Watford 1-0 Scunthorpe Utd - 29/08/2020 (fr)

The recent articles on Ivic suggest he plays 352 and 433/4231

 

The hope is that Ivic used a 3-5-2 today given the personnel available to him (particularly Sema being the only winger), but will primarily use the 4-3-3 when the main men are back. I imagine we will see a similar team play next Saturday but with the likes of Sarr, Pedro and Estupinan coming on off the bench.

 

Yeah, if we play a 3-5-2 then where would Sarr and Pedro even fit?!

 

At Liverpool and the treatment room?

 

3-5-2 hasn't done Wolves much harm. You just need the right players to pull it off and its one of the few formations that allows for two up top. You need a top class forward to play one up. I don't see that we have that player right now.

 

What’s the need for such a spiteful post?

It’s not a competition, people are pooling their knowledge to try and work out who played today and HB1 has been more helpful than most already

 

FFY.

 

Based on the Scunthorpe highlights:

- Cathcart is an absolute donkey.
- Masina continues to be a joke and fundamentally useless. Giving the ball away, standing around like a lamp-post, and skying crosses.

No wonder they seemed to be the first two players subbed!

- Quina, D-B and Ngakia all showed some good stuff. Dele-Bashiru seemed very quick and sharp from what was on display there, Quina seemed heavily involved, and Ngakia took his goal very well.
- Gray actually had some surprisingly nice touches in build-up play. However, he also missed a few decent chances.
- Sierralta is a unit. Looks a kind of no nonsense defender we've missed for a while.
- Sema could be a handy box-to-box midfielder, but doesn't appear to have obtained much more in the way of an end product since we last had him.
- Suarez was unlucky to have one goal-bound shot blocked, then probably should have scored a bit later with another effort.
- The young left-back Stevenson seemed decent going forward, though looks a bit slow at the mo.

Considering our terrible under-performance of xG last season, and the amount of chances missed again today, it seems finishing practice is a key thing we'll need to work on.

 

Interesting - Wouldn't usually see higher education and Liverpool in the same sentence.

 

Auditioning for the role of CB most likely to have one disastrous game against a lower league team in the cup.

 

Not sure I want to register to see the highlights on I follow until I’ve worked out if I need to pretend to live in Norway

 

It can be effective, sure, but it generally produces dull as dishwater, inhibitive football.

 

My first thought on watching the highlights was already you can see the coaching work that’s taken place over the past fortnight.

I’m sure we’ve made a good appointment in Ivic.

 

We were dull as dishwater in Zola season 1?

We played the most entertaining football I can ever recall seeing at the Vic

 

Any formation can do that or the opposite.

Generally 3-5-2 is employed because of certain weaknesses in defence, like England in Italia 90 or Watford's 1999 promotion team. But it can be effective and that's going to be the keyword this year. And Ivic looks likely to be flexible.

 

After some in depth analysis (watching the Scunthorpe video), I've worked out all the players used today.

It was:- Foster, Ngakia, Dawson, Cathcart, Sieralta, Cathcart, Kabasele, Masina, Clevereley, Sema, Quina, Gray, Suarez, Percia, Jacobson, Dele-Bashiru, Bachmann, Barrett & Phillips

 

Lowerrous fact-checking with a fine-tooth comb on this one.

 

He's gonna have you for spelling Clevereley

3...2...1....

 

A pr1ck will always be a pr1ck. It stems from a low self-esteem because he's not too popular. He has my sympathy........but he will always be called out on it.

 

Think we can understand why most names were missing today - but Welbeck feels a little surprising. I know he’s been tentatively linked with a move but no strong links and they’ve gone quiet. He was training with most of this lot from the start too.

 

Miles Jacobson giving himself a game eh?

 

Well this does have the look of a Football Manager wet dream team.

 

Stop worrying about PS friendlies.
Who cares about the result ?. Was the point
or purpose, for example, can we get our full
backs forward?. The point of the exercise?
Etc etc ...

 

Most encouraging thing for me about the limited highlights is we are trying to play expansive football with lots of one touch and movement

What I'd like to know if I could ask Gino anything is why we wasted 5 years in the PL hoofing to the fat bloke

 

Sema was the only natural wide player it looks like he had available, so a 352 makes complete sense. Every chance that changes if Sarr, Pedro etc are available.

I'd rather a manager play a system that suits the players than shoving the likes of Clevs out on the wing and wondering why we cant create chances.

Quina, Ngakia, Sema, Gray and Sema all looked to have had decent games (albeit with some poor finishing) and Suarez looked bright in the v limited footage we have.

Also nice to see Phillips filling into the Holebas role.

 

Because that’s all Deeney and the current CB’s are largely good for? I still think if we ask those same players to start playing football, we will find this season worse than we think. If we want to play good, incisive football, we need to get CB’s capable of it. And a decent No.10 (which could be Quina fingers crossed...)

 

Gino just tell him “we play 4-4- F***ing -2”

 

So you don't think that's a sure-fire relegation team? What's happened to you Nath, you're positively optimistic!

Seriously though, our first team for the league will be quite different from that, Hughes, Wilmot, Suarez, Pedro, maybe Sarr and Estupinan and others all to come in, nothing to be worried about...yet

 

Ngaki, Quina, DB, Clevs all look sharp on the short highlights, we know Hughes /Chalobah / Capoue (if he stays) are quality, Suarez and Estupinan look the muts nuts, Wilmot had a strong season in the champ, Ken will run through brick walls, Pedro looked exciting in every cameo, Foster is still a great keeper.... yes we need more strength in depth but we have a tidy side now even should we lose Sarr. And for the first time since Zola we have a coach trying to play entertaining expansive football. And we're back in a league where we genuinely have a chance of winning every match instead of getting the annual Abu Dhabi FC spanking.

Seriously what's not to like?

 

I automatically thought 'there's got to be more than 3/4 first XI players there', but then looking at it, ideally, there would be 7-8 players to come into that team! Foster, Ngakia and Quina will all be key players I expect, maybe Sema on the right wing if Sarr leaves? I expect to see most, if not all, to at least have a role to play this season with the tight schedule though

 

Agreed. I have a feeling Ivic will be an outstanding manager.

 

I would agree with that, more of a plugging holes formation than a beautiful football formation usually, but that's not to say that 3 at the back is always boring, especially if you've got flair players who can produce moments of magic.

RE Ivic, from what I've heard, his teams play good football at the start of games before being a lot more conservative once they go ahead, I imagine it won't be all out attack if we get the first goal (an alien feeling to us at this stage!), but he might need to adapt that a little bit in the Championship as it's more competitive than the Israeli league

 

Is it a good thing we seemingly went 3-5-2 all game today? I imagine we'll be 4-5-1/4-3-3 most of the time this season, but it might be no bad thing to get a real feel for the alternative formations that we'll be using this season

 

Work experience, his dad knows Gino