Having said thgat I think its fair to say Gray does give a ****. Does try to get on to the end of things in the box. The end result is a bit hit and miss but he does try.
A lot of it HAS to be confidence. Completely miss hitting a ball for any professional footballer, can’t be down to much else, can it? If they genuinely didn’t give a **** surely when presented with a golden opportunity to score a goal it would nestle in the top corner? It’s a given they’ve got the ability to strike a ball cleanly, if they were that relaxed they didn’t care that wouldn’t happen.
I've not seen it really mentioned, but we played Hughes in a much deeper role yesterday and he looked like a different player. He was everywhere and really put in a shift. I don't know why he's not been played in that position before. How many coaches have we had and no one has really played him in a deep central role. Going on what I saw from him at Liverpool, he'll be the first name on the team sheet and has to play in this position from now on. Well done to Pearson and his team for spotting something no one else has, and it seems so blindingly obvious.
Watkins looks more than capable of making the jump to the PL. And Benrahma is reminiscent of Mahrez. The caveat to that is that Andre Gray was top scorer in the Championship a couple of times and FL Player of the Season once - it doesn’t always translate to the PL. But I think both would offer more consistency than Gray/Deeney/Pereyra are capable of achieving.
Was always earmarked at Derby as that type of player, to the point where at one stage he was being mentioned as a replacement for Gerrard at Liverpool. Obviously that didn’t transpire and we’ve wasted his abilities by making him an inverted wide player of sorts. But I agree wholly with the points you make.
We took nearly 2 months to start a player that cost £40m quid! Most clubs play big signings immediately. Many clubs buy young players from foreign shores and play them far sooner than we did. I’m sure there are elements that are true to what you’re saying. But from the outside looking in, it was bizarre taking so long to get him into the team.
Was Hughes at Derby when Pearson was in charge? If so he will have more of a clue where his best capabilities are for now. But agreed put a great shift in as did everyone. Hopefully we will see consistency from now on. Pearson deserves credit for the way he has gone about his work. I wasn't convinced about his appointment but I'm already swaying towards him. Seems like a very shrewd man and is coming across as a real leader.
That’s not quite right. Gray was top Championship scorer the year he transferred to Burnley (2015-16) but the season before (our promotion season) for Brentford he was not in the top 10 scorers. I think the benefit of signing someone like Watkins would be that he is scoring currently for a confident Brentford and would be keen to make his mark in the Premier League. However, actually being able to sign him is a different matter.
Didn't he score against us at Griffin Park (the game when Ighalo scored in the last minute to win us the game) ? Gray that is.. We could have had a chance to sing Watkins or any Brentford player when Andy Scott was here - but he didn't do much and was soon gone.
There’s something about bringing Pearson in that makes me think we might try and resign Ighalo next month....
Ighalo basically came out and said in an interview recently that he has offers from the Prem but he would love to come back to Watford. Something like that, I think.
I saw him win a few headers yesterday. I saw Deulofeu do nothing other than give the ball away and sulk.
They're all woeful. It's quite pathetic that we find ourselves desperately using the odd, small things our forwards do get right to one up them over the others.
My reply to Squibba’s post was purely stating the fact that as well as getting players “ in “ in January it is equally hard to get players “ out “. You by association obviously took offence and although I didn’t research Squibba’s content I apologise that you took this personally! The point I was trying to make was that at a reported 65 and 70k per week and 18 months and 30 months on their contracts to run respectively for Deeney and Gray it is hard to see Championship clubs taking over their contracts as well as paying us a transfer fee as well! As well as huge gambles, if the buying club was not promoted fair play restrictions could come into force further down the road leading to even more problems! As has been said by others:- a Fans forum is a matter of opinions and life would be boring if we all thought the same, and by the way keep up with the technical analysis, as I enjoy your posting!
Being both our (joint) leading goalscorer and (sole) leading assist maker so far this season. It's only 2 apiece, but still.
Use your eyes. Unless you believe that it's possible for footballers to contract footitis and lose the ability to pass to a colleague 5 yards away.
It’s quite often the case with shy people that they need to get themselves ready in the head as much their fitness. Not saying that’s the case but clearly Mane was keen to mention it
What were they? I don't remember them at all, just the one where Sarr put him in and he missed the ball.
Questionable. Going on experience, it'll be March til Giraldi feels he's ready to be properly involved. Any of the current lot in the youth setups have absolutely no chance of being involved. Giraldi doesn't watch them.
