Derek Payne suggested he was trying to cheat and con the officials by falling over so much but think that was harsh and probably your typical anti-overseas player type comment. There is no doubt Success has the ability and is young enough to improve but somehow needs to look more like scoring and improve his passing. In all fairness he do a couple of decent runs and shot towards the end....and Newcastle generally defended well. Lumping the ball up to Deeney was a waste of time.
Why all the negative hyperbole? I think some of us seem to forget real atrocious all-round team performances under the likes of Mazzarri. It wasn't a good performance today, but it was far from atrocious, and I certainly didnt see any players "not wanting to be there" or not trying. Once again, we kept the opposition down to just a few chances. The main difference was that they had a forward who scores theirs. We didn't. We had three virtual one on ones, beating Newcastle's deep defending, in the first half and missed them all. We had a few more decent chances but yet again, it took another midfielder to score our goal. Masina wasn't atrocious/awful, neither was Hughes, nor Quina, but they all lack match fitness, and in Quina's case, experience. What is the answer? Rotate the squad a little. Bring in a player or two in every game, but not 4 from the same group of players like today, but be ready to make early and meaningful substitutions preferably for tactical reasons. We rested Doucoure today, yet he still scored the goal. And if a player has a great game, needs experience and matches, then don't drop him like we did Quina for the next game, what message does that send to the player? Sometimes I think that coaches want to make decisions for the sake of it. Anyway, I think that it was a disappointing performance, but mainly because it didn't yield us the three points. And the most disappointing performance of all, was from Bobby P. But of course, our blue eyed boy is allowed the odd poor performance (in fact the "odd" poor performance comes to regularly for me), with hardly a hint of criticism as it's far easier to have a go at others, like Masina, Hughes and Quina.
I thought Success was great second half. Ball stuck to him and he tore past defenders! The problem is, like Deeney, he just never looks like scoring.
Yeah, he could play for weeks and never trouble the keeper. He wasn't awful but his throwing himself around and staying down for decisions where the ref had as already played on wound me right up.
We didn't even play like that for the whole of today's game for goodness sake. They started with five at the back and we were playing some very good football with Quina pulling the strings. They then changed to five in midfield and put Diame on Quina and he nullified him by being too physical for him. When they went ahead, we changed formation to 4-3-3 to try to match them their numbers in the middle - Hughes tucked in alongside Quina and Capoue, Pereyra went to the opposite flank, Success went to the left and Deulofeu played through the middle. Sadly, that was even more disjointed so we switched back again after half time but at least Gracia reacted to Benitez's tactical change and going behind.
Jesus Christ, you don't miss a chance do you? Deeney was awful because Rondon scored when he wasn't on the pitch?! Whether down to him or not, we were better when he came on. I'm not his biggest fan but there's really nothing to be gained by slagging him off when its not warranted. Success was far worse today but that doesn't fit the narrative I'm guessing...?
He was last off pre match & first out at half time as well (while not trying hard in either). A little ‘look at me’?
I like Masina and think he'll go on to be our first choice LB by the end of next season, but he was very poor today. Duff passes, limited attacking support for Bobby, silly yellow card, ineffective set pieces. I'd say he was the closest we had to awful on the pitch but agree Hughes and Quina didn't stand out in the same way. I think the message to Quina in dropping him was he'd done very well but is only just 19 and the limelight might more hindrance than help at this stage of his development. He seems to have his head screwed on - I saw an interview with him in which he said he's aiming for 15 or so games this season and he's well on track for that. For me Bobby P is one of the more consistent players in the team. He's regularly a 7 out of 10, knits together a lot of our attacking moves and contributes a fair amount of lower profile work defensively too. Am interested what you saw (or didn't see) in him today to consider him the most disappointing player? I know we'd like to see him play at his peak as we know he can for longer and in every game but then the old 'he wouldn't be at Watford' thing kicks in.
To Liverpool in all fairness and it took them a set play and iffy penalty to get going. We might have been ok scoring first... Let's hope we don't have the same trouble against Burnley when they visit...or dare I say Woking next week.
In a nutshell too many changes today, Garcia will have learn't (hopefully), Holebas has been good this season, no he has been very good! He works well with Pereyra who then makes things happen, none of that today! Pereyra didn't see as much of the ball today hardly a coincidence! Deeney is very good at holding the ball up and bringing others into play, with Success the ball doesn't stick the same and is lost more often! Doucoure is highly rated, and allows Capoue to play better when alongside, Capoue struggled today! Therefore please Mr Garcia only either make one or two changes in a game max, or when enforced by injury!
