No you're mistaken. They were both on international duty in the week, so they must have been dog $hit. After all, it's why the Swansea players didn't turn up (according to their forums).
May I add that Swansea's left winger was one of the worst attacking players I have seen in god knows how long. He didn't beat Nyom once and every attempt of a cross was kicked straight out of play. I was sitting on the front row and got hit by more balls than elton john's chin.
Having seen Match Of The Day this morning, I am incredulous as to how many people can say Behrami's stamp is so terrible. Alan Shearer said it warranted 'two red cards'. But it was an accident - how can anyone possibly expect him to get out of the way? I thought the ref apart from that decision was absolutely terrible, he had no idea about many of the decisions and at least two of their players should've been red carded after two footed tackles from behind on Ighalo Jude. I thought the players were absolutely wonderful yesterday; even playing with a man light they dug in terrifically to get the three points in difficult circumstances. The ref tried his best to ruin the game for us but as we showed many times last season we are too good for refs! arty1:
Best to still keep below the radar - reports all indicate that EVERY team has had an off day against us, including Man C for half the game. According to all the pundits, we only get 40% possession, we play 'direct' football vs everyone else's 'passing' game, we set up too defensively, Lawro has predicted us to lose every game and we should be bottom with 0 points. It's going to take time before the vast majority of pundits realise we've got a team and long may it continue that we are totally underestimated. By the time they wake up and smell the coffee we will be safe. :]]
What? You mean Montero, the guy that Nyom failed to stop putting in 3 or 4 very decent crosses that we did well to clear? If any of them had gone in you think Nyom would have said 'yeah but at least he didn't beat me'?
Exactly. I haven't read the papers yet but I bet Erzil's 40 yarder for Walcott's goal was a 'pass' while ours was a 'long ball'.
It is amusing how it's always the opposition playing badly against us when we are clearly a very difficult side to break down . Remember after the first game Everton were in some kind of crisis because they failed to beat Watford in their first game . Look at them now , they've had a very good start to the season!
Cracking game and atmosphere, and the real pleasing aspect was the team spirit - really showed through everyone playing for each other. Flores dedicating the win to the fans was a smart move as he knows he's been heavily criticised by many (including me), and the atmosphere was the 12th and 11 th man after the red and after that performance most will be off his back. As for Behrami, he knew exactly what he was doing but didn't get away with it. He saw the Swansea player coming, tried an exaggerated extended spin to shield the ball knowing that he would catch him and could feign accidental contact. Then also feigns injury himself. Ref too smart for him and a deserved red IMHO. Now onwards to increase the pressure on McClaren - we owe him a home defeat. arty2:
Great game, Anya, Nyom, Capoue and Ighalo all looked particularly good, atmosphere was amazing at the Vic yesterday onwards and upwards!
Montero was terrible. That said he has been excellent so far this season. Perhaps injury and rustiness caught up with him. Flores out thought Monk who was rather ungracious I think in defeat. We pressed high and effectively for the first time this season and carried it on for nearly the full ninety minutes evidence of improving fitness. And as a unit from back to front we were more compact often with two players covering each other. We played some lovely one touch football at times particularly that late little cameo deep into injury time and the effectiveness of the unit is emphasized by how little impression Swansea made against our ten men. Nyom and Anya pushed on and provided decent threat, pace and service down the flanks which is needed when you sit two defensive midfielders infront of the defence. Criticism has to be the discipline of Behrami. It may have been an unfortunate roulette turn that somehow ended up with his foot connecting on Ayew's knee but he has to cut that out. Red cards like that can prove very costly not just in terms of the game but the loss of such a key player for forthcoming matches. And not taking clear cut opportunities. Capoue still needs to improve his final ball. A quick look up and a rolled ball across to Berghuis may well have allowed more people not to suffer palpitations late on. Plenty to look forward to. As I said before I am sure we will finish in midtable with the quality we have and as more players get to know each other's playing idiosyncrasies, improve their fitness and stop taking that extra half second on the ball. The defensive base seems pretty set barring any injuries which may leave us a little thin but so far Prodl and Cathcart have been superlative.
