Oddly we had more shots on goal than we usually do! We were just totally over-run all over the pitch with their movement and ability to create space. I just hope we can quickly get over it and get some players back fit for the Leicester game.
My thoughts.. - Poor decision to play 3-5-2. Can't do that against the most in-form attacking side in the league. Hopefully a lesson was learnt here. - Liverpool good and thoroughly deserving of the 3 pts, but a disappointing lack of fight shown by us. No leaders, no spirit, no guts. We were completely overawed and made it way too easy for them. - When will Sinclair get a chance? - Ighalo-bashing unwarranted today. He looked quite good from what little he saw of the ball. Tidy in possession and looking for a goal. - We need Okaka, Success, Kenedy, Cathcart & Prodl back ASAP. - Midfield v poor today. - Anfield like a library for the majority of the game. Stadium eerily quiet, more so than is normal for a football match. Why was this? - Hope Gomes is ok, doesn't look good though. - I do not trust Pantillimon.
This . Someone mentioned holebas and Britos who actually did look like they gave a flying ****. Capoue needs to be sent to train with the youth squad for a week
6-1 is a thrashing regardless of the circumstances, and the lachrymose false optimism is a little grating when our problems were laid so obviously bare today. No Ighalo wasn't the worst player today but leaping to his defense because his performance was relatively average sort of misses the context of the last year where his contributions have been virtually null. You can't lay the blame for this defeat at his feet, but it's completely fair and reasonable for fans to question the continued inclusion of a striker who doesn't score any goals and puts in 5 or 6/10 performances every single week. It might be easy to forgive in isolation when he does marginally better than the rest of them did today, but overall it IS symptomatic of questionable decision-making by the manager. To be honest Deeney looks woefully off the pace at the moment too and our lack of striking options is painfully apparent. Pereyra is beginning to look more like Mario Suarez every game. Capoue is emulating his form last season, where he looked decent for the first few weeks and then became a virtual passenger for the rest of the season. We can't carry players. Behrami's performance was absolutely rancid from start to finish. But honestly the worst aspect of today by far was the defense. Some of our defending for the goals was comical and frankly unacceptable. We looked completely unable to cope with Liverpool going forward and to be honest it could have easily been more.
Christ are you really that upset about it? I do wonder some times whether some of my fellow Watford supporters have enough else to think about other than losing to the team top of the league. I was over it by half time.
Sometimes you also have to say STOP GIVING THE ****ING BALL AWAY to the best attacking side in the league. They are good, we made them look better by our self inflicted damage
I fuc king hate Capoue! The most overrated fuc king Watford player ever!! Does absolutely ***** all. The sooner he fu cks off, the better Night night
Great. More reason to give Liverpool fans a massive ego boost. Dire performance that. The players need to up their game drastically after that shambles. The midfield has been ropey for the last few matches... Capoue and Behrami need to sort themselves out.
I'm proud to call myself a happy clapper, but how bad must Kabasele be to have Janmaat start instead of him at centre back. What a stupid decision. I also think that Britos continues to give the ball away. Someone needs to tell him to play it simple.
Did you even watch it? Didn't agree with a thing you said. Liverpool were fantastic for thirty minutes. Ighalo was way better than Capoue, Behrami, Deeney, Pereyra and Holebas. I saw a lot to suggest that we could be in trouble in the next 3 unless some of the squad returns back fit and firing.
I did watch it and you are well within your rights to disagree. Which 30 minutes? IMO Liverpool were ok but helped by us on an off day. They were handed chance after chance of us gifting them the ball. They weren't barcelona amazing. They didn't cut open an airtight defence in clinical style. Ighalo was utterly poor. Lightweight in the challenge, poor passing, chased nothing. He was not better than anyone else. Maybe on par. But at least everyone else has good days on orher occasions. He continually does nothing.
It's almost as if Liverpool have been coached intensively by one of the best coaches in the world specifically in putting the opposition under near constant pressure on the ball in order to force them into doing just that. They were too good for us and they will be too good for a lot of sides better than us for years to come. We're in the PL now and this is going to happen every now and again I'm afraid. Get used to it.
In future any Watford player warming up wearing a snood or similar should be subbed before kick off. They are obviously not 'up for it' on that day.