A late entry, but I think that the apostrophe of the year award must go to that last post. Well played sir.
I'm not sure that'll be the case behind closed doors. Javi has too much dignity to slag off his players in public.
Success was horrendous. Our striking options are limited at best but we look like a more cohesive attacking unit when Deeney is in the team than we do without him. The best partnership of the season has been Deeney and Gray. Not a popular opinion I know and I'm aware people get all excited over GD and IS but the truth is they aren't that great and have very little end product. Success seems to still be living off hype and 'potential' - quite how much longer he gets away with using that as an excuse for such abysmal performances is beyond me. Too many changes today. Mixing it up a bit is ok, but not to that extent. Not sure why such wholesale changes are needed - three games in seven days isn't as taxing as some would make out. And if you do want to rest the little darlings then spread the changes over a couple of games rather than one. Newcastle were bang average and prime for three points, I'd have backed a full strength team to have won that.
Grim match to watch. I was nowhere near drunk enough for that shyte. Still, scoring a late equaliser is always nice. No complaints really.
Until Deeney came on we didn’t look like we had a plan. There was no width and no movement in the middle of the pitch either. Success is much better out wide and needs to not go down all the time he is a better player than that. I’m all for resting players but get the job done 1st, then rest key players early in 2nd half. If we started the match with the first 11 who finished we would have won.
Shamelessly stolen from Twitter: Newcastle away results against teams outside the top 6: Cardiff D 0-0 Palace D 0-0 Southampton D 0-0 Burnley W 2-1 Everton D 1-1 Huddersfield W 1-0 Watford D1-1 3 goals conceded in 7 games and unbeaten. It's only the big teams with all the extra firepower and talent that can break Newcastle down the way that Benitez sets them up.
Well it seems Benitez can get Holebas to smile.. https://www.nufc.co.uk/nufc-tv/latest-videos/rafas-review-watford-a-reaction-18-19
Aside from the move for the goal, we didn't look like scoring. Too many changes in one go. No idea why Javi didn't make 2 or 3 for Chelsea and then 2 or 3 today. Mariappa was a forced swap, but to then then chance 2 more of the back 4 unforced was crazy. Individually all the changes seem ok, but as a team we were completely misfiring with so many players in unfamiliar roles and lacking match sharpness. I don't think anyone played that terribly, but across the board I think everyone was 1 or 2 out of 10 below their average performance levels I thought the ref was terrible. Inconsistent and o logic to his handing out of bookings. Foster got some stick vs Chelsea but his sweeper skills got us out of jail more than once today. Success dives or falls over Every time he gets the ball. Winning a free-kick is the best we can hope for and given how appalling we are from set plays, it's not much good. He's got potential but needs a good slap to get some sense into him. Same for Delofeou. Shame that we're a team so keen on diving, rather than scoring fair goals through skill and endeavour. Overall I'm pleased as punch with a point, because we easily could/should have lost that today. Newcastle will be sore to have let that slip when they were looking so comfortable.
One thing I did enjoy was walking along behind 2 Newcastle fans on Vicarage Road and heard them saying "I don't mind coming here, decent away day. It's much better than those horrible shiny, out of town stadiums. Got some character".
Yes but if we can’t beat an awful team like this it’s difficult to know where the next point is coming from.
