I think there's equal blame between both Gracia and the players on that one. He plays negative football and insists on picking Deeney despite his abysmal form and complete lack of attacking threat, but outside of that we hardly have a wealth of quality attacking players in the squad.
We have scored goals with these same plAyers though, so the coach and the tactics look like the culprit
I'm in two minds over the coach. Results are not good, only 2 points from the last 6 games, but today showed me he can inspire the team to reach a good level. I was doubting that after last week's game. Forget the result today, it was the attitude and desire the team showed in the first half that impressed me. This is the Watford team I want to watch every week. I've actually enjoyed the games at home since Gracia took over. These have been a massive improvement on Silva. Silva's "home Watford" were boring and ineffective. I don't recall a string of good performances at home under him, as we've seen under Gracia. Where Gracia has failed is away. Watford have look very poor on the road. Today, he played two up front, and I think that caught Palace out. It's the first time he's done this and it worked well. We dominated Palace. We dominated Burnley the week before also. We've messed up with basic defending, and we are as blunt as Donald Trump going forward, but the overall home performances have been good. I think players have cost us points in key moments in games, and Gracia cannot be accountable for defensive mess ups or strikers not hitting a barn door. 12 points from 12 games, may not be enough to ensure he stays. He needs to find a way of getting the energetic performance from today into the away matches. Give him a couple of better defenders and a striker that can get a good number of shots on target, he could do quite well. We have 3 more games to go. Two of those are "free hits", where he can really give it a go, as no one expects anything. The Newcastle home match is one I think he has to win, just to remind everyone he's got some ability to get victories. His home form has been 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 defeat. All of those games could have been wins, had it not been for bad defensive lapses. Of course the away form is what will get him the sack if he does go. No wins, 1 draw and 5 defeats.....no goals scored.
Big plus point for me. If things aren't working, try something different and try to put the opposition on the back foot. The worst thing about Quique and Silva was continuing to set up in exactly the same way even when the wheels had come off, making us entirely predictable and just hoping that the players would somehow turn it round. I was worried that Gracia was going that way too but hats off to him for taking the initiative and trying something different today. Jury's still out but at least he did something positive.
Ok, I forgot everything has to be written absolutely perfectly. Just cut & paste this in your copy. "5 of the 6 games could have been wins, had it not been for bad defensive lapses"
To be fair, I don't think defensive lapses necessarily have to result in goals against but instead implies a mistake that has offered up a chance or given possession away that should've been avoided. Defending starts with the front player(s) and if they are slow/lazy to close down the opposition player in possession then it gives the midfield less time to recover their positions. That to me would also be a defensive lapse.
Well said oxhey, I totally agree and I have basically been making this same point for a while now. The ineffectiveness of our strikers impacts on our defence by giving them very little respite and putting them under almost constant pressure, hence they are more prone to eventually make errors. If the strikers were doing their jobs by putting the ball in the net just a few times or even holding up the ball a little, the defence would not be under as much pressure.
We have not really had a good attacking threat since Iggy had his purple patch. Most of our goals this season have come from midfield because they have the quality to finish a move or score a stunner. Deeney is good from the spot and did score winners verses Everton and WBA but his form has been poor all season. Gray needed to have a strike partner from the start and perhaps that could of helped Deeney. Silva’s snakey ways and Gracia’s insistence on playing one up front has not helped us. Are we a 4 4 2 team or 3 4 2 1 team? Should we try 5 3 2? Problem is do we have the players capable of playing a different system? All things that need looking at in the close season, with the addition of new faces and new tactics I believe we can get our strikers playing again. I say all this because I cannot see Gino wanting to strengthen in that area.
There’s now every chance that we will end the season on a run of nine games with a win. Yes United might be distracted by the cup final, Spurs deflated by losing their semi and Newcastle might take their foot off the gas now they’re safe etc.. But 9 without a win remains a distinct possibility. Football remains a result business, and it’s all about the points you get, not the ones you say you should have got but for a mistake or a piece of bad luck. Gravia’s points per game average is currently ok and if it occurred next season we would probably be safe..just. But for me the worry is most of those points came early on, when there was obviously the new coach bounce. Yes, his home form has been fairly good, but equally the fixture calendar has been kind to him. Even Chelsea came to us having just lost at home to Muff. It’s too easy to blow with the wind each week, based on that weekend’s results. A goalless draw at home to a side below us in the tanle shouldn’t make up for last week’s abomeration. I don’t believe he’s the right man to take us forward, and will be consistent with those views. He and Giraldi should both be shown the door next month.
