Yes agree entirely with your assessment of Xinckernagel and Perica they are both luxury players either that or they haven’t sussed out that when you give the ball away or misplace a pass you don’t just stand there stare and hope one of your colleagues is going to somehow get the ball, you follow the rest of the team and work your hardest to retrieve the ball or at least make it difficult for the opposition’s to prosper!
Bit harsh there Skyla I reckon. As you say, they parked the bus, at least we tried to tried to win, had far the most possession and didn't stop battling. Looking at their forum, they thought we deserved it too. I thought we definitely deserved to win.
We had 61% possession so I think that says something! Had we conceded when under a little pressure at the end it would have been a tad disappointing!
Re penalties btw we have now scored our last 13 in match time and another 3 from 3 in a penalty shoot out (and one in a pre season friendly) We had 3 in the league after the Spurs miss last season. As a19 says, 9 in the league this campaign plus one in the League Cup (Peñaranda) And yes I accept such comments might be tempting fate! Great though that three other players have netted from the spot this season apart from Deeney. Shows we aren’t a one man show in that regard.
Better than many away games as we tried to play football. Preston seemed to want a 0-0 which is a strange way to play at home. Not pretty but everybody put in a shift and puts us third. Bachman. Still not had a lot to do but what he does, he does with the minimum of fuss. Femenia. As usual a great attacking outlet but also defended well when required Cathcart. For somebody who hasn’t played much for a while I thought he was excellent. The Bloke from Chile. Their all edged to innocent striker gave him a tough first half but was superb in the second half Masina. Still not sure about him. Felt he was the weak link today despite not doing a lot wrong. Chalobah. Wins the ball and is strong in the tackle but blimey his passing is horrible Hughes. God we look so much better with him in team. So calm on the ball Cleverly. Really good energy as usual from him. But of an unsung hero Sarr, Pedro and Sema. Put them together as felt they all had similar games. Good pen from Pedro but I think all three had fairly frustrating nights Xisco. Whatever you think of him you can’t argue with his record so far. Didn’t think bringing Zinc on was correct though. Really not his type of game. Happy days though
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Great 3 pts but disappointing we created so little going fwd - just one shot on target I think. One lucky deflection or bad break in the last 10 minutes and we'd have dropped 2 points.
They've probably decided to lean into the fact that their home form is absolutely dreadful, whilst their away form is better than most in the league. I guess if you notice the pattern and it's consistent, why not ride the wave...
Yes but usually our typical 1-0 wins via a soft penalty have come away from home; it's reassuring that we're finally managing to replicate our home form in our away games.
Yes I agree there was no doubt who the better team on the pitch was. Admittedly our final ball let us down but we controlled the midfield much better than we have in all of our away games this season. Preston sat very deep and made it difficult for us, they even played deep after they had went 1-0 down and they had a bit of a go late on. For all of their huffing and puffing we were defensively solid, I can't actually remember Baachman having a save to make.
Yes, I thought the same. His distribution was good. He was confident and the players seemed confident in him. Not sure if Foster is guaranteed to get his place back now.
He really has not, I've thought he's looked off the pace in all his league games but some on here have been so desperate that he'll transform our season that they've been viewing and evaluating him with rose-tinted glasses.
He shouldn’t be. Foster has been fine before injury but he should be made to fight for his place back now rather than automatically getting straight back in.
You're all being s bit unfair on Zinc. All our subs came on to face a torrent; Gosling missed a few potential interceptions, Perica watched the ball fly past him, Zinc ****ed up a pass on the break and got caught trying to be clever but also ran the width of the pitch afterwards to foil a counter. Give them time.
I agree about the disappointment over Zinckernagel tonight. But the Norwegian League is not the Championship: that's not really English arrogance; I refer to the sheer physicality of that last 20 minutes. And the last 10 minutes was the closest thing you can get to a legal brawl. PNE were just throwing the kitchen sink at us on a muddy pitch. He looked a bit shocked, I thought. But, yes that poor pass in the promising breakaway was poor.
Tonight was also our first double of the season. Beaten Preston both home and away. We’ve now creped up on the top two, seems things are getting batter and our team aren’t such a bunch of useless tosser after all
Ah, I thought it was just me.! I have struggled with the focus on red button games and find I'm never sure which of our players is on the ball (unless it's Hughes). I also wish they'd bother to put up the team sheets before kickoff.
Mmm, neither have played yet, though, and Swansea are one point behind us with three games in hand now.
I could curl a terd out onto the sidelines and it would have exactly the same managerial impact as that booby.
I bet TD was glad he wasn't playing. If he had been several posters would of been saying what great crosses they were and how bad TD was for not getting on the end of them.
Definitely not like games earlier in the season. We were trying but it did not work, as opposed to not trying. Much better to watch.
More like 'why wasn't he even in the box when those crosses came in'. A subtle, but rather important difference that you are surely aware of.
Ive seen Norwich play that exact game tonight. Dominate possession with incisive attacking football but creating little, do just enough to win the game whilst not giving away many chances. Norwich are top.
Watford's poor final ball into the box has 'traditionally' been poor. But I think you have to give some credit to PNE's defence: They parked the bus and were extremely well organised in doing it. It helped that they were utterly dominant in the air against our set pieces. They nearly caught Sierralta out a couple of times with a hoof up to the experienced Evans, but he got on top of the situation after that. PNE were well-organised, physical and determined, but, in the final analysis, a crap team playing a crap style of game. Watford thoroughly deserved to win that.
They at least seem to have designated jobs now. While the quality lacked at times, there’s a system. You couldn’t say that after the Coventry game.