Ok, we've managed to get through the first half of the season and at last we've reached the promised land called Transfer Window. From day one, my concern was we needed a striker and central defender.....roll on 20 matches and that feeling is still the same. We've done very well though. Attaining 28 points and scoring 27 goals with no strikers. Just imagine what could be achieved if we had a player who was even just average in front of goal? I don't want to trash the players we have up front currently because they do a lot of good things but composure in front of goal is chronically poor. Deeney, Gray, Okaka and Success just do not have that ability. They need more time in order to get their shots off and at Premier League level that just does not happen. Success had two wonderful chances to score today. He was through on goal right on half time, but took too long and this allowed the defender to make the last ditch tackle. He had another at the end of the match, which looked like a good chance but he lofted it high over the bar. Deulofeu had two wonderful chances to score. The first he was through on goal but delayed shooting and the chance was lost, the second one he was through again but shot low and this allowed the keeper to save with his foot. However, Deulofeu is not a striker as such, and you cannot expect him to be prolific. His job is to chip in with a few goals and assists as well as causing mayhem up front. I think he does this very well. We overly rely on midfielders. defenders and wide players for the bulk of our goals. Our strikers have the ability no better than a defender when it comes to shooting. Stick Cathcart up front and I'm sure he would score 2 or 3 goals as our strikers have done. On to the game today and we were lethargic. Our forward play was slow and ponderous. We were being far too deliberate instead of throwing a bit more caution to the wind. This has been creeping in to our play a lot recently. Playing across the line, but rarely putting the ball in quickly. Today we did score an excellent goal, but it was a well timed jump from a defensive midfielder. The cross was a good one because Deulofeu was allowed a lot of time to pick his pass. We need to get the ball into the box far quicker, but maybe crosses are being delayed because the movement in the box is so poor. If we are to become a strong mid-table club we need a striker that can fit the bill. We have no one in the squad that is Premier League standard, IMO. I like Deeney and Success, but they are supporting forward players, not strikers. Gray is quick but is just dreadful in front of goal. He's Championship and no higher. You give these players a bit of time and they will score goals, but in the Premier League that time is reduced and they are not quick thinking or technically capable enough to flourish when those split seconds are reduced. Newcastle had a game plan, and against any side like this it's vital to score the first goal. We've done that to Cardiff, Huddersfield, Brighton and Palace this season, and went on to win. Today it was Newcastle that scored, so it makes the game very tough. They have something to defend and they will sit deep and catch you on the break. Rondon and Itsu played well for them today. That's the first really crap side we've not beaten at home this season, but against the crud we've done pretty well. I see a lot of criticism of Gracia over the rotation today, but I think he had to do something to freshen up the side. We looked stale against Chelsea. However, I felt he should have made 2 or 3 changes against Chelsea and the same again today, rather than 6 all in one go. It was a lot of changes and it showed. Had Deulofeu or Success taken their straight forward chances I think we'd have gone on to win, but in the end, although I'm disappointed we didn't take the 3 points, I'm relieved we managed to get something from the game.
While a draw was a fair result on the balance of play, that game was disappointing and frustrating in equal measure. I can understand the reasoning for making changes with the number of games over this period but making that many in one go seemed excessive and like someone said above you feared the worst when you saw the team sheet. We actually started the game quite brightly for the first 15 minutes or so then became increasingly ponderous as we ran out of ideas on how to break down a physical & well organised Newcastle, who for their part are a very limited team going forward and its not hard to see why they average less than a goal a game. Quina - struggled after a bright start and gave the ball away a few times trying to make something happen/over playing it. A learning experience for him. Capoue - wasnt at the standard he's set himself this season today. Sat far too deep and kept slowing the play down before passing sideways, it was like the Capoue of old. Masina - thought he played ok for the most part. Had some good moments in the game and tried to get forward. Also had some moments which showed why he's a work in progress. Success - Needs to man up abit and stop falling over. One of our most frustrating players as he clearly has the skill set & attributes to be a top striker but he cant seem to put it all together. Even when he's having a bad game, like today, he still managed to get more shots off from open play than our other strikers combined - then again its been a recurring theme this season that as a team we over play it in the final third and cant shoot without taking an extra touch or two. Hughes - battled as you would expect from him but he isnt a winger by any stretch of the imagination. Played like someone coming back from injury. We dont have the wide players for 4-4-2 and personally I still think 4-2-3-1 is the best fit for the personnel at the club. Pereyra - had a quiet and ineffective game. Didnt track back enough either at times. Doucoure took his goal well and Deeney had a great chance earlier on when he only had the keeper to beat but two Watford players went for the same ball, got in each others way and the opportunity was lost. Thought the ref was weak and inconsistent. Mind you his job is hard enough without Success and Perez falling over every two minutes. Whats happened to Chalobah? Injured again? Its been a good season so far however I think it could have been so much more if we didnt keep dropping so many points.
It's clear what Doucoure brings to the side. Instant improvement and the side was lifted when he and Deeney came on. It's good to hear that Doucoure will NOT be sold in January under any circumstances. Strong stance from the club.
You're right, I exaggerated. It's like when your missus accuses you of never listening, she doesn't actually mean you have never once listened to her, ever, she means you often don't listen. We mostly play the same formation. The reason we look disjointed when we try something else is because we lack experience in anything other than the formation we mostly play.
One of my gripes with Deeney has been for a while is that he needs to do more in regards to movement than making the same far post run all the time. Likewise, as a team, we dont get other players in the box enough and like so much of our play recently we cant cross it without taking an extra touch or beating a defender at the byline first.
