Having seen the Gray goal again I think he does actually deserve a lot of credit for 'an inspired, back-heel flick'.
He's a bit of a donkey, relative to EPL level, but he does score important goals. Does he warrant the wages he gets? Almost certainly not. Is he our worst ever player at this level? Not a chance. Put it this way, if TD and DW are fit- he's 4th choice striker.
Gray was awful vs Chelsea but a lot better on Friday. Actually held the ball up and battled for the ball. Most importantly he scored. The best thing about that is his movement. He is behind his marker which makes it very difficult for the defender to keep an eye on him and the player with the ball as Delefeou crosses the ball it allows Gray to get in front of his man and in fairness it's a tidy finish even if it did get a deflection. Overall I thought we were ok. We had a dodgy spell of 20 minutes at the end of the first half but I felt apart from that I felt we were in control. Even going down to 10 men didn't seem to make much difference as Norwich just ran out of ideas. A professional performance but we must build on it
We really need to win 3 of the next 4 to have any chance of staying up....IMO. Friday's win was vital. Had we lost that then it would have been all over for sure. Even with the win, it doesn't look great for us. 3 points behind Villa and they have a game in hand. 5 points behind the next teams after Villa. It will look extremely bleak if we don't beat Burnley, Southampton and Palace. Forget Leicester away as that's well beyond us for a possible point or 3. If we pick up 9 points from the next 4 games, then I'd say we are back in the pack to avoid the drop. It would mean 17 points from 16 games, with Anything less than that, then I don't think we'll have enough to avoid the drop. After those 4 games we've got Liverpool (a ), United (h ) and Sheff Utd (a ). You see it's going to be extremely hard to pick up points in those games, so we have to take them when we can in games in which we feel we can win. Even though we won on Friday, I was disappointed in the way we played. Norwich are exceptionally poor, or were on Friday. They had one player Hernandez, who destroyed us on the flank. We are so weak now, and look like a Championship side trying their luck in the Premier League and I know we're so much better than that. I'm trying to mentally transpose that performance from Friday over other upcoming games, and I'm pretty sure it would not have been good enough to beat many sides in this league. Until I see real improvement in cohesion as a team, I see very little reason to get carried away with the win on Friday.
Whether we stay up or not who knows. But to say we need to win 3/4 to have any hope is IMO a massive exaggeration. I can see your logic, but it then ignores the fact there is a whole second half of the season where we cutoff pick up points.
Not sure I quite agree with this. I think if we can average a point per game until January, we have a chance of survival. Is Gino more likely to spend if we are within touching distance of 17th though, or will he chance this group of players being able to keep us up?
I don't think it is a massive exaggeration at all, but I respect your opinion. It's because we've massively underachieved in the first 11 games, is why we need a string of victories close together, in order to get back on track. Each match played represents one less game remaining to play. We've played 12 already, almost a third of the season gone. We only have 26 more to play and I'd expect we'd have to win at least another 9 if not 10 to stay up. The table looks like being full of clubs on similar points, with the bottom three cut adrift. This will mean a higher points total to stay up than normal. Usually the top 6 hoover up points against the rest, but apart from Liverpool and City, that doesn't appear to be the case this season. United, Spurs and Arsenal are dropping points to everyone. That means points will be more evenly spread out across the league. Unless we have a radical run of wins, we are highly unlikely to catch up later on in the season. But of course a lot will depend on whether we buy real quality in January, which is a notoriously expensive market with very little real quality to be had. I don't think we'll go big in the winter window, and we'll rely mainly on the players we already have.
Winning 3 of the next 4 will mean we're on 17 points from 16 games, which is the points per game average you think we'll need. If we don't go on that big winning run then we will be well short of even a point per game average. To think we'll have to win 4 of the next 5 (before Norwich), just to get us back on a points per game average, shows you how far back we really are in terms of a survival bid. When you look at the table, it's a huge worry looking at the teams we are trying to catch. Not only are we 3/5 points from safety, the sides above us right now are Villa, West Ham, Wolves, Man Utd, Everton and Spurs!! That's terrifying when you consider nearly all of those sides will have the ability to put in good runs or will be able to attract big players in January. The sides we want to be reeling in are much further up the league. Newcastle, Palace, Burnley, Bournemouth and Sheff Utd are all in the top 11. It's a real topsy-turvy looking league right now. But the teams you'd expect we'd have to chase down are on 15 plus points.