Most of those were in the last 10 minutes when Nyom was visibly limping after being clobbered by one of their thugs. Think he'd have been subbed if circumstances weren't preventing it.
Every game we ve played, apart from City, the opposition manager and the pundits commented on how poor our opposition were. We seem to be really lucky in that teams always save their poor performances for when they play us. On QSF, superb work to get us so organised so quickly. But his substitutions really baffle me. How poor does Jurado have to play to be substituted/dropped?
Ours was a long ball, but it was glorious. Pundits will watch that goal and think that is our game plan. As Sahorn says though, the more people write us off and pooh pooh us, the better. Come March, they'll all be suddenly saying how they thought we might be a surprise package. Bear in mind that these ex-footballer (ergo idiots in many cases) pass comment on 20 teams. They can probably barely remember their own opinions on 17 of them, let alone do any research to come up with the opinion in the first place.
I dont know if anyone read fourfourtwo's prediction of the league in the forthcoming season. It was posted on here before the season started. It had Watford 20th and Chelsea 1st! How quickly things change after 5 games in a season. Chelsea are now 14/1 to wn the league
His set pieces were appalling hence he got relieved of that duty by Abdi after about half an hour. Not that he did any better. Otherwise Jurado put in a couple of dangerous crosses and showed for the ball a lot. And I felt his close ball control and ability in tight spaces meant he came into his own after Behrami was sent off. It was a no brainer to keep him on then. If we'd have still had 11 on the pitch I think Ibarbo might have replaced him. He was certainly warming up.
I agreed with Watson, that was an obvious one. I don't even think it was suited for Gueds because a positional discipline was needed for the remainder of the game, and we weren't struggling to make chances. Ighalo was limping so that's why he came off . Deeney was spent after helping attack, midfield and defence!
Seeing as Jurado is the first case under the Pozzo regime of a manager effectively 'bringing a former player with him', I imagine Flores is generally going to view Jurado quite favourably. I hope Flores is vindicated sooner or later, because Jurado was quite frustrating at times yesterday.
We are still second favourites with Bet 365 to go down. Baffled that Bournemouth still better odds in staying up than us or Norwich who comprehensively outplayed them yesterday
Im so honoured that it was down to me that we won. "Can Legskeattch do the preview every week...Can he do it every week!"
Nyom was definitely hurt, got an earful from Shelvey about it who thought he was time wasting. *******s.
You're a parody. "The only option is to remove the cancer at the heart of this - QSF. Bring in someone who can build around what we've got and not someone who demands a complete rebuild to play a system of aiming for 0-0 draws at best. Sick of this season so far. We have destroyed everything that was good over 46 games last year within 4 games of this one."
Rio's. More interesting than anything owned by a one time Man Utd defender. Not work safe. http://www.rios.co.uk/welcome.htm
I keep reliving Capoue's turn which took two Swansea players entirely out of the game. It was just a shame he couldn't pick out Berghuis at the far post. How did Spurs manage to nullify his impact quite as much as they did?
He was time wasting. He rolled to wear the electronic advertising board was, realised he was off the pitch and done a tripple pike and roll back onto the pitch. He then took the free kick with no problems, top time wasting
An absolutely marvellous day, start to finish. Even the sending off served to galvanise the crowd into helping us over the line, and keeping out Gomis, Ayew and Montero with 10 men can only boost confidence.. And before Watford Talk (the ****) drags up my posts from after the City game, and labels me a parody, hands up, I apologise unreservedly to QSF.
This is a particulalry pleasing aspect of QSF. He's got teh back line looking so solid. The number of occasions we have caught sides offside from really insignificant open play has been excellant. The attacking side I am convinced will slowly come along but QSF has to start from the back and work forwards. You can't lose matches if you don't concede.