I don't blindly trust him. It's just that I appreciate he knows a lot more about Sinclair than I or any poster on this forum does so believe he is better qualified than us to make that specific call.
I love how people blithely shrug off a defeat which even eclipses those we suffered under Aidy and GT in the top flight. That was a whisker away from being Liverpool's biggest win in the history of the premier league. I appreciate people like to see the glass as half full but to try and pretend that a humiliation like that was anything but a severely worrying sign, just because our tormentors are now top of the league is either self delusion or simply being argumentative with the majority view for the sake of it. Yes, in isolation a hammering won't make much more difference to our season than I'd wed lost narrowly, but there were elements of our performance today which have consistently been questioned in recent weeks and today proved that we've not learned. Capoue has been coasting for weeks and still getting picked The defence has seen a lot of personally changes due to injury but we still started with a back 3, even though this required playing both Jannmaat and Amrabat out of position Behrami has been giving the ball away for weeks Pereyra has been increasingly irrelevant in our forward play Deeney and Ighalo continue to be picked even though they look like a poor championship double act. We have scored 2 goals in recent weeks - one a screamer and one a fluke OG, but we're still bereft of any attacking inventiveness. I don't credit our little flurry today once Liverpool were 5 to the good and were playing out the game, as we'd not created anything when there was actually anything to play for in the game. It was a big mistake to play a back 3 against such a mobile attack. There were gaps big enough to steer the Queen Maryl through between the defenders. Common sense would've suggested that won't the available personnel wed have been better with a flat 4 and a midfield 5, with runners providing support for a lone from man. We might have offered more on the break than we did with our routine and unimaginative forward play. Kaboul looks like he's OK as a stand in, off the bench to cover an injury or to preserve a lead as an extra defender, but he should be very start again. Same goes for Pantilimon. If Gomes is out for any length of time, I worry about how many goals he will cost us compared to Heurelho. Capoue and Behrami both need a rest, though I don't know who will replace the former. Our defence is obviously weaker without Prodl and Cathcart, but given that we are down to bare bones for central defenders, why play a formation which requires 3 and in specialist roles at that. Also, why sign Kabasele and maps if they can't get in ahead of Kaboom. Amrabat was good going fwd but a liability in defence. Must play as a winger/wide fwdd or not at all. People defending Ighalo - agree that he wasn't the worst player, but what do you actually think he brings to the TABLE? He lays the ball backwards and kills forward momentum and has zero guile, pace or intelligence in his play. He's absolutely zero threat. Deeney has been a bucket of **** for the past 3 games now. He started the season poorly, seemed to find his pace, but has gone on another run of looking like a championship journeyman. I think nearly everyone was surprised we didn't take the cash for Ighalo, but in hindsight I now question whether we missed a chance by not taking the caah for Deeney too. A player like sturridge can't get it their side, but is miles better than either of our front two. Basically, we've seen warning signs but got away with it against some **** eams recently. Now it's time for Wally to earn his money and show us what team he wants us to be and show us a reaction. Heads must role. Examples must be made and we must see that there is a recognitionof the failings and ideas to address them, otherwise I fear this season will fizzle out like last season, but without the Winning streak which gave us safety before it did
So let's just assume that Wally knows best about every team decision because he takes training sessions and sees the team all week, and just limit posts to reiteration of that fact. Frankly I see nothing in his decision making with other players to place such faith in him
The focus is mainly on Ighalo at the moment due to the huge amount of credit that Troy has in the bank but... take away the penalties and Deeney has only scored 9 goals in 47 Premier League games. I'm not sure he does enough around the pitch to justify always starting. Yes he wins a lot of headers when up against the weaker centre backs but how often do they actually lead to anything? He plays the fan game very well - he'll always charge around to close someone down in the last five minutes of a poor performance, clap the fans longer than anyone else, give his honest interviews but for the most part this season his performances have been poor. He looks slow, has little or no movement and seems obsessed with showing everyone he's the strongest. It's frustrating because he's a better footballer than he has actually shown in the Premier League, he's a good passer and finisher but spends far too much time in areas of the pitch where he's not going to hurt the opposition. Ighalo rightfully lost his place to Success (until he was injured), I think it's time Deeney felt his place was under threat too.
