I found that very stressful to watch, could have gone either way in the end but we failed to capitalise on a poor Plymouth team. Our defence is absolutely woeful, Porteous and Hoedt are both an accident waiting to happen. In classic Porteous style he tries to slide in and gets turned on the halfway line for the 50th time this season which left us horribly exposed at the back and resulted in conceding. I've said this before but our players don't seem to perceive the danger in any situation. We seem to watch the ball while the opposition run straight through us, you can see the threats unfolding 10 seconds before any of our players do. Prime example towards the end when 3 Watford players went to the ball on the left hand side and all 3 were taken out the game by a simple pass leaving the Plymouth player alone running into acres of space towards the box. I feel like VI makes subs for the sake of making subs, we take off all of our best players when on the front foot and the game swings the other way. I commend him for managing our squad and preventing a huge injury list but not when we are conceding points as a result of it. Plymouth were there for the taking and I feel disappointed more than anything else. Also I am surprised how quiet Home Park is? I always had Plymouth fans down to have a decent following but they sat there in complete silence the whole afternoon even though they took the lead a few times.
Healey just shrugged his shoulders and gave a small backhanded wave as if he knows that he is off in the January sales. Not sure of the other player with him who just left the pitch. Hoedt was calling the players back to acknowledge the fans. Plymouth pace upfront was always going to trouble Watford. Remember, we are a mid table club and pacy forwards will always be a problem for Watford at this level and position. Ps: TDB is certainly not the answer for a replacement for Kayembe. Morris is too slow.
For me, in more recent years: Gomes Foster (05-07, 18-19) Chamberlain Almunia Pantilimon Kuszczak Loach Bond
My main criticism of Martins is he tends to want to slip in a worldy pass too early and he gives it away. He needs to work on carrying the ball at pace rather than just try to feed someone else. Maybe Val is trying to make him into more of a centre mid.?
Think with Asprilla it's more a symptom of playing on that side. It's worked very well on occasion when Andrews has underlapped him (not a word but hopefully you know what I mean) but it's clear he is very left footed. When Asprilla was on the left for the start of the Stoke game, he was quite happy to get it out of his feet and chuck early crosses in.
Agree with this. I’ve been more disappointed with Martins in the recent games where he’s been put on the right, which should be his natural side. His impact has been really limited.
Well I think you’re being a little bit harsh on Heurelho there, Clive. And Tommy Smith for that matter. As former Watford players, I have a lot of respect for them all. But as your main complaint about Gomes was that he was more interested in talking about himself, I would reiterate that Tommy Mooney is the king of that. Far more guilty than Gomes, or anyone else. And he’s had plenty of time to get it right. I think Smith is improving as a co-commentator, and for a first effort, I thought Gomes was fine. And as for his allegiances, he certainly seemed disappointed that we didn’t win, or weren’t able to take full control. Don’t know what else you were wanting from him…a gushing recollection of his happiest days as a Watford player, how he goes to sleep listening to Elton every night, how he regrets not joining the club earlier instead of wasting time with Spurs..? It’s all just opinion and taste to an extent. I think we all see and hear things differently. Personally I always loved Derek Payne. I know he could get his words mixed up and struggles with long, foreign names (as does Mooney, who still can’t say Chakvetadze), but I found him far more insightful than TM. His reading of the game was excellent. Anyway I welcome changes of commentating partner for Jon Marks. Looking forward to Perry Digweed. As long as Jon Marks is the ever present, I am happy, because he’s superb.
This is one thing that really seems like a clear and inexplicable lacuna in Val's coaching - this is obvious to even the most basic of Watford-watching ameoba. If that is and continues to be the case, how is it possible that Val has not literally stamped his authority and and told Porteous to not do that, ever again, or he will be dropped, and then drop him? If your starting centre back (for whatever reason that he is, is) has a glaring downside to his game that results in him doing the same very stupid thing several times every single game, and he keeps doing it dozens of games into the season, which keeps costing us as a team, and he keeps getting picked to start games, how much at that point is it his fault, and how much is it the coach's? It's surely not an acceptable excuse to say 'I've tried to get him to stop but he just keeps doing it', and it's not like half the time it comes off brilliantly and we profit massively from it, thereby making it worth the risk. It's utterly mediocre at best the rest of the time, and semi-frequently disastrous. Odd.
I agree with this - Payne might struggle with names, but for me he was far more insightful than any other co-comm we've had outside of Nick Wright.
Yes, I also liked Payne and agree that Marks is a good commentator. My ideal would be to have different ex-players as co-commentators. That would be interesting. Hopefully we'll have some different voices over the season.
These days managers seem to call it “ brave “ to keep playing that way as it’s what they want/the right way etc . Pundits too -except when it goes wrong as you say it does with us and they revert back to “he should have cleared it “
I get what you're saying and I don't want to be contrarian for the sake of it, because you're largely reflecting common sense, but it's a team game and if Porteous steps up to do his bonkers thing, his team mates need to ensure there's cover. There's nothing specifically wrong with one player moving into a different part of the field - at least given how the game's developed tactically in the past 5-10 years at least - as long as someone plugs the gap. Plus in this specific instance I don't agree with @3000, presuming he means the Whittaker goal - we were attacking, Porteous missed a slide tackle halfway in their half and Plymouth broke. But it really wasn't a dangerous situation when their bloke picked up the ball. And this is where we were about 5 seconds later: We'd arguably recovered the situation but then fell apart again. If we can't protect our goal from there there's bigger things to worry about than Porteous in my view.
My biggest Porteous bugbear is his wonky passing. Not much we can do about his lack of pace and I've come to accept he's going to go walkies at times - if anything, in the past 6 weeks or so Val seems to have embraced it and we've seen Porteous popping up on the edge of the box or staying up field to support attacks when we've been chasing games. But his **** passing really does my head in as he'll do all the good stuff of getting back, tackling or winning the ball, earning a yard or two of space to play it out and then he'll shank it straight back to the opposition.
Funnily enough his passing doesn't feature on the highlights packages! (Except when it costs us a goal )
Yeah, I don't disagree at all - our defence has a problem overall, and it's very frustrating. I do just find that one thing that Porteous does, which we all can picture in our mind's eye right now, inexplicable. As a coach, Val must surely be able to recognise and effect that one thing directly. It's not even like he's just holding a high line; that's not our complaint/what causes the damage. It's the insane urge to rush up and fly in without the ability to do so. He'll always be a liability if he keeps thinking in that manner, so it's in his own interest to stop as much as anyone else's.
As a general rule of thumb, shouldn’t sliding in be somewhat of a last resort? Obviously my exposure to football compared to the modern professional level is like two different universes, but we were always taught to stay on our feet as once you go to ground you’re effectively out of the game. Does a CB need to be making slide tackles half way up the pitch, no matter how much cover we have behind him? My natural reaction is to say no he doesn’t at all.
I can forgive the loose passes, as he's been instructed to do that, but I struggle to believe Ismael has told him to try to win the ball up the field and potentially leave us in some danger (though the ease at which they cut us apart is of course not all his fault)
Further to the Keeper chat earlier, HG is on talk sport now, currently talking about life under Pozzo.
