Sema needs to learn to cut it out from his game. He have a couple of free kicks away in the first half by being over zealous in his physicality. All he needed to do in those instances was shepherd the Boro player back as they were going nowhere. And the third he conceded was the sole chance Boro were going to score from. I am sure he will be annoyed by that and use it positively for Friday.
But it was wrong, I was giving my opinion based on football and how I think mindset affects performances. I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but I know what I am thinking, better than they do. Re @WatfordTalk, I may have been thinking about someone else, in which case I apologise.
It's an opinion. I noted Masina well out of position when Wed broke. Today, I noted JP was utterly terrible. I qualified that in my post by saying I'm a fan of him as a player, but today he was terrible. Every touch and move was poor. If you disagree that's fine.
We have just taken 4 points this weekend whilst not looking brilliant. Swansea have taken Jack (Pun intended) The team that we won against on Friday are walloping a team just outside of the playoffs, and the team we played today had barely a sniff whilst we played large parts of the game in second gear. Also not forgetting that Middlesbrough are managed by a guy who has took charge of fifteen hundred league games, and had the nouse and the players to stop our game. Brentford have recent history of choking and several key injuries, whilst we appear to be the freshest of the top sides. I'm a natural worrier but I reckon if we beat Reading we are almost over the line, with or without a Birmingham upset tomorrow.
Why would he be hurting? He’s a Watford fan. You were proved wrong that we’d be relegated last year but I’d rather you had been correct on that occasion. A bit of ribbing is all good but it’s weird when people suggest our fans want us to actually lose.
Good to see Troy promoting the emergence of science during the pandemic with these classic bioreactor flasks. Or is he promoting these tasty luxury olives: I'm sure those young cub reporters at the Watford Observer will be busting a gut to find out.
We won 5 on the trot to lose away to Bournemouth only to then win 6 on the trot to draw away to Boro what’s the problem!
Who rattled your cage? SLB knows the reason for my post, no need for you to get involved. Although it's a free country!
Maybe this result will concentrate the teams minds on the task ahead and spur them to up the anti for the games ahead. They did look turgid but it does feel like an international hangover. A good spell now to recalibrate the team/bond I'm certainly not panicking yet.
Well I would give different reasons for it - tiredness of our international players and Warnock doing a number on us tactically, leaving our players scratching their heads. They seem far more plausible than our players suddenly thinking that they can take their foot off the gas as they were content with the gap to the teams below. The reason I mentioned it is that we'd just dropped points, opening the door slightly to our chasing rivals and your first thought is to post about how right you were about something that is pure speculation on your part and actually makes no sense at all if you stop to think about it for more than a millisecond. Still, I suppose we should all cheer on Norwich as the further they are ahead, the more likely we are to think we should try and catch them, which inspires us to play better according to you! Hopefully they'll get 15 points ahead soon, then we'll be super motivated!
There's one thing that I think might be at the root of our recent form. I have noticed in the last two games that to help with our "moving the ball out from the back" , Hughes has been dropping back as last man with Troost and Sieralta either side. It hasn't helped much because instead of him being ahead waiting to move the ball thru midfield, he's too deep with not much outlet, hence all the eventual long punts after 8 sideways passes. It worked great when Hughes was in the middle making key passes but now he's just too deep to receive and give the ball like he was in previous weeks. Sort that and we'll be OK quite quickly....
More disappointed to see the negativity on here than the players' performance today. It was always going to be frustrating against a Warnock side away. We don't look anything like a side that might fail to make the autos from here, so chill the F out FFS. Roll a fat one and listen to a bit of Bob. Don't worry... about a thing... every little thing is gonna be alright!
A draw was absolutely fair today. We didn't do enough to win but certainly didn't deserve to lose. We just weren't at the races for some reason, coupled with a strong defensive performance from a Boro team with a good tactical plan. I think what's much more important than any analysis of today's match is how we bounce back next game. I'm expecting to see us start on the front foot and build some momentum again, and hopefully nip in the bud any nerves that might otherwise creep in. I think it's good that we only have to wait a few days to play again.
