Watford FC 0-0 AFC Bournemouth - 26/10/2019

We have to start looking at matches in chunks. We need to be at least a point a game average in order to stay up. Right now we're well down on that.

Next up is Bournemouth (h ), then it's Chelsea (h ), Norwich (a ), Burnley (h ) & Southampton (a ).

I'd say we'd need to win at least 3 of these games. Chelsea at home will be tough, but the others I see no reason why we shouldn't be looking, and even expecting, to win these games. In order to stay up, it's something we need to do. Now is the time to get those wins on the board.

If we pick up 9 or 10 points from those 5 games, then I'd say we're back in the fight. Anything significantly under, then I think it's safe to say we're not good enough to survive this season.

 

It’s a decent run of fixtures for sure. If we got 2 wins and a draw that would get us back in touch. Anything less and it would be very bleak. Saturdays game feels huge.

 

It's an old football adage, but take one game at a time. I'm not worried about who we coming up apart from the very next game although admittedly, that's not a bad run of games!

 

Exactly...it's a good run of games and we need to be far more assertive in these games in order to improve our chances of winning. Chelsea at home, I do not have problem with the defensive approach, but all the others we should have a go.

We'll only stay up by being positive. Being ultra-defensive is a more negative approach. We cannot afford to mess these forthcoming games up.

 

This has cheered me up no end. We have the dream team of officials for our match against Bournemouth

Mike Dean to be the referee, with Martin Atkinson on VAR.

https://www.premierleague.com/news/1461459

I'm amazed a Watford v Bournemouth match got such a quality line-up, but I'm delighted by it. At least we should get a much officiated fairly.....for once.

 

It's as clear an apology as you'll ever get from the authorities for last Saturday's debacle.

EDIT - It's Marriner on the VAR, not Atkinson.

 

If you think we will go attacking then prepare yourself for disappointment

 

Would you still say this if we had a repeat of the Deulofeu penalty incident v Bournemouth? I don’t expect the policy of not overturning penalty decisions to change, no matter who is the ref or VAR.

 

But we had God as our manager

 

Oh yes...in all the excitement I picked the wrong VAR guy, but Marriner is another excellent official. No issues with him at all.

 

It's Bournemouth who will have the contentious penalties. And they'll be given.

 

Not happy with the way you've sugar-coated Bournemouth Clive. They're are rivals. The last thing we need is the tourist board getting ideas.

 

Might keep Folkestone a little quieter ? The place I meant, not you.

 

I think we'll win this. Basically because of two things.

The first is we will have a professional referee in charge of the game and VAR, which is a rarity. That should negate being screwed over.

The second, it's just the law of averages. Even though we've been pretty sh1t all season, we have deserved more from the games we've played. Should have beaten Spurs and Newcastle, and only being denied by officials.

Should have taken a point at Everton, and we could have even beaten Sheff Utd, because of their generosity on the day. Should have taken the lead against West Ham and who knows how that would have played out had we done so. Should have equalised against Brighton, and again that may have turned the game our way. Should have beaten Arsenal in the end, as we passed up three fantastic chances to win.

So, we have been close on numerous occasions this season, but have just come up short, or been just unlucky with decisions, and silly mistakes costing us big time at key moments.

 

I can agree with most of that. However, your concept of the 'law of averages' is of a thing that doesn't exist. If you toss a coin nine times and it comes up tails every time that says nothing at all about what will happen the 10th time. Assuming the coin isn't 'biased' in some way.

 

Even I'm going to this one so it must be a big game.

 

Referees association coin?

 

You understand that he's not actually saying he thinks that we are guaranteed to win because of it, and that HB is aware that it is not a real law, codified in the statutes?

 

These laws are not codified in the statutes but have you not heard of the EPL Laws?

The EPL Laws are to be applied for the season following the secretive Pre-season EPL/Referees Association conference.

They decide which teams will be subjected to which law.
They agree the seasons list of Top Six, Middling and Bottom Three clubs.
The EPL laws are then applied according to the club status in this hierarchy.

There are many laws that apply but the 4 main EPL laws are:

Law 1. The Big Six Law.
This states all Big Six clubs shall be given every possible advantage when playing any club outside the Big Six.

Law 2. The Law of Averages.
All decisions will be for or against the two teams playing - based on equal merit.

This law applies to all clubs playing another club of equal hierarchy, so decisions even themselves out over time. eg Middling club vs Middling club, Top Six vs TopSix etc.

Law 3. Murphy’s Law.
Everything that can go wrong will be made to go wrong.

This shall be applied to all the season’s designated ‘Bottom Three’ clubs.
(which this season the EPL has decided to include Watford).

