capoue, Doucoure, Femenia - (forward) Gray.

To me that caused City some problems. They found it hard to break us down. Look at the players we went with, and it was weaker, man for man, than Saturday's team, but gave City a much harder game.

Maybe Gracia fell into the trap of keeping big players happy? Maybe he felt he had to play Gomes, Deeney, Mariappa, Deulofeu and Pereyra and to make a system to incorporate all of them?

Who knows what the reasons were, but had Gracia's team on Saturday paid off, had Pereyra scored that simple chance and had the referee given that penalty for handball, we'd have been 2-0 up and things would have taken a very different turn, he'd be hailed a genuis.

 

The correct version (and you know it) is the EQUAL biggest defeat in the ENGLISH FA Cup competition. The distinction is important.

Also, much better to wave flags than trip over your bottom lip as you skulk out. Still, at least your real favourite team was promoted to the Championship this season!

 

It was just a re-run of our previous matches against City, but with Gomes in goal instead of Foster.

Of course a major difference between our squads is the ridiculous disparity in quality and cost. But another key difference is the mentality of the head coach.

Guardiola is ruthless. Gracia puts in a second rate keeper in the biggest match of our lifetimes, to be sentimental.

 

I was in 534 the Bar situation was ok but outside the toilet queues were jammed with fans trying to go both ways, needed a bit of order!

 

Quite a lot of conductors have spent their nights screwing female members of the orchestra. Excellent life-extending exercise!

 

Corrected for you .

 

To say Gomes is second rate is a bit insulting! he managed to get us to the final ok! did we play against second rate teams, up to the final, no!

 

I get that, and can see both sides to this argument. As much as I love Gomes, I must admit I was hoping he might pick up a minor injury before the game.

Gracia boxed himself in with this. But with Watford, team spirit and doing the right thing is so important. I think the entire squad would have been disappointed in Gracia had he swapped Gomes with Foster. You even had Foster on record as saying he would refuse to play ahead of Gomes. You have to treat players fairly in these situations.

If Gomes is the FA Cup keeper, then that's the rule. You cannot break it when the stakes are high. It would not go down well in the dressing room. There is such a close bond between the keepers at Watford.

With City, it's different. They are at the top of the tree right now. With that, you can do what you like as a coach, because all the players want to be at the club and will put up with not playing as they will still be getting a lot of success from just being part of the squad.

Pep, like Fergie, can take liberties because of who he is. Gracia has to work harder in keeping players with him and happy.

 

What is the world record cup final defeat in men's football?

 

Then its a pretty stupid rule unless you've decided that winning a cup wouldn't be important. How do you know that the rest of the team wouldn't have been gutted that we couldn't play our best keeper against the best team in the land ? Do you really think the players would have come out and said it ? Given their desire to be winners it's far more likely that they would have been delighted had Foster played.

 

Gomes wasn't even close to competing with Foster in the league this year. Foster is a mid-table keeper. I don't think for one second you could describe HG as first rate.

I don't buy this. Many EPL managers play their back up keepers in the early rounds. They then switch to their first choice keepers when the opposition have greater quality. How many clubs in our position would have done the same? Absolutely zero. Zilch. It's a bonkers decision that belongs on an under 11's pitch, along with effort prizes and free slices of oranges at half time.

The manager is paid to make difficult decisions to give the side maximum chance for success. The squad are professional footballers. Above all, they want to win. If they prefer sentimentality over winning, I don't want them in our club.

Gomes is played a lot of money, and at this stage of his life is a back up keeper to a mid-table Premier League squad and is about to retire to be a pastor.

We handicapped ourselves from the start, in a match against the best Premier League side of all time. Our lack of pure hunger and determination to win at all costs was evident throughout the match and set the scene for our inevitable, embarrassing demise.

 

It's also strange how it only applied to Goalkeepers.

Against Newcastle we incurred Sutton's wrath for fielding mixed side, including a lot of fringe players, but Javi felt no need to give them a chance go play at Wembley.

Absolutely no reason why he couldn't have done the same with Gomes. Just let Gomes say farewell after the Palace 1/4 final and make it clear that as we're in a semi, we are playing our best 11 every time.

 

Friend did intercept one of our passes early on & deflect it neatly to a Citeh player.

 

The Del subbing was odd.

 

Don't we have to say the Men's FA Cup these days?

Just like Citeh merely matched the treble winning form of @rsenal Ladies a few years ago.

 

Agreed.
Gracia was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.
Personally, I think I would have gone defensive at 3 - 0, the rest turned out to be absolute agony (as good a reason as any to wave those flags so you couldn't see it). But there was quite a lot of pre-match stuff on here about not doing a Brighton.

 

Barbirolli got to 70.

No more than par.

Maybe a few tvs in the swimming pool?

 

Which goes to prove that while Oscar Wilde was a great wit, he was a crap football pundit

 

Absolutely. Only excuse at that stage is if he was carrying some sort of injury.

 

Not sure what I would have done. A damage limitation substitution half way through the 2nd half of a cup final just feels wrong to me, but an ultra defensive start might have been in order.

 

Transvestites? Oh.

 

Hopefully our lads got their oranges.

 

Any lingering hope we had of nicking a consolation went off with him