I love how people blithely panic after a defeat when we are outperforming our expectations in the top flight. That was a whisker away from being Liverpool's biggest win in the history of the premier league. I appreciate people like to see the glass as empty but to try and pretend that a humiliation like that was anything but a one off, because our tormentors are now top of the league is either self delusion or simply being argumentative with the majority view for the sake of it.
Deeney and Iggy have been a busted flush since Jan, everyone knows their weaknesses and how to play them yet we still carry on in the hope something happens It's beyond stupid
Yeah, either that are those people (myself included) have a different point of view to you. This isn't the bloody crisis your post would have us believe. 2-1, 3-1, 6-1. It really will make **** all difference at the end of the season. 0 points at Anfield is what we expected, it's what we got. A lot of people of here bemoan Watford not getting credit when we win, instead it's all about how the opposition played poorly. Why don't we just accept Liverpool played much much better than us and even if we hadn't had a shocker still would have beaten us 9 times out of 10.
Tend to agree that recent results had papered over some cracks that were fully exposed by Liverpool today. Still feeling fairly positive though as this has come at the right time. We have two weeks to work on the issues and get some of our missing players fit. I also think there are several teams worse than us in this division and we have managed to pick up points despite the poor form of some players and issues with our formation. Being 8th in the league knowing we can improve (a lot!) is not a bad place to be. I hope and expect changes and an improvement in the next couple of home games.
I would say every time Liverpool attacked they looked like they were going to score but they actually nearly did score every time they attacked. Utter garbage, toothless and embarrassing. We should all be refunded by the players and management. Amrabat excepted.
This was absolutely on the cards unless we changed our system with the aim of nullifying Liverpool, and we chose not to. Liverpool, similarly to Man City (god help us against them too), thrive on the space in front of a team's back 3 or 4, which is why it's vital you condense that space. QSF adopted this tactic against everyone, sitting 2 holding midfielders on the toes of the defence and getting the 'wide' players to tuck in; needless to say it worked a treat against them last season (it was just needlessly negative against lesser opposition). All season we've relied on Behrami to be our one and only 'holding' midfielder, and it was always going to be suicidal to do the same today. Liverpool thrive on the space in that area, as I've already said, and they pounce on a poor touch/pass in this area of the pitch. Behrami's distribution is a definite weakness and his positional discipline in that role, as evidenced on numerous occasions today, is often lacking. He played poorly today, absolutely, but to provide him with no support made it almost impossible for any other outcome. Whether we're playing a back 3 or 4, Walter has always played the midfield trio with Capoue and Pereyra playing in advance of Behrami - I just hoped he'd swing that bias the other way today! And having not done so, when it was apparent that their attacking players were cutting inside at will and their midfielders were joyfully running into the acres of space in front of our defence, I hoped he'd at least change it then - but no. We made a like for like change in the midfield. We persisted with 2 up top, when neither was involved, and opted against flooding the midfield, becoming more robust and making an effort to at least get some sort of foothold in the game. Yes, I'm sure we'd have still lost if we'd set up differently, and no I don't want Walter sacked, but today just reiterated a few concerns. If he's not willing to change things either before or during the game today to nullify Liverpool's obvious strengths, I question whether he'd be willing to do so if results on the whole declined. We have an improved playing squad this season and we can hide behind the fact we're sitting in 8th at the moment, but we're also only 5 points outside the bottom 3. I've heard people trying to make a positive of the fact we're 8th and haven't been playing well, but didn't we keep saying the same thing last season? However, rather than the performances improving and justifying our lofty position, we continued to play poorly and started to slide down the league. The manager persisted with the same tactics, irrespective of opposition, and I wonder whether Walter would do the same? I really do hope that the return of several players after the international break will improve things, it must do surely, but I want to see this team start showing genuine signs of progression too. We're a poor run of form away from starting to seriously look over our shoulders, so I just hope some of the issues get ironed out whilst we have the comfort of so many teams sitting between us and the bottom 3. It will become a lot harder to make those adjustments if we wait for the poor run to come first. I fully believe we'll be fine - just want the potential of this squad to be recognised. (Apologies for rambling on, I'd just been predicting today for weeks and needed to clear my mind!)
Food for thought. We had a shocker, but is it worse to be tonked at Liverpool or lose at Hull or at home to WBA? This game is pretty irrelevant in the big scheme of things.
