What about the half season he played in the championship? Admittedly this wasn’t under QSF, but he was decidedly mediocre in a sub standard league.
I see your point. It seems as if he knows the game is up for Watford in the Premier league. It is all just sound bites for the press and fans.
I couldn’t agree more with you, we have no right to last longer than any other team in the P.L. Many people could only dream of supporting a team in their 13th season in the top division, it’s just a shame it’s all backfired this season and it looks as if we will be one of the three teams to be relegated! I was hoping we would at least equal our longest consecutive run in the top division (6 years manager by G.T.) I hope I am still around when we get back in it and have another go!
The The difference? A manager who seems part of the fabric of the club. Not one who just picks up a wage and severance pay on his way through. Players buy into both. They will try for a Wilder.
We can stay up. No one can realistically say we aren't creating enough chances. Hardly QSF fault no one can stick the ball in the net & IMO that is now the root of the problem. If we don't score first the mentality/confidence is not there to turn it around. In previous seasons there was always a possibility we could outscore the opposition when going behind. Despite what some here think, we're not at the probable relegation stage yet, that is not to say it won't happen. I think GD & RP should go in Jan, they unbalance this squad nowadays. Flair & a bit of trickery sure but end product is simply not there. They are too flimsy & not what we need for the inevitable fight.
Because to most of our squad, we are a stepping stone. We could be any club in the PL. We go down? Their agent takes care of it. We need a manager who players believe is imbedded in the club AND a captain that retains respect - then players of a certain calibre will listen and buy into it more.
It took me until this post to realise you are one of Moog's alts. Can't believe I couldn't see the signs earlier. Poor of me, really.
The trouble is, we are NOT a stepping stone for most of our squad. We are the pinnacle of their career. This is the problem.
Perhaps ‘stepping-stone’ was the wrong phrase. My point is that Pereyra for example won’t fail to take a move in the summer to Torino or Genoa or some other equivalent club. And he’ll be quite happy and content to do so and Watford are left in the wake of that. I’m just using him as an example but I think it stands for a number of players at the club IMO. Its a culture that I think we likely have and it stems from a revolving door of coaching staff and a captain who isn’t to the international level or ability of some of his cohorts.
Of course we have a bit of stardust, but that’s not most of the squad. Most of the squad are at a club who they could not better if they moved on.
Absolutely agree with your first paragraph but not the last. We have to keep our best players if at all possible.
My take on yesterday’s game, I thought first half we did ok given we were playing a horrible team that changed their name from Stoke to Burnley a couple of years ago! Their time wasting was straight from the first minute! Walking away when having the ball thrown at you to take a throw one example (which got a ticking off from the ref) on the same subject around 85 minutes when one of the Stoke I mean Burnley players was feigning injuring and had the bloke with the sponge on for two minutes, Pope who’s next job was to take a goal kick decided to stand a good 30 feet away from the ball and wait for the ref to blow for the restart before ambling over to pick up the ball! Time wasting of the highest order should have been booked for ungentlemanly behaviour! back to the match as other have said Dawson was roughed up by a couple of stray elbows by wood and Barnes (their version of Darius Henderson, but not so good). At half time I was hoping for a continuation of the first with Deeney scoring the winning goal, however I woke up to the usual shoddy defending and acceptance that we can’t beat the most anti football team in the league! Agree putting Masina as a central defender was a mistake, he stood watching the action at times, and Holebas’s afternoon went downhill as a result, agree with others re other alternatives. There is an old motto “ if it’s not broke you don’t fix it “ unfortunately WFC are at this moment broken, so inspirational is needed and instead of playing the same old way every game, please do something different. Playing a five man defence when you are chasing the game may keep the score down, I’m afraid it won’t score you goals!
I feel the biggest problem we had against Burnley was that their attack and defence are both significantly better than ours.
I disagree about GD. Think hes been the one most up for it this season. What he lacks is the ability to know when to pass or when he should use the runner to create space for himself. He almost always just tries to do it all himself. I agree about RP. Not really had a decent spell since his injury.
With Flores in charge we just will not get enough points to stay up.so negative at home just can’t play 3 c backs at the vic.it’s ok away to set up like we do and I do think we could pick up a few points like this on the road but at the vic it’s not enough If we could get a coach in to just start getting the players to believe in themselves and regain some confidence he doesn’t need to be a scientist of football just give the players some belief no one can tell me we don’t have the players at the club to win 9 or ten games over the rest of the season Need wins now and have a right go at teams from the off at home need to get the place rocking but the way we are so cautious under Flores and it leaves the stadium flat after 10 minutes Need it like the last thirty of the arsenal game every match
Good news of sorts. I've managed to construct the Marx Brothers from my foil,biros and porridge oats. All is not yet lost.