One thing i'm a bit concerned about is that Warnock basically played the perfect tactical plan to stop us from playing today, the first team to do so since we started our unbeaten run. Other teams will surely try and copy it. The positive is that I doubt many teams will be able to play like that without a full week's coaching, and Warnock is probably one of the few who could. We also didn't lose and I thought we dealt with the bombardment of crosses pretty well. It took a really quality delivery to score one. Hopefully one of the lessons of today is not to give these teams loads of FK's and corners...
Obviously a really silly piece of play from Sema to give that free kick away after getting caught trying to dribble in his own half but having just watched it back, there's a couple of other people that don't cover themselves in glory. Pedro is picking up Bolasie and isn't tight enough and lets him run straight past him. Troost-Ekong, one of our best headers of the ball is marking no-one at all and the ball goes just over his head. But I think worst of all is Bachmann. We're holding a high line but he starts only about a yard off his line. The cross comes in and he takes a step backwards and is actually behind the line by the time its headed, inside the six yard box. If he'd started a couple of yards further out, he probably claims that quite easily or at the very least punches it away. You can't be behind the line when someone heads the ball from that close in, might as well not have a keeper.
I have been saying this about Bachmann since he has been in the team. That is why he is called Dracula. TE doesn't want the cross. He doesn't attack it. Sierralta gets turned and just swings a boot at the cross. Bachmann is rooted to the spot. He should be bulldozing his way to get the ball at that range. He will never do this. A very poor goal to concede, but not surprising given our weakness from set plays or crosses in general.
We’ve only conceded 8 goals from set pieces (per whoscored), the fourth fewest in the league. Only Norwich(7) and Millwall and Swansea (both 6) have conceded fewer. Not such a big weakness, but relatively weaker than our 14 open play goals (this excludes counterattacking goals and own goals for some reason) which is by far the best in the league. I think there’s some selectivity bias going on as conceding a simple set piece goal is just so **** that it’s memorable.
I imagine Hughes drops back because he is being pressed by the oppo midfield. Warnock will have realised a lot of the play is channelled through him and so coaches his men to force him back away from the Boro goal. Boro marked man for man and gave Watford so little space or time. Warnock admitted he set up to play as if they were away from home as otherwise Watford 'would play right through us'. I would not be amazed if other teams adopted similar tactics now. Whether or not they will be good at it is another matter. But Watford must raise their game to previous energy-levels and take the game to the opposition rather than just sit on slender leads.
Baring us losing all our games and everyone else below winning theirs which won’t happen as some play each other think the play offs is pretty much assured ! Bournemouth in 7th are 14 points behind with 6 games to go.. Did you mean top 3 which is where we will finish?
Mooney hexed him during the 2nd half commentary by saying that over the last few games he was beginning to dominate his 18 yard area. Anothe rexample of Mooney's foot-in-mouth disease.
Chalobah getting booked so early in the first half didn't help thinks either. It seemed to take the edge of his game. The midfield has been devoid of energy, creativity, and tempo the last 2 games, resulting in very few chances created and an inability to impose ourselves on the opposition allowing them sufficient periods to have possession and dictate the play. It's a shame Gosling is not 100% at the moment as we need to freshen things up a little here.
Thats a fair point, but why don't they have the cojones to keep him in check !?!?!?! Gino has £150m riding on the next 6 games and if we don't go up we may never have this much quality in our team ever again!
He probably went because people were moaning on Twitter he wasn’t going to games “supporting the boys” and on Talksport instead. Seems like he cannot win then either. I am sure he didn’t frighten Pedro into missing a good chance or Sema giving the ball away and giving away a free kick which we paid for with a lack of organisation. In fact he might have helped in that situation as he has been good at defending set plays in the past.