Have we 'massively underachieved' though? You yourself were very big on how appallingly VAR treated us up until Matchday 9. While we have had our disagreements over VAR I think we can both agree that we were utterly robbed at Newcastle and Spurs. That's four more points then. Plus if Doucs scores the winner against Arsenal and one of the three 'gilt-edged' chances against Sheff. Utd goes in that's another four points. Sixteen points would have put us 5th= on points, (8th on g.d.). Thankfully VAR, for all it's continuing faults, would now appear to have settled down a bit as far as we're concerned. Obviously we are where we are though. Which is eight points. But if you're looking for a measure of how good/bad we've really been so far this season then I'd suggest that somewhere between 12 and 16 points, and a mid-table position would be more realistic. We won't need more than nine more victories. That would put us on 35 points not counting draws. You seem to be forgetting draws. Well we've got five of those already so it seems reasonable to expect that we might get at least another five in the next 26 matches. Which would put us on the magic 40+ points. I reckon we could get away with eight more victories. We've just won at last and Deeney is back. Even Danny Murphy on MotD expected us now to pick up as we progress. So do I. I reckon we'll well exceed the nine more victories anyway. So here's a prediction for you. We'll finish the season above Sheff. Utd. They're currently fifth.
I do agree, but at the end of the season we only need three teams to be below us. Norwich look awful. Southampton too. There's got to be a good chance we can be above them at the end of the season from our current position. That's two. We're 3 points below Villa. If we beat them game for game for the rest of the season, that's the third team and we're safe. It won't be pretty and it'll be bloody close, but we'll be safe. We're 7 points behind Burnley and Palace, but we're playing them soon, both at home. Beat them (still a big IF), and the difference is down to 4 points. Not insurmountable. We're still in an atrocious position but there IS a realistic way out. We need a sustained period of good form. We know the players should be just about capable, judging on what we've seen from them in previous seasons. The question is can QSF get it out of them and the jury is out, the next game will be hugely telling as we should have a bit more confidence...
I agree on your last point about the January transfer window, we can't rely on this. Maybe we'll get lucky - but most signings in Jan don't have a huge impact ( and this isn't just for Watford). That said a striker that could get 5 goals for the rest of the season Could be all it takes. Regarding hoovering up points - I'd say all of the top 4 are doing pretty well so far. And the top 6 not massively off. If the form of the top 6 continued as it is now they would get 463 points by the end, compared to 474 points last season. So 11 points extra to distribute against 14 teams. This season isn’t much different to previous ones. I’m basing this on the actual top 6 not the historic top 6. Also I don’t see why we have to write off the Man Utd and Sheffield utd games in your analysis ( and I know you don’t exactly say this, but you assume no points). Will they be easy? No. But I’d say there is more chance of us picking up a couple of points there than winning 3 of the next 4.
I'm not a betting man. But I stand by the prediction. Take the p.ss out of me or bow down in May as appropriate.
Kabs' sending off was a result of his lack of concentration. He started after the ball ahead of his opponent and he's quick, but he was just jogging, the Norwich player got ahead of him so Kabs fouled him. And off he went.
Not aimed at you ZZ but all of you who use it. I always find it a little odd there is a politics section on a football forum. Seems like it creates more ‘hatred’ or at least annoyance for each other and then that creeps into the much more important thing in life - discussions about WFC.
Whatever happens it'll be close and exciting, and ITS LIVE! I really cant see us pulling away and being safe with 5 to play. If we are within 2 points of safety after 37 games we have a chance of course. However our last 2 games are Man City and Arsenal.. My thoughts are we'll either be sunk and out by 36 games or uncomfortably ahead with those 2 left...
All fair points, however I fully expect a couple of: Brighton, Sheffield United, Villa, Newcastle, Muff, Burnley, Palace to fall away at some point.
I've never noticed you contributing to the politics section. Are you one of the 'silent watchers'? It seems a bit strange to me that you would be critical of a section of this place that you don't participate in. Sure it can be a bit WFC v Scummers at times. So what? That's part of the fun. Every day is matchday in politics currently. The reason I like it particularly is that it's populated by people who have something coherent to say (mostly). That 'know their stuff'. There are exceptions of course. As opposed to the 'twittersphere' which is almost completely populated by 'utter b.llocks'.
I do expect these teams to drop off as well, this is why I'm thinking the teams we need to be clawing our way back against are the teams that are currently on 15 points or more. That's a huge 7+ points, almost doubling our points total to date. This is why it's imperative we win games against Burnley, Southampton and Palace. It's the only sure way of clawing our way back. If we look at the clubs currently above us, in Villa, Everton, Spurs, United, West Ham. Apart from Villa, these aren't the clubs we're going to win the race against.
To answer your questions and clarify. I’ve never contributed to or visited the politics section. And I don’t believe I was particularly critical of it. I said it seems strange to me to have it on a football forum. However you have partially explained why people here do use it, because this forum has a good number of level headed, sensible and seemingly intelligent individuals who can debate something in a meaningful way. I’m still not personally tempted but each to their own.
Fair enough. But if you've never even visited it how would you know what it's like and how it might impinge on the football bit?
Because of the number of times people criticise others on the football section using what they’ve said or how they debate things on the politics section.