Law 4. Hierarchy Law.
All teams will be subject to Law 2 (Law of Averages) when playing teams of equal status. But if they are playing a club outside of their hierarchy, Law 1 or Law 3 (or both) will take precedence.

This is why it’s all going **** up this season in ref/VAR decisions - we are to be subject to Law 3 - Murphy’s Law.

For some reason the VAR ref (not an EPL ref) was applying Law 2 for the Ali’s handball goal and (correctly) denied the goal, as he showed on the display - until he was reminded of the Hierachy Law 4, and as Watford are a Bottom 3 and Spurs a ‘Top Six’ club, he must therefore invoke Laws 1 and 3 against us.

These Laws are the EPL Laws and must be followed.
Hope this is clear.

 

I understand that he's saying that, because we haven't won for nine matches, that it's more likely that we'll win this one on the grounds that we must win one at some point. I wished to disabuse him of this notion.

Seeing as this isn't an arbitrary toss of a coin the evidence of those nine matches suggests that we won't win this one either.

However, I think we will win. On the grounds that I'm an eternal optimist and that we've shown a marked improvement, particularly in defence, over the last two matches and could and should have won both of them if only we could take our chances and hadn't been stitched up by an appalling VAR decision.

Nothing to do with any spurious 'law of averages'.

 

On the law of averages, we will be the first side to have a penalty given against us by VAR overturning the Ref. Or is that Murphy's Law?

 

Exactly my thinking. The first time it'll happen will definitely be against us.

 

On the law of averages we will get a pitch invader on Saturday, as we haven’t had one for some time.

 

If you played 50:50 chance roulette black/red and bet black every time but 9 times in a row it was red, what would you bet next time?

1. Black as it’s still a 50:50 chance no matter how many times in a row it’s red.
2. Red because by the law of averages it’s got to be red sometime.

If you think Red maybe you think we’ll beat Muff because we haven’t won in the last 9 and we are due a win by the law of averages.
We’ve got to win sometime.

But red being an outcome the same number of times as black will only occur over a VERY large sample. (Statistically, the Law of averages).

38 games is not a very large sample, not large enough to statistically change the outcome - and the empirical evidence is that there is bias in the outcome of our games against us caused by the EPL Laws.

So what am I saying?

Who the **** knows I’ve gone round in circles and disappeared up my own ******** and I’ve been mentally affected by parliament.

**** the red and blacks, the yellows have it.
The yellows have it.
Unlock.

3-1.

 

This is clearly Murphy’s Law and will only be invoked after the ref jogs over to the pitchside TV monitor to check which EPL law to apply.

 

what a bunch of tossers

 

two questions

do you really think we are doomed to go down ( I don’t think I am there yet , but think we are in the coffin with the top on and a loss to Bournemouth would be the first nail in it) ?

trouble with the law of averages conversation above is small things make big impacts , a worn coin will favour one side, a roulette wheel will have always have a slight bias, referees will look at players and assume they are diving bastards. Will last weeks abysmal mistakes throw referee bias in our favour, do 50:50 decisions become 60:40 ?

 

It's going to manic down here after we crash/crawl/squirm out of da EU m8.

 

Who? The homeless or the residents or the police or the station supervisors?
Or the newspaper for presenting the story in a less-than-clear way?
Or Clive and the revolutionaries he professes to belong to?
Or people who take at face value the stuff that Clive puts into his episodic bursts of peculiarly spiteful and heavily biased humour?

 

I'm worried about our defence. No Holebas, no Janmaat with Prodl and likely Capoue coming off injury. Oh, and our least reliable fullback/wingback is likely completely bereft of any confidence after last weekend. I don't know that QSF even starts him.

if it were me, I'd change the formation - again.... 4-2-1-3
-------------------------Foster
Foulquier/Femenia Cathcart Kabasele Masina
--------------------Doucoure Chalobah
-----------------------Cleverley
----------Sarr -------Deloufeu------ Pereyra

Subs:
Gomes
Femenia/Foulquier
Dawson
Hughes/Quina
Gray
Capoue
Prodl/Mariappa

But..... I'm afraid that he'll go with a back 3 and Masina and Femenia as wingbacks, which terrifies me,

 

Bournemouth in general , the police specifically (**** da filth) and while we are at it **** the newspapers

 

I certainly hope so, we need the points so a little luck won’t go amiss!

 

We had thousands against Sheff Wed though before Tozer took that corner so that’s our allocation for centuries.

 

Is Janmaat definitely out then?

 

If we go attacking then... It's almost like people have forgotten about last season's fixture!