Well we got through but wasn't great . They were dangerous on the break and we tried but were sloppy on the ball particulary in midfield . GD and Sarr made a difference with their pace and attacking play .
Pretty entertaining evening. Gomes filled me with more confidence then Foster has recently. Quite liked the Prodl-Kabasele partnership, doubt Prodl will start in the prem any time soon but certainly an option. Surprised to see so much negativity about Masina, I thought he was decent - a lot more physical than Holebas although I think he was caught out for their goal. Chalobah was a bit disappointing and continues to be a shadow of the player he was prior to his injury. Thought Pereyra had a really good game; when he can get involved and become the link between the defence and attack he really shines. Swansea are definitely no pushover and I thought we showed we were clearly a level above which is promising.
Although he didn’t do much tonight I maintain Janmaat should start in the league. He looked like he was overlapping less than normal - maybe Quique telling him to stay in defensive shape. Masina was awful. He doesn’t track runners, he isn’t fast enough to dig himself out of trouble, he gives away stupid fouls, he doesn’t join in attacks often and when he does have the ball in the opponents half his crossing is abysmal. I don’t know what he does well. Kabasele was quite good; made some good covering tackles and a brilliant goal-line clearance. Prodl did okay but his lack of pace is horrendous. Makes Hughes look like a track athlete. Chalobah was really poor. Besides looking like his movement was limted (as many have mentioned) he was technically way below par. Lots of basic errors with his passing and slowed play down every time he got the ball, even when we needed an injection of pace. Very disappointing. Quina played well in my opinion. Always wanted the ball and moved it quicker than Chalobah. His balance and agility is great. You can feel the crowd’s appreciation when he gets the ball surrounded by players, drops a shoulder and turns on a dime in to space. I was also encouraged to see him play the simple pass a lot as well. You want flair players to do special things, but they need to know when. He has definitely had a habit of trying too much in the past but he showed maturity this evening. Gray huffed and puffed and contributed nothing. His link up play was as bad as ever and he snatched at his one shooting chance. Welbeck didn’t have much to feed off and mostly received hopeful punts to his head. He at least ran the channels though and on a couple of occasions in the second half could have added to his goal tally had the passing in to him around the box been better. Overall not much to be excited by but, for my money, nobody (other than Masina) has played their way out of contention.
Who was tonight's testimonial for? Neither team looked all that bothered. Maybe it's because it's so early in this particular cup competition, but it was really low key and I was completely relaxed throughout knowing we'd win. Made hard work of it though, and had all the big guns on in the end to force a goal. A bit of Gerry magic did the trick in the end. Gomes had very little to do, but when called upon he was excellent. He made one brilliant save in the first half, even though the Swansea forward was flagged offside, but he wasn't to know that. Late in the second half he made another two very good saves and caught everything cleanly in the air. Not sure why so many complain about him, but for a number two, he's a great asset for Watford. Masina was poor. He's an athlete, but that's about it. He's is just ordinary and makes a lot of poor errors. Swansea saw him as the weak link and their goal came from his side. Quina really caught the eye again. I've never seen him have a bad game. He was covering mistakes made by other players, busy, lots of tricks that came off. I'm amazed he doesn't play more in the first team. He's very good. Great to see Welbeck score, and a header from a corner which is rare for us. He's quality though, but we'll have to be patient before we see the best of him. Another promising cameo from Sarr. He probably should have scored. Had another good touch and turn only to scuff the shot again, similar to the Arsenal match. He's another we have to be patient with, and I suspect we have to give a bit of love from the stands in order to get his confidence up. I'm not convinced he's a £40m player, but he does have potential to be good......I think. Gray was dreadful again. You can't fault his effort and he never hides, but my god, how can he still not control or pass the ball? He had a good chance and had a lot of time to set himself, but as usual, he shot straight at the keeper. A lot of our moves just fizzle out when it comes to him, as he messes up the pass or doesn't control a simple ball. It's so frustrating to watch. Pererya looked knackered all match, but he played well. He's was one of the few who tried to make things happen. Prodl looked ok tonight, but Swansea did not test him at all. He did look a bit rusty, but no one pressed when he had the ball at his feet. It was an easy night's work for the entire defence really. A much harder test at Wolves awaits. Finally the fans were noisy and upbeat. No hangover from Saturday. They must have had backup media staff on tonight, as there was a long period where the PA system went haywire with a high frequency pitched sound that went right through you. You had to put your fingers in your ears as it became unbearable. They screwed up the scoreboard too. The time was set to 10 seconds before kick off, and after we took the lead, the score remained at 1-1 for about 5 minutes. I even checked my phone to make sure the second goal hadn't been disallowed by VAR or something. Anyway.....Hallelujah....we won and we're in the 4th round for the first time since 2008!!
Deulefeo worked like a demon - after he assisted the winner he was absolutely determined we weren't going to throw it away.
Crawley away next please! Think we’ll get City for Sky’s entertainment purposes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Jesus, seeing the Swansea managers post match presser before bed is going to ruin my sleep tonight. Horrid sight. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
One point of disagreement for me regarding the League Cup so far is that I think Chalobah has grown into the games and is getting better. He is always looking for s positive pass and so sometimes it will go wrong, but I am still hopeful that the potentially great player we signed is still there. PS I thought he did better than Quina again tonight.