I'm a little concerned by his choice and timing of subs. They made us worse, apart from Kiko's introduction, who I think should have started in place of Mapps anyway as we were devoid of pace without him Palace were inches away from scoring, twice and camped in our half for what seemed like a good 20 minute spell before he changed things. Things were finally clicking into place by the 93rd minute.
Jury's still out, for me. I don't see any reason why he shouldn't be given the summer to get his own players in. Although the attack has got worse, this is balanced out considerably by the defence getting better. He has shown a willingness to change formations, so is not as rigid as the likes of QSF. The players showed that they will put the effort in for him. He has only had a dozen games in a different league and will still be learning about the squad. Just some points to balance out the negatives. Also, would anyone have rather Snakey had stayed in instead, what position would we be in had this happened? He has achieved his main objective of keeping us in the league, let's at least give him credit for that.
I thought Gracia failed to predict the obvious uptick in performance Palace were going to put in after a half time rollicking. And then took far too long to change things to cancel out the control they'd taken from us. As you say, they had ample chances to take the lead in that period.
What happened to the old, reasonable Malts Gracia is a very good coach who will be a success here, given time, an actual pre-season and a football squad instead of a casualty ward. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the last three home games, we’ve just been unfortunate. We’re safe, and Gracia fits the head coach at Watford role perfectly, I really like him. Let’s look forward to next season and try not to be overly negative or suffer from confirmation bias.
He looked a bit better in his ill-fitting suit, but not starting one of our best players kiko was a crime. Playing two up top was a refreshing change however. It's still a massive get rid of the gurning gremlin from me.
I've gone back and forth on the issue multiple times over the last few games, and assuming we get stuffed at Spurs and Man Utd I'll probably be in favour of him leaving again. But you can't help thinking that if we had some better defenders (agree the defence looked better yesterday) and a more potent strike force, then he could do a decent job here. I'm just glad I don't have to make the decision, so will hope whatever they decide to do is the right call. It won't make any difference though if certain areas of the team aren't upgraded during the summer.
But Kiko was of the players who had had an attack of the sh*ts during the week was he not? Presumably there was a doubt that he'd last a whole game & he was held back as a pair of fresh legs for when needed later in the game.
Well if you want to slag him off, here's a picture of a head coach and a giant red c*ck - which is which?
Whilst I don’t begrudge you being so positive and think it’s admirable, I think you are over-playing Gracia somewhat. Have you been to the away games? We’ve more or less chucked each one. We don’t score enough and we are prone to defensive lapses. He has an unremarkable managerial record so I don’t see how you can label him a very good coach. For me, Malts is being reasonable. Keeping a Gracia in the job isn’t the only reasonable outcome here.
Do you really think this is likely to happen? It completely goes against how the Pozzo model has worked so far.
I guess I believe it’s still possible to be old and reasonable while also (in hopefully a non-hysterical way) posting my doubts about Gracia. It’s not black and white, you’re right. He’s done some good things for us, and it’s perfectly possible that he could be a hit, especially with a pre-season behind him and some decent strikers and defenders. I’m still sceptical though. In this tough old league it’s very easy to drift into a bad run, and I’m not sure he would have what it takes to get us out of one. He hasn’t yet since our last win six matches ago, and it’s perfectly possible that we could end this season on a 9 match winless run. Not sure that would inspire too many of us to then feel confident come August.
I think we have to manage our expectations. The most successful and sought-after managers are often narcissists who want to hear 30,000 people bellowing their name in every game (I suspect that was part of the issue with Silva), but they're not going to get that at Watford. We therefore need a relatively unassuming bloke (or lass!) content to fuel his (her) ego with results alone and to work with whatever they are given in terms of a squad. Udinese don't seem to go for the flamboyant ego-maniacs, so I'd be surprised if Watford try that type. I'd like to have a head coach whose pre-match analysis is based on experience of the players his team face rather than a data sheet, so I'd give Gracia another season.
