The Championship 2020-21

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by Markoa$, Jul 26, 2020.

  1. ForzaWatford

    ForzaWatford Squad Player

    Brentford didn’t look great. Pretty stonewall penalty and red card not given against them as well...
     
  2. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    Certainly a red card for foul on Greg Dyke.
     
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  3. Supertommymooney

    Supertommymooney Squad Player

    Refs can't give red cards without a crowd there to shout at them
     
  4. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I agree on the finances, and I don’t like hindsight trading/revisionism, but £5m spent would very likely have meant £100m gained.

    We’ve basically needed a a striker since we spunked £18m on Andre and it didn’t work. The club have seemed unwilling/unable to rectify that error ever since. Our top score has what, 3 goals? Toney has 12.

    Mind boggling to think where we’d be with that, ivic could happily play to protect leads with a striker who scores a goal a game in the team.
     
  5. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Wait, what? You’re saying Ivan Toney is ‘very likely’ to be worth £100m?! Jumped the shark a bit there unless it’s a typo!

    Moreover, Brentford have players who cross the ball with pace and put it on a six-pence for him. If he’d have been in our team so far this season, no way would he have got 12 goals so far.

    I’m not debating he’s a good player. And of course it’s frustrating that a striker who was almost guaranteed to score goals went to a divisional rival for that amount - but all it does is highlight where we have wasted money in previous years in that area. There was nothing we could have done about it this summer apart from sit back with frustration. Yes we missed out on a bargain - but we didn’t have the money to buy him even at the bargain price, there’s no guarantee he’d have hit the ground running with Ivic’s dull approach, and also no guarantee he would have chosen us over Brentford either.

    I agree it’s frustrating! But some on here are talking almost as if it was a done deal that we pulled out of!
     
  6. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    Promotion is worth £100m
     
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  7. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Fair enough, I assumed I’d lost something in translation!

    Still not sure I’d go as far as calling it ‘very likely’ because I think it’s unlikely he’d score as many goals with us playing the style Ivic employs. If we go up this season, it’ll be with lots of players scoring 3 or 4 and maybe one of the strikers getting 8-10. We don’t create enough for anyone to score 20+ presently!
     
  8. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    This is a significant exaggeration; plenty of Toney's goals this season have been from mediocre crosses in to the box which Toney is able to score from because he has the pace and anticipation to get on the end of them.

    It's a clear contrast to playing with Troy who is so static that balls do have to literally be put on a six-pence for him to do anything with them (or Gray who fluffs chances which Toney might score from).

    Years of watching those two have made us forget what it's actually like having a striker with good movement in the box combined with decent technique. Toney works to get on the end of crosses, Troy stays rooted to the spot. Sema and Sarr are also both better wide players than anything Brentford have.

    We've also had lots of chances in recent games that we've fluffed, whether they be from Quina, Cathcart, Troost-Ekong, or Sarr. Toney would have had plenty of opportunities to score here as well.
     
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  9. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Deeney actually made a good run away from the defender at the back post the other day asking for a cross which never came and there was the simple pass Pedro missing to him.

    Not saying he would have scored though!!!
     
  10. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    I disagree. Not every cross has been on a sixpence, that was an exaggeration on my part I agree. But the quality of balls he has been provided with have been better than nearly anything we have provided our strikers with.

    Sarr I agree with...but Sema being better than any wide player Brentford have is very much open for debate.

    Anyway - we are digressing. We couldn't afford Toney so this constant talk as if we were in with a shout seems pretty misplaced to me.
     
  11. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    Sure, he's maybe not be better overall than Mbuemo, but while Mbuemo is quicker and more of a direct goal threat, I think Sema is better at crossing and potentially providing assists (so relevant in terms of discussing service to a striker).

    You don't know that either though. It could have been possible but requiring a level of additional risk to the finances which the owners did not think it was worth taking, e.g. say in an additional short-term loan or shifting money from elsewhere in the Pozzo network somehow. But it was such a good opportunity I just don't understand how they couldn't have found a way to make it happen. If someone offered you an opportunity to guaranteed triple your money in a year as long as you could find, say, £10k, I'm sure you would try and scrabble around to do the deal. When opportunities like that happen, it's just foolish to not try and take them up.
     
  12. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Of course no one knows. But the noises that came from Ivic regarding funds for a LB hardly suggests that Gino was suddenly going to stump up £5m+ for a striker. Our finances over the summer told a very clear picture...seems crazy to think we were just withholding money or could have found it down the back of (Udinese's) sofa. They themselves only spent £3m this summer...

    And again, I think given a straight choice between us and Brentford, its likely Toney still would have gone there.

    If we had come down in decent financial shape, and there was no such thing as Covid, then yeah...I'd be annoyed we weren't in the market for him. But we didn't, and there is...so I'm not.

    Where I do agree and understand the frustration is that if we had £6M to spend on a striker this summer, I don't have faith that the owner/Giraldi would spend it on the obvious like Toney...and they'd try and buy another Oulare type instead. Thats the wider concern.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
  13. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    Erm mm, what?! You're def talking out your ar5e here. We have a better squad, a more established higher level pedigree, could have offered higher wages, and had the link with him and Troy. Plus he probably wouldn't have even needed to move from near Peterborough. If we'd have matched their offer we'd have got him.

    I thought we should have signed him even had we stayed up in the PL and was gobsmacked another PL club didn't also go for him. Instead one will no doubt offer 20mil for him in the summer if Brentford don't go up. Even in League One he looked destined for the PL.
     
