Watford Fc 1-1 Southampton - 28/02/2024 - Fac4

After about 30 mins, I began to get equally excited at the prospect of a home tie against Maidstone or Plymouth and someone and frightened at the prospect of catching diphtheria at K*nilworth Road, Liverpool away is just **** man, can we just swap our tie with Maidstone, they'll appreciate it more than either of us. I suppose the biggest upside of a replay is that it would give Dennis a chance to get fit, other than that, I wouldn't be opposed to sending the kids out

 

Where will TDB play on Wednesday? Decisions, decisions...

 

Thought Hoedt was magnificent. Tremendous long range diagonals and stout defending with crucial blocks and interventions.

Where the game changed was when Kone went off. Another who had a great game. Ince was no sort of replacement.

Bayo is so frustrating. He has whatever the opposite is of 'an eye for goal'.

Sadly Dennis looked well off the pace. He had a chance to run with it and break away, but had no legs. Also gave the ball away in a very dangerous spot with a terrible pass.

A fair result in the end I suppose. That spinning deflection that hit the post could have won it for us though. I don't mind a replay. I like watching Watford, so another game is a bonus.

 

I was avoiding looking at the 5th round draw during the match so as to not invite the gods to scupper things, commentator on the stream I was watching revealed it 5 mins before they scored!!!

Could have been 2 0r 3 up before the subs if Aprillas crosses had fallen the right way. Vals subs were a bit too negative, Ince hasnt worked out like Livermore and Dennis looks a couple of yards off the pace. I was hoping Livermore would have came on for the last 15-20 mins just to shore things up a bit.

A draw was the right result in the end but obviously disappointing to have them score so late in the game.

 

But isn't it "the magic of the cup" though?- Play a few games until eventually you inevitably draw one of the top teams and get knocked out.

 

Anyway, I used to live with 2 Arsenal fans at uni, I got PTSD from the amount of times they sang '49 undefeated', so to all the Saints fans singing '22 undefeated', enjoy it while you can, cos it ain't gonna last!

 

Thought Pollock was fantastic today, looked a lot more comfortable than he has in any other game. Best of luck to him if he leaves though.
We need to play the academy and players needing fitness in the replay, no point in risking injuries with so many games coming up

 

I've only skimmed through this thread since last night so at the risk of repeating what anyone else has said, it's a bit of a farce having the FA Cup draw when some of the matches are taking place. Has that ever happened before?

 

Cant argue with the result really. Thought we were the better team for 60 odd minutes but just couldnt kill the game off despite how well we were playing and the chances created. Last 20 minutes we were desperately holding on. Not for the first time this season we looked worse after making our subs. Hopefully Kone is ok, thought he and Asprilla were excellent in spells today.

Andrews needs to learn to play to the whistle and Dennis looks like hes going to need a run of games to get match fit. Pollock had a good game in fairness to him. Bachmann doesnt fill me with confidence.

Having seen the draw, I really would play the kids in the replay.

 

Don't think you'll last long on here with that attitude m8

 

He's put himself in the shop window, only thing keeping him from leaving now is us finding a defender!

 

I believe it was due to the delay in the Wolves/West Brom game that caused it. Looked dodgy too, Glen Johnson in a room on his own doing the draw. All the big teams getting byes and and Rob McElhenney getting his wish of playing Newcastle if they win tomorrow.

 

It was still going to take place part way through our game tbf

 

Is this a spoof account

 

Yesh he was pretty much the only positive of today. It had been clear from his brief cameos this season that he's a much improved player from last year, and although he still gets caught a bit high up the pitch at times where his being slow on the turn causes problems, he's looking a decent defender.

I'm still not sure if he'll quite be good enough to be starting for us week in week out for us in the Champ, but it'll be difficult for that to be properly judged without him getting consistent games at the level and it seems unlikely he'll get that here unless we have a number of injuries. Ideally there'll be a way to loan him out to another Champ club and see how he does.