You really don’t have to be so serious, no one had died, suggest putting the foil back now, drying the biros with a hair dryer and eating up all of your oats!
This is really unfair as what the Marx brother produced were a series of linked, carefully crafted with both wit and intelligence, set pieces and frequent spontaneous displays of brilliance. "Us" on the other hand...
I've rewatched the first goal now and I'm even more furious. It's evident there was basically no planning. The goal came from Fosters left, so I'll share some tidbits from the analysis I sent and got no response from Here's the deliveries from Burnley's last 10 games from that side. As is pretty obvious, there's a heavy bias towards the back-post where they have a lot of success with 6"0 Mee (#6) and 6"1 Tarkowski (#5) attacking. Now let's look in a bit more details at the runs and positions made. I've used one game here as an example - look at the deliveries from that side and you notice they're pretty consistent. Barnes (#10) stands on the goalkeeper. Cork (#4) stands behind the middle zonal marker (essentially blocking him from backtracking to the back-post - taking him out the game) with Wood (#9) lurking in a similar area looking for knockdowns (although sometimes making runs towards the near corner of the 6-yard area). Tarkowski and Mee then attack the back-post area. As flagged up in the analysis Burnley do exactly as they have for the last 10 games when taking corners from that side. To defend against it, we've got 2 zonal markers - Capoue (6"2) guarding the near post area and Cathcart (6"2) on the middle of the 6-yard line. Our man-marking set-up then looks like this: Holebas (6"0) vs Tarkowski (6"1), Mariappa (5"11) vs Mee (6"0) Doucoure (6"0) vs Cork (6"0) Hughes (6"1) vs Barnes (6"1) Masina (6"3) vs Wood (6"3) Why when you know the middle zonal marker is going to be blocked out and rendered useless would you have your best aerial player as that zonal marker? Why when you know the ball is going to be aimed towards either Mee or Tarkowski do you have both man-markers smaller than them? Cathcart and Holebas should've swapped roles for sure. Staggering levels of incompetence.
Great analysis Reid’s. Most eye popping thing for me though is that Will Hughes is 6 foot 1. I always thought of him as a 5 foot 6 player!!
I like GD, he's a good player and he always tries to make thing happen, even when the going gets tough, he doesn't hide. However, I don't think he's a player we need. He creates good openings, scares defenders and always gives you hope that he might make something happen, but he doesn't score or create goals, so he's of no use to us. I remember Brendan Rodgers, when talking about Jobi McAnuff said, there are two types of players, you either help the team score goals, or you help prevent conceding them. Geri isn't quite in Jobi's tier of totally pointless huffery, but he doesn't offer us enough in terms of end product. I think that's partially due to the quality of the people around him, but for the team we are with the players we have, he's doesn't offer enough value. As usual, we've recruited with an eye on investment ROI rather than improving our actual team.
Agree he's the wrong player for this situation. Though in slight fairness to Pozzo, at least we signed Geri after having him on loan for 6 months and seeing if he was a worthwhile purchase. He was always going to be a borderline case.
From the team on Saturday I would say: Foster - will finish his career with us Holebas - as above Dawson - probably will come down with us and stay - no Prem club would want him Mariappa - No prem club would want him, probably no Champ either Cathcart - No Prem Club would want him Kiko - could probably get a move to a lower half Liga side and should do so Capoue - Could probably get a move to a Prem side - age not on his side Doucoure - Another prem side would definitely take a risk on him Hughes - Could possibly get a move to a prem side, but would be out of his depth - he's English which gives him a bit of an edge Del - Could and should move to an Italian or Spanish top flight side Gray - Can't see any other top flight team wanting him, unless a desperate, promoted side struggling to recruit To be fair, whilst I agree with Burnsy that our model doesn't support any sort of loyalty, spirit or long term thinking, I don't think that many of our key players could reasonably hope to be moved on to pastures new if we go down. Of them, I think Doucoure really is the only one who fits the brief of looking like he's playing at 50% capacity and probably already angling for a move. Del will have his agent working hard, but he's still not leaving anything on the pitch.
To be quite fair, after his loan showing, I can't see how we could have not signed him for, what was it, 12m? It was a bargain. It's just frustrating that we've never signed a centre forward of anywhere close to similar calibre to play with him. And then we signed Sarr.
Yes he's a bit like an upgraded FF isn't he ? Really thought he was going to turn into a goalscoring CF after that 4 or 5 game run last season including Cardiff away. But he's regressed.
I don't blame him so much. I think he's one of the few players who is trying to dig us out of this hole, but he's just not suited to our style, our situation or his team mates. I wish him well in the future and think he's one of the few who isn't hiding in the current mire.