Thanks for the write up guys who went. No streams at all worked, so all of us poor sods in the shout box were playing blind. We did have @Clive_ofthe_Kremlin to thank for some excellent minute to minute commentry. Thank you Clive. Can't really add much, we won so its a little slither of pride back for the club. I really hope at least a few of the ones who performed tonight at least get considered for Wolves.
Being at the Vic tonight, having called for Doucoure to be dropped in favour of Chalobah just this afternoon, I'm going to have to grudgingly retract that, as it genuinely appears that the injury caused Natty Chals to forget how to play football entirely. Quite why his entire footballing brain and technique was housed in the centre of his kneecap I'm not sure, but what's not in doubt is that it was utterly devastated by the freak training ground occurrence. I'm incredibly disappointed to say it, but it looks pretty unlikely that he's going to be able to get back to anything like the required level anytime soon. Good to see Gray get the opportunity to show us what he's capable of against lower calibre opposition and do absolutely sweet **** all, again. Fairplay, banging balls for him to head down is stupid and pointless from our build-up players, but that doesn't explain the abysmal nature of every single pass and control he attempted with his feet and the zero threat he posed on goal this evening. Was shocked to see Quina come off, he was pretty much the sole bright spark in the dire first half, but when we brought the big bois on in the form of Cleverley and Geri we improved exponentially. Sarr should have played for longer, but there were a couple of moments where he got going and looked an entirely different class to anyone else on the pitch, as well as in general immediately providing an entirely new attacking impetus and stretching the play in a way we were totally lacking up the point of his introduction. We are going to need to buy a left back in January as well as a centre back; no wonder Jose keeps playing no matter what, whilst we were desperately scrabbling around trying to force Spurs into letting us have their left back as a form of charitable giving on the very last day of the window.
As others have said this has given valuable game time to develop young keeper Gomes. And also allowed an almost incalculably valuable rest for kiko for Saturday ( I can hear the collective sigh of relief for this particular tidy, qsf stalwart) We can all rest easy. Wellbeck has played a little so can go back to being not quite right along with Sarr.
You can add a right back to that list. Femenia really needs to leave. Janmaat good enough backup for now.
Quina came off because of a knock. Originally the substituted player was to be Doucoure, but that was quickly changed although the latter came off soon after. Personally I did not think anyone really played themselves in to a first team starting spot. I was disappointed with Janmatt performance, thought Gomes was fine and Quina looked good. At times we seemed very slow around their goal, simply allowing Swansea to regroup and defend our attacks pretty easily. Our subs won the game. Having been to many of these league cup games. There seems very little intensity from our players. They obviously don't put too much effort in. Was it under Mazzarri we put in a poor performance against Gillingham, and then on the following Saturday beat Man Utd? At least the rain at the end was not to heavy. And for a £10, not a bad nights footie.
He is finished at Premier League level. He knows it that he is why his movement is half paced. It is a mental issue. One more knock and his career is over. It is a pity as l thought he good on his day.
The thing with Chalobah is that to get any kind of confidence (both physical and mental) is that he will need a run of games. That will largely mean fans would have to accept poor performances and be patient - I don’t think we are in a position to do that. We are bottom of the league and have too much competition in CM. Quite why the club haven’t sourced him a decent loan is beyond me. File under ‘odd’ alongside retaining Bachmann and Dahlberg. Another piece of masterful squad-building by Giraldi? Don’t worry though, we’ll probably sign another CM and GK in January...just to make sure.
If it was a case of ‘one more knock and his career is over, I’m 100% certain he wouldn’t be out there and would be retired. I’ve said it before but we were told at the ‘At Your Place’ event in February that it’s purely a confidence thing, both physically and mentally, and it was going to be a long process. Which is why as I’ve said above, it’s bizarre the club haven’t loaned him out for regular games.
Gomes did more to command his area than Foster did yesterday, taking a lot of high balls well. I'd have him over Foster. Masina who I thought played fairly well (if one footed as anything) apparently was poor, Janmaat I thought was poor with his delivery particularly bad. Prodl and Kabasele did well, I'd have either of them over Dawson. Doucoure and Chalobah were bad, with Doucoure shading it between the two. Neither should play v Wolves based on that. Quina was quiet for 30 mins and then got into the game strongly after some sublime skill. Pereyra was my MotM as he did a lot if defensive tracking back as well as contributed with the attack a lot. Welbeck looked sharper. Still not there yet but a lot better overall and got involved in a lot of our attacks. Faded a lot in the 2nd half but he looks more like who we hoped we signed. Gray was bad. Pressed a lot with no end product and was let down by his first touch. Shocking I know. Subs: Cleverley was typical Cleverley. Don't think he did badly or stand out but no complaints from him. Sarr looked a little poor overall. Very poor start but grew into it once he got his first touch in order. Think he'd benefit from a run of games. Deulofeu looked good. Got the assist but when we went forward he looked smart on the ball.
I concur, but Janmaat is at the least a serviceable option there for the season, as he has been before. As much as we desperately need an overhaul of the entire defence, we'll be lucky enough if we get a centre back and a left back in January (I'm still not holding my breath given what we've seen up to this point) and those two positions are absolutely vital; there is no Janmaat on the left, you know? Every option is a dumpster fire.
I felt that we seemed to show that we are level above Swansea they had a bit of possession but we was comfortable enough. I think The Swans manager is just trying to feed some confidence for the next league game.
