I feel Doucoure and Deulofeu are a little underrated by our own fans sometimes. If either of these 2 get injured we’re done for in my opinion. Love watching them both. Foster and Capoue not far off either. Beyond that it’s just a case of hoping everyone else does their bit and don’t make too many mistakes. Hopefully survival, use some of our young up and comings and add a few good quality defenders and we could have another good season next year.
Wow, Norwich are shockingly bad, I think that may be the worst team we've played in the PL in recent years.
I cant speak for everyone but I know I speak for Cleyhorn and myself when I say that I am expecting at the very least, a concerted effort to improve on the ability to move towards the ball, no always running behind the defender and hoping the ball spins free, actually challenging the ball, not the man, being able to control a ball on occasion, having basic passing ability, being able to control the ball when he shoots and have at least a decent chance of determining the outcome of where it ends up, rather than hoping that the #lawofaverages plays into his favour and finally this random pinball effort off his shin ends up in the net, being able to hold the ball and shield it, to give other players time to position. His only, literally only attribute is being in the right place to score goals at some times, which then leave it down to random chance as to where the ball ends up. He does nothing else whatsoever. He plays football for a living, for Christ's sake, yet can't do any, basic footballing skills: passing, crossing, heading, tackling, controlling, dribbling etc. Anyone defending him deserves to support a team which wins one game every 13, because that's the standard he's at.
Liked for the smug emoji. We've had very little to be smug about this season so we should be making hay right now.
Hughes was.much better, playing in his proper position. It's arguable whether that indicates that Florrie always intended to be more positive, or whether that early goal wrecked his plan for a 0-0 draw. Probably the former, as Watford were still going forward after we scored, though of course after Kabs went he reverted to type. What would Del have done with that breakaway chance for a third goal that Gray fluffed, if he had still been on the field?
Quick feet, lovely balance but very little end product. Compate the outcomes of the many times he got behind our defence on the left with the one time Del did. No cigar, I'm afraid.
What a relief was in a pub trying to watch but surrounded by Watford haters so couldn’t catch most of the match did we deserve it, any good signs of recovery ? from what I did see 1st goal looked like a Gerry D classic goal , do it all himself 2nd goal nicely taken by Gray Good clean sheet Kabs sending off - was it typical Kabs or unfortunate Holebas looked pissed off about being substituted - was it a reasonable substitution ? anybody know anywhere that has the full match to watch ?
Gray needs to play in a team or formation where he’s just getting on the end of things in the box. So either a team in the championship or bizarrely a better team than us. I actually felt sorry for him against Chelsea, you can question the tactic of hoofing it up to him, but has lack of ability was brutally exposed as he tried and failed to bring the ball under control. As for Norwich, I’m not sure how I’d feel supporting them. They get promoted from the championship every few years, then do absolutely nothing about even trying to stay up. They’re just happy to pocket the cash and repeat the process in a few years time.
A better team wouldn't tolerate his finishing ratio or his inability to do anything outside the box. Edit:and nor should we, if we have designs on being better team 18th in the league.
I think Delefeou is our most important player, we have enough in midfield to do without Doucoure. We don’t have a lot of creativity, and if we lost Delefeou, we would be stuffed. I still have hope that Sarr can make a difference. It is a shame he had no pre season, and then got injured
No, absolutely. But that’s literally the only thing he can do. Finish the occasional easy chance when he doesn’t have time to think about it. He’s involved in far too many situations with us that expose his lack of ability even further. Playing him like we did against Chelsea is completely pointless, literally any other player in the squad could’ve done a better job than him at it, and that’s not his fault. He needs to be touching the ball in or around the box only.
See Jeff Stelling saying, on soccer Saturday, that if we play like that we won’t beat many other teams than Norwich. I think he has got a point, but we played better than that early in the season but made mistakes at the back, and missed chances & lost. Last night we didn’t make any bad mistakes at the back, and took a couple of chances, which is far more important than playing silky football. They all agreed that we have to keep Delefeou; can’t disagree with that.
That was like watching 2 pub teams. The quality on show was horrific. At least we won't finish bottom.
The cynic would say atm that’s almost exactly the team we all support. But really, you’re apparent obsession in putting him down in every way all the time at every possible opportunity seems to me to be way OTT. And a comment like that is just ridiculous. Andre Gray maybe an average quality EPL player, but he scores the odd goal and like it or not, atm he’s OUR average EPL player.
No, the posts are wholly consistent. You simply seem to be assuming I meant something other than what I actually did. There was no intent to imply Leicester would be an easy game, simply that the overall difficulty of Norwich plus our next four is as kind of a run of fixtures as you could reasonably expect at this level.
Yep - as almost everyone expected, we're seeing a repeat of QSF's first stint with us. The saving grace we have is that GD is a player who legitimately can make something out of nothing on a regular basis, which is something we didn't have last time around. Ighalo had a wonderful purple patch, but it was the form of his life and he'll never do anything like that again. GD is capable of something special in every game he plays in. That's a definite plus.
It's a bit of a catch 22 imo, if we are within touching distance of 17th come January I think Gino is almost less likely to splash the cash. This may, in a perverse way, work against us. If we are still adrift, I think Gino is more likely to act.
Ha! Surprisingly I do agree with a large part of that. Gray's principal problem is that his first touch is woeful and he doesn't control the football properly. A basic skill that should be assumed to be in the toolbox of every player at this level especially an attacker. If you watch a game of football in the Sunday leagues and compare it with a PL game you will notice two principal distinctions: 1. The former is much more disorganised and, 2. The skillset exhibited by the latter is, as would be expected, far higher and this is exhibited more than anything else by a PL players' ability to bring the ball under control instantly even when it comes to them at difficult angles. It always impresses me. In the Sunday leagues the ball is forever bouncing off players and going pretty much anywhere. I'm afraid that my perception of Gray is that he should be playing on a Sunday in this category. To be fair, I thought he got a bit better in this basic aspect last season as opposed to being woeful in 2017-2018. And he had a bit of a 'purple patch' of his own last season around the time he scored the winners against Everton and Leicester (the latter with an excellent first touch). In addition he does have a knack of being in the right place at the tight time (and then 'cocking it up'). Who's to say whether his goal yesterday was an inspired flick or the ball bouncing off him at an odd angle (in this case into the onion-bag)? I'm afraid his lack of an absolutely basic skill means he doesn't cut it for me.
Have people overlooked the fact that West Ham could be in the mix? 2-0 down even after Burnley had a goal disallowed through VAR. Mind you, this Premier League is so unpredictable - Bournemouth, Burnley, Sheff Utd and Brighton, all of which I had down for relegation at one point are doing a good deal better than I expected so far.