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  14. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Why? Brentford play better football than us - they’d been lauded last season for their style and narrowly missed out on jumping higher than us. They have a settled squad and coaching staff and moved into a brand new stadium. He was also guaranteed to be their starting striker.

    We by comparison had an unsettled squad, plenty of strikers for competition, a new relatively unheard of manager.

    You disagree, that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean my opinion means I’m ‘talking out of my ar$e’ at all. You’re the only person here speaking with certainty on matters you can’t know about. There are clear factors at play which made a move difficult to us - yet every time he scores a goal, you deny the evidence of why we couldn’t get him and throw your toys out the pram. You need to get over it.
     
  15. BeersThen

    BeersThen Reservist

    Some winnable games for N'wch and Muff today. Hopefully that's cursed them.
     
  16. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    With hindsight it's easy to say we should have bought Toney. It's also very possible, if we had, it would have cist £5m we don't have, and he could have snapped his leg 2 games in.
     
  17. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Good win for Reading.
     
  18. reids

    reids First Team

    Adding to this - Brentford have an absolutely fantastic record of being able to supply goals for their strikers:

    19/20: Watkins - 26 goals
    18/19: Maupay - 25 goals
    17/18: Maupay - 12 goals (+ Watkins 10 goals)
    16/17: Vibe - 15 goals (+ Hogan - 14 goals)
    15/16: Vibe - 14 goals
    14/15: Gray - 17 goals

    When that happens you score lots, when you score lots you then have plenty of teams after you allowing you to move on to better things, the last time any of our strikers came anywhere near scoring as much as the above was Ighalo in 2015, if you're playing the long game Brentford would've been the obvious choice
     
  19. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    It did!
     
    Heidar likes this.
  20. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    Yes,well played sir/madam!
     
    wfc4ever likes this.
  21. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    There are lots more games in the Championship. That was also the last time we were in the Championship. Funny that.
     
  22. reids

    reids First Team

    Actually we were in the PL that season.
     
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  23. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    You just said 2015 - you didn't specify 2015-16 as opposed to 2014-15 when we were in the Champ.

    Impressive that Ighalo got close in 15-16 while in the PL, but obviously our strikers got more in 14-15 (Ighalo hit 20 that season and Deeney 21).
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
  24. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    To counter as well, there were no guarantees with Toney, otherwise he would’ve cost a lot more than £5m.
     
  25. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    I'm just basing this off the last few Champ games I've watched this week - ours vs Bristol and Preston, and the Brentford vs QPR game yesterday - but I wonder if the frequency of games together with the onset of winter is finally catching up with many (other) clubs in the division? In these games players generally seem to have had a fair bit of time and space on the ball, there is some pressing but it's not consistent.

    I was very surprised with the extent to which many of our opponents had been able to press us high up the pitch with intensity for a near full 90 minutes earlier in the season, I was not expecting it to be quite so possible in the Championship, but there could be a few more tired legs and impacts from injuries and small squads starting to show now.

    If so then this should help us as the season goes on, given our players' generally good technical ability, our decent sized squad, and the fact that we hardly seem to have got going as a team so far this season, let alone being burnt out already.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
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  26. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    I wanted him even if we'd have stayed up in the Prem and I'd said that on here. He just looked every bit a PL quality player.

    I'll take @WatfordTalk 's point above though that given our injury luck he could have easily broken his leg after a few games, but other than that he was just oozing class.
     
  27. lutonh8a

    lutonh8a Squad Player

    Norwich's injury list seems to be growing, hopefully they will start to lose some points.
     
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  28. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Would have been a great addition to the team, though he wouldn't score nearly as many in our team compared with Brentford- we give out about our strikers, but I'm sure you could put them into the Brentford team and they'd score goals (and no, I'm not suggesting that any of them are as good as Toney lol)
     
  29. Heidar

    Heidar Squad Player

    13 players injured, including all strikers and the keeper.

    I'm not hoping for a Luton win on Wednesday, just a Norwich loss.
     
    The undeniable truth likes this.
  30. lutonh8a

    lutonh8a Squad Player

    Why does everyone think Brentford are so free scoring? They have scored one more goal than us this season and we have played **** for almost every game.
     
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  31. Carpster

    Carpster Squad Player

    I was thinking exactly the same.
     
  32. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Blimey - fair to say Sarr probably wasn’t the only player to win a “cheap” penalty!

    Dean Ashton called out Solanke for diving basically!
     
  33. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    No one has scored all that many actually, apart from funnily enough Blackburn so it seems the defensive play against them was the right approach. On the other hand, plenty of teams have decent defensive records, including those in the bottom half all the way down to Sheffield Wednesday (who would still be in the bottom 1/4 if it weren't for their points deduction). And given Norwich and Bournemouth failed to kill off two struggling sides today, I can't see there being that many goals in this division come the season's end.

    It would be interesting to know what the record is for the most number of goals in a season in the second tier in the modern footballling era (ie since, say, it became three points for a win in 1981, so not counting seasons when teams were winning 6-5, 8-2 etc for fun).
     
  34. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Tbf we've scored 3 from corners already (which is one of the highest in the league, even if our corners don't seem particularly impressive, we get a lot of them), 3 pens (with three different scorers), and an own goal, so even though the goals are starting to flow, we're still not especially creative
     
  35. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    That was soft, not much contact, but one of those annoying ones that you can't complain at as soon as the striker feels contact. Norwich one just looked wrong, keeper looked liked he got a strong hand on it
     
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