Much, much better. Playing Troy just behind Igloo gave us back our attacking partnership, while leaving Troy to drop back into Florrie's favoured 4-5-1 when Swansea were attacking. Our back 4, who've looked so good when facing teams with little interest in attacking, looked just as good against Swansea, even when we were a man short. Prodl in particular was immense. Jurado was the weak link - absolutely appalling dead ball kicks and passing, and I was amazed that he stayed on when Abdi went off. I got hammered when I first expressed doubts about him, but I no longer seem to be alone. But that said, Jurado improved a lot once we were down to ten. Go figure. Hopefully Florrie will have them practising 2-on-one and 3-on-one breakaways this week. To screw up one of those chances may be regarded as unfortunate, but to screw up two ... I was in an excellent position in the Upper GT to see the sending-off incident. At the time, I thought either could have gone. Having seen it on TV, I really don't know - for me, it could equally have been a deliberate stamp or an attempt to spin away from Ayew which went wrong. Unusual to see Troy taken off, especially as Igloo was already off and Troy does a good defensive job against free kicks and corners. Maybe he was knackered, as yesterday's formation demands even more running from him than usual, but he always keeps going. However, I thought the much-criticised Diamenti held the ball up pretty well.
Did a bit of reading on a spurs forum not so long ago as I was curious as to what happened and why we ended up with him. It appears something happened off the field around the turn of the year and MP didn't let him near the team again, interestingly a lot of Spurs fans rated him and were calling for him to get game time but it was clear he would never play under MP and was let go, fantastic for us but it does seem odd the amount of players that end up going backwards at Spurs.
It's good to see that QSF has been reading yours and my comments and taken on board some of our suggestions.
To be fair he's the reason we went out and spent £35 million - 5th highest spenders in the end. Club must have seen his comments. Only explanation right?
Capoue is a stunning player on his day. By the looks of it we've worked out how to have him on his day EVERY DAY.
Capoue played a fantastic through ball towards the Rookery yesterday with the outside of his boot. It was glorious.
I too despaired when Berghuis came on, but later it appeared to be a deliberate tactic to try to finish the game off - twice he nearly got on the end of breaks. Unless that just happened, as things sometimes do, it was a very clever and bold move by QSF.
Thought Berghuis did quite well, myself. While he should have done better with his two shots he did at least get them both on target, and he was positioned perfectly when to receive a ball from Capoue in another attack. Capoue squared it directly into the Swansea defender after doing all the hard bits so well, but that doesn't detract from Berghuis' run and positioning. Being so well positioned on two separate occasions given the small amount of time he was on the pitch bodes well for the future. I think he's going to be prove to be a very good player for us.
Sorry if anyone has suggested this, but watching the first angle 48 times in a row it looks like Behrami tried a pirouette around the challenge. If you watch his right foot he makes a backheel type movement, which if his left foot was planted (on the ground, not in Ayew's kneecap) would've flicked the ball back away from the slide tackle. I think he just really, really misjudged it!
Just had a quick look at the Swansea forum to see what they made of the game yesterday. I have to say what a bunch of bad losers. All of them claim we were really poor lacked skill and only won because they had players on an international break. I feel they forget that the actual reason they looked dog sh1t was because we made them look it with our pressing.
The average premier league fan is an arrogant prat The pity is in about 3 years time ours will sound exactly the same
The first comment I read was "didn't see that coming" - let's hope we continue to be underestimated for many months to come. btw - I am sure we had the odd player on international duty......
Bunch of Billy Big Bo110cks who forget that for 25 of the past 30 years have been in a lower division than us.
A fatty was shouting that we won't get more than 25 points after the game. Well at least 3 of those 25 were from them.
'Oh engerland, is full of ****" sang a posse of their fans after the game. I can only presume that they continued with, 'It's full of wealth, jobs and culture, oh Engerland is full of ****.' . The sad part is, they had zero irony when they were singing this. People from Swansea, saying England is ****.
I like how the Poll at the start of the thread has the predictions for a "WFC close win" has been slowly and quietly increasing (from 25 to 33) since the game finished. ;D Come on own up! Who is after a bit of extra praise? Is it you WatfordTalk? (only joking)
Their lot reminded me of some of our younger fans, happily singing how England's a **** hole whilst getting off their fun bus coaches and behind a line of police.
i saw a bit of handbags...well, more like purses, at 10 paces on Vicarage Rd by the buses. Hertfordshire's finest boys in blue were all over it like a welshman filling in a dole application...hopefully they made sure the said scrotes helped them with their enquiries just long enough to miss the last train out of Paddington!
Lacked skill really? That's rich coming from a club whose forward Gomis has the turning radius of an oil tanker.
