There is a saying that some players are appreciated better when they don't play . What we would give for a Deeneyesque type player who could win the ball high up the pitch .
Didn't see any of the game, only seen the score line. By sounds of it we were poor and perhaps a bit fortunate, but do you know what.....good!! All about the 3 points especially when playing at home against a side we should be beating! Hopefully it'll give us a bit more confidence now moving into our next fixtures. I guess today was always going to be tough against a side desperate for their first win of the season and with a new manager in charge! Today was definitely a banana skin, but we came through it and got the points!! All that counts.
A HUGE 'Thank you!!!' to the team for that result!!! Not having to endure Piggy/Wendy/WAWAW smugness on Monday morning means an awful lot to me. And now only six points off the play-offs to boot... My God, how good will we be when Hogg comes back from injury???
I assume you’re not saying Rajovic can win Posession and affect the play .. because he doesn’t appear to be able to from what I’ve seen . He doesn’t even win headers despite his height
We've played worse than that this season. They've had the worst start to a Championship season, but you can't say your claim is "a fact" until seeing what the final points total is for a team at the send of the season. They also were definitely not as bad as they have been in some of their earlier games this season - the new manager bounce was definitely in effect with them. We've played easier opponents than this lot on the day.
It’s the worst start EVER by any team to Championship season. 3 points from 12 games is the worst ever. That is the fact I was pointing out.
I’m sure VI will be judging him on what he sees in the training ground. He’s clearly done nothing to deserve more than 42 mins. I guess he’s not recovered from that injury.
My girls saw their first win in 6 attempts since 2020 and first home goal in 257 minutes of dull play. It’s been a long time coming. They enjoyed it, though when I pointed out it was really good they’d seen their first win my 7yo immediately replied that ‘they (Sheff Weds) are at the bottom’. Think I should set her up with an account on here with non-positivity like that.
Yeah I don't think all of those players can fit into a coherent XI, but on the evidence of today, and the season as a whole really, I'd have Asprilla ahead of Louza and Kone ahead of TDB all day long
Today was a largely ***** performance against the worst team in the league, saved by a late flurry, but at this point, with us just outside the relegation zone and having not won in 5, it's not the time to be worrying about performances, a scrappy 1-0 win definitely made the birthday Chinese go down better!
I've posted this before but worth posting again - there's a new metric for evaluating aerial performance called HOPS (Header Oriented Performance System), this metric looks at the aerial duels won + lost and looks at who the aerial duel against - if Martins managed to beat Hoedt in the air for instance that that would be "rewarded" more than if he beat Ince in the air for instance. The HOPS rating goes from 0 to 1 and you use the rating as a percentage chance against an "average" aerial player - so Sierralta with a HOPS rating of 0.78 would be expected to win a header against an average player 78% of the time. So with a rating of 0.56, despite being 6"4 - he's barely better than an "average" player in the air.
The officials deserve a lot of credit for reaching the right decision to overturn the Wednesday penalty today. We’re used to slagging them off and criticism has reached fever pitch recently. Even on the way to the game I was listening to Stephen Warnock summarising on 5 Live banging on and on and on quite angrily about how Craig Pawson should have given Matip a second yellow, how it was an inexcusable mistake, how the assistant and 4th official should be telling him he’s wrong. Totally blowing whatever it was out of all proportion. From the family enclosure that was never a penalty today. Lewis got his foot down on top of the ball first, it squirted away out of play in a 50/50 for a corner and their bloke then went over the leg left trailing. It was really good to see the assistant ready to intervene and help his colleague out. It’s so rare to see decisions overturned these days.
Totally agree. I was in the Family Stand too, and it was a clean tackle. Sometimes you get a feeling a penalty might be given, but not for one moment did I think penalty. The Sheff Wed fans knew it was a gift decision too as it was right in front of them. They didn’t protest when it was overturned. All the credit goes to the linesman, who saw it as clearly as everyone else, apart from the clown with the whistle.
I'm aware that's what you were considering, but the worst start ever by a team in the Championship is not the same as the worst ever Championship team, which can't be judged only from the start but rather over the whole season; they will be different stats.
Asprilla came on today for Ince at RW, not Louza. With Ince also playing so crap I think Asprilla is more needed to replace him instead. Chakvetadze or even Kayembe should be ahead of Louza on current form.
I'd go with this line-up for Swansea: ------------------Bachmann------------------ --Ngakia---Sierralta---Hoedt---Sema-- --Koné--------Livermore-----Kayembé-- --Asprilla---------Bayo----------Martins-- Subs: Hamer, Pollock, Morris, Dele-Bashiru, Louza, Chakvetadze, Ince, Healey, Rajovic
We seem to have an odd scenario that whoever starts out of TDB & Kone and Ince & Asprilla plays dreadfully, but then whoever comes off the bench plays really well. Both Kone and Asprilla seem to be our best players when they come on but really struggle when they start.
Thought he reffed the game really well. Didn’t give all the soft fouls that refs usually give too which stopped both teams players just falling over and winning a FK for no real reason.
Yes definitely a word for the refs. Overruling your own decision is ballsy and pretty rare, massive respect.
Bachmann Ngakia Sierralta Hoedt Lewis Livermore Sema Chakve Asprilla Martins Bayo Sema’s played CM a few times I think he did a whole season there for Udinese, as LCM him, Lewis and Martins forming a triangle down that side could work out quite nicely. I haven’t given up on Lewis completely and am not convinced by Sema’s defending but if he comes in at LB then Kone & Livermore behind Chakve for me who alternates with Asprilla.
A dull-as-ditchwater game in which a poor team beat a very poor team. The outstanding moment was the goal and the match livened up as the very poor team had to stop playing for time. Even so, I thought there a few better players in the Watford team: Hoedt, who I think gets some unfair criticism on here. Ngakia, ditto. His crossing is variable, but he gives it a go and is one of the most positive attackers in the squad which, considering he is a full back, does not say much for some of the others. Kone, when he came on, gave a bright and promising performance: A complete difference from some of his displays earlier in the season. Asprilla always lifts the crowd when he comes on and it was good he's finally got a goal. I think people are over-rating Chakvetadze. Incidentally, their goalkeeper's kicking was worse than Bachmann's.
Massive win against relegation rivals. Now pulled a massive 5 points away from the relegation zone. Onwards and upwards, the top 2/3rds beacons.
I was chatting to a mate of mine who supports Sheffield Wednesday and he claims that's the best they have played all season and looked far better than they did under xisco, I think this says a lot about them as I thought they looked extremely poor. The first half was frustrating to watch as we repeatedly passed the ball backward even when Martins was standing on the touchline with acres of space around him. There were 10/15 minutes in the second half when it looked inevitable that we would concede and a better team would have scored. No idea what the referee thought regarding the penalty incident and thankfully the lineman still had access to his sight. That's more than what can be said for the other lines man, I was sitting at the front of the Lower Graham Taylor Stand and had a clear view of the man handling by the Sheffield Wednesday center backs on Rajovic on several occasions. I thought Kone looked much better in today's game and used his body and strength well and tried to play forward and progressive passes far more than he had been in previous games. The game was just asking for someone like Asprilla and we looked a different team when he came on, this was also helped by the introduction of Chakvadatze and Sema who looked on another level to Jamal Lewis. Martins was completely stupid when he shot over from 30 yards in the last 45 seconds of the match when he had the chance to drive to the corner and see the game out, they ended up with a corner from the resulting goal kick. Not an amazing performance and the conditions probably did not help but that was a big 3 points and I will sleep a bit easier now there is a little bit of breathing space between Watford and the bottom 3 for now.