 

Think Pollock could do a job at Championship level, but it's hard to judge for us, when he's got a Chilean and Scottish international for competition, not to mention a former Dutch international on the other side

 

Very decent performance today and the tactics seemed right ( at least first half ) Infection. Thought they held their shape really well and Southampton. , despite all the posession couldn’t break them down . We broke really effectively and were unlucky not to get a second goal though the final ball was jacking at times.

Naturally the Soton substitutes started to change the game and we looked under a lot if pressure . With Kone and Martins ( who I thought was excellent today) we struggled for an out ball .

Thought Pollock looked decent as well . Dennis wasn’t really able to get in the game when he came on and Ken didn’t look sharp , understandably ,

As people have said a replay is just a bit of an annoyance .

 

In this particular instance, I agree it seems rather pointless.

But in general, no I don’t agree. Certainly the Cups were more important years ago, yes. But it’s not purely an age thing imo. The semi final vs Wolves was one of my favourite moments as a Watford supporter, certainly in the top three of the last decade, even if the final was a disaster. I enjoyed our runs to the semis under Lewington, Boothroyd and QSF more than any league matches of those seasons (barring, I guess, the. 3-0 vs Liverpool).

I think it’s quite straightforward, really. If you go on a Cup run, the Cup is great. If you get knocked out early, it’s not.

 

May be better than Porteous ?

 

Martins and Asprilla were both excellent, much more direct and less dithering on the ball. Clearly they've had some intense coaching on taking some risks and being direct and aggressive as opposed to slowing the game down and playing it safe.

Play the kids in the replay, sure Saints fans have the same view. Waste of time winning the tie now.

 

Most of the game we played superbly. Soaked up pressure, forced them to make mistakes and hit them on the break. Our fatal flaw was our finishing. I dk what our XG was for today but a decent team would have been 3-0 ahead at least before they brought on their first teamers.

The subs changed the game and it turned from a fun, end to end cup tie, into a game that looked like a Champ side clinging on against Prem opponents.

A lot of that was down to their subs, but just as much could be attributed to ours. Our subs, with the exception of Morris, were all woeful. Sema looked like he was tranquilised, Dennis looked like he'd come back from a 6 week holiday in Zante, porteous looked like an accident waiting to happen and Ince didn't look like anything because he was utterly invisible.

We lost all our counter attacking threat and spent the reminder of the game under constant pressure, which we dealt with well, until we didn't and they scored.

Bayo looked great for 3 minutes but for the rest of the game he was embarrassing. He doesn't even know where to stand/run. Just an appalling player.

I'd rather we'd brought Dennis on for him, as a wild card up top, keeping Martins to make those great runs at their back line.

Pollock and Hoedt both great and Andrews much better than when I saw him vs Rotherham in the last round.

 

Imagine the tears if it was Bachmann who let a free kick in so easily.

Twice we've played Southampton this season and both times the keepers have looked suspect and given us a goal.

 

My big criticism of Asprilla is he got into the box, twice, right onto the near post and we had bodies in the box, yet the best he got out of it was a corner. Got to be getting more than that from those positions.

 

Couldn’t have cared less as soon as I had a text come through at the game telling me we had Liverpool away in the next round if we went through, a replay is the last thing we needed. The best game Martins has had in ages much better down the right.

 

Probably a lot more if you’re just saying it anonymously on a football forum with relatively low traffic.

 

Val has a problem with defensive substitutions. He’s made good subs to win a game but today he invited pressure for no reason, I’m sure the sports science data said take Asprilla off but he was running riot down there; he’s a young lad why kill all momentum? Frustrating because that first 55 minutes was fantastic.

 

I feel a cup run is desirable if you’re not challenging in the league (or not in danger of going down) but a unneeded distraction if you are.

I think your view of us having one this season depends on whether you think we are destined to finish mid table or if you think we have a genuine sniff of the play-offs.

 

absolutely…personally don’t think we have the squad for a realistic promotion challenge or the will from the ownership to fund it. So a cup game be Pool reserves could be fun

but I’m old school

 

Precisely, and I think the POs are a long shot at best.

If anything the replay is even less good news for Saints.

 

It was the same problem Chak on the left gave us vs Bristol City.