It's a pretty, 5hitty city. Very angry and deprived city surrounded by some of the most beautiful landscape in the UK. I recommend the Gower to everyone, Went on a stag do there and the amount of frustration that spills out on a weekend night is astounding. They also have a huge chip on their shoulder over the amount of money invested in Cardiff.
A late reply to yesterdays game due to a night of excessive alcohol consumption and a day of work today. What a thoroughly pleasing display, regardless of result. That was much more like the Watford we want to see. I felt QSF got it spot on tactically yesterday and got the mix right at both ends of the pitch. To register 17 attempts on goal (4 of which were inches past the post) against such a strong, well organised, quick and technical side was great to see. Swansea will turn over big sides this season (which they've done already in opening 5 games) and will probably contend with a top 8 finish. I thought our shape when we were out of possession was superb, everyone knew their role and performed with great discipline. I think one thing that seemed to help us was neither Behrami or Capoue were both too deep at any one time, one stayed back whilst the other joined in to support the front 4, almost more of a diamond system which stopped Shelvey and Sigurdsson getting on the ball but also gave us more options going forwards to link midfield to attack, rather than being too deep, hitting it long and watching the ball come back at us into the huge hole vacated by our midfield. The back four were immense and were well protected by the rest of the team, we defended brilliantly from the front and gave them no time on the ball whatsoever. Cathcart was very steady, Nyom gets better every week, Prodl is potentially signing of the season so far and Anya was incredible at left back. I've not been his biggest fan over the past 18 months, but yesterday he was superb playing in an unaccustomed role for him against arguably the best player so far in the Premiership this season (Ayew), he never gave him a sniff of an opportunity and defended the back post really well, especially in the last 10 minutes, huge credit to him for adapting to a new role and looking very comfortable! Behrami was playing superbly before he did what he did, winning everything in the midfield and setting us on our way when we won the ball back (countless times). I'm not convinced he did what he did with malice, but he gave the ref (who was utterly shocking) the opportunity to do what he'd been itching to do all game, so a silly boy either way you look at it. We will miss him for the next three games, that's for sure. Further more on the ref, how he managed to let their centre half man handle Ighalo all of the first half was disgusting. He should have received three yellow cards in the game alone for tug backs and swipes at Iggy when he was running clear into the channels (he kept getting too tight to him and was rolled every time with ease). Juardo was only real disappointment yesterday for me. You can see there is a classy player in there somewhere, but his decision making and final ball were simply not Premiership standard, even his dead ball deliveries picked out Gomis every time. Personally i'm not convinced he's a wide player, I think he'll be more dangerous playing just off the striker in a central position. He worked hard though, especially when we went down to ten men, so can't fault his work ethic. The real positive and main difference to yesterday was the close link up play between Deeney and Ighalo. Countless times this season TD has been left isolated up on his own, but when we had possession yesterday we were virtually playing a 4-4-2 with those two up top. IMO Ighalo is a little more mobile than TD to play as the number 9, and in equal measure I think Deeney has more discipline to play the '10' role just behind when not in possession of the ball. That tactical change brought the best out of both of them and they had the beating all day long of Williams and that other prat that played at the back (Hernandez or whatever his name was). On to the next game now, and it'll be very interesting to see if QSF brings in Watson or AG. I thought Watson did brilliantly when he came on yesterday and was exactly what we needed in that situation, however, I feel AG's energy will compliment Capoue well, providing they both play with discipline and don't expose our back four by getting caught out of position. Got to be the same team for me, except AG in for Behrami and Ibarbo in for Jurado. As for Swansea, I thought Monk spoke very well pre-match, however, his post match was very ungracious and disrespectful to how hard we worked to stop his players from playing. Considering he's been at Swansea for years and has seen their rise from nothing to top 10 in the country, he should perhaps be a little more gracious and understanding of the hard work teams like ourselves, Norwich and Bournemouth will have to put in to get results against more established teams like themselves, that shouldn't go unnoticed, but actually I hope it continues to, puts us in a better position. Their fans were good for about 10 minutes and silent for the rest, whereas our fans were non stop singing and getting behind the side (especially for last 30 minutes, we were the eleventh man). Finally, what a c**t Alan Shearer is! 'Two red cards' (?), f**k off. This is coming from a bloke that in almost every other game he played would direct a cowardly elbow at a defender without going punished. I hope we stuff Newcastle next week, purely to see the div's reaction. You Orns!!
For all the slating the away fans are getting, and for what it's worth, I had a good, intelligent conversation about the game with a Swansea fan, who was at the game , in the gym. He was very complimentary about us.
