The perfect area being straight into the keeper? Er, no. The keeper should have done much, much better with it but had a complete mare. A half decent keeper catches it. It was nowhere near any of our players. It's also not an assist.
The club have a great angle here and it's in slow-mo and I have you right: https://twitter.com/WatfordFC/status/1590318787533967363?s=20&t=WRqqx09DtRD65za34Hw3Cw No idea what their keeper is doing but when you watch the highlights from the usual tv angle he takes up an odd position almost on his own line and then reacts late to the cross.
He was alright but let's be honest he didn't have a lot to play against. When he was needed he did a good job, no more no less. He's still got something to give this season and I hope the worst is behind him. But, if we do actually end up being promoted, he will/should be the first out the door. Cannot fault his comitment to Watford as a player, but he makes too many mistakes a critical points, which could be said for most of our defenders.
Having seen the replay of the goal now, it was a very good cross, nicely in behind the defence ready for Kalu to tap home, the keeper had to make a sharp interception and it deflected to Pedro. I know you're angry with Sarr (and many others) and he didn't have a great game by any standard but it was a good cross. Go on, admit it! https://twitter.com/WatfordFC/status/1590298588189720577
I'm not "moaning", I'm countering the idea that Sarr's cross was anything like perfect and pointing out the fact it wasn't actually an assist, in discussing what was mostly another poor performance from him. I know people can't stand me being right but just insisting I'm "moaning" is really quite dumb.
As UEA said and as I've said before, the keeper dealt awfully with it. If there were no goalkeeper at all it may have gone straight through to one of our players but that's not the reality. The reality is he dropped it short where none of our players were and their keeper should have claimed it.
It was a great cross, as the commentator on Sky also remarked. Keeper had to go for it and was unlucky that his parry at full stretch went straight to Pedro. Of course it was an assist as I'm sure all the official "non-Nath" stats will show.
It's a tough one. If Kalu gambles and runs across the goal and meets the ball mid-near post, it's a good cross and a certain goal. As it was, it had good whip, but was nowhere near Kalu and too close to the keeper. Luckily Reading's reserve keeper was caught ball watching/ flat footed, and it fell straight to JP, who finished excellently. In games with a decent keeper, the ball would have been gathered by the opposition keeper and no one would be calling it a good cross.
No. It literally has not been given as a Sarr assist. How anyone could think it would have been is bizarre. The keeper came, parried it and completely changed the trajectory of the ball.
I took some stills of the 3 important points of the cross from the Twitter video. The first is the moment it leaves Sarr's foot, note keeper is about a yard off of his line. The second still shows the ball bounced on the 6 yard line, the keeper is scrambling to meet the cross, you see it's behind the defence. The third shows the moment the keeper touched the ball, see how he's had to launch himself forward to get anything on it otherwise the ball is going straight to Kalu. Had the ball been closer to the keeper then he would have done better, had the ball been much further then one of the defenders would have had the opportunity to clear for a corner. If you were being super-critical you could argue the perfect point for the cross would have been another 1-2 feet away from the keeper. As I said, although he had a bad game you can't deny it was a very good cross, it forced the "error" from the keeper.
I'd like to see how a decent goalkeeper would have dealt with it. I reckon the hypothetical goalkeeper who isn't caught napping catches the ball pretty comfortably and the move ends there. I'd agree it forced an error and so hat tip to Sarr, but to me it's just another of the aimless crosses we seem to put into the box on a regular basis but this time the law of averages spat out a goal for us.
Story of his career with us, no? He’ll put together the odd game or run of games where he’s alright, and just when you start to believe he might have unlocked the key to remaining concentrated on doing his job for 90 minutes, he follows it up with a headless stinker of a game. And when he plays poorly, his head goes and every element of his game completely falls apart. I think as the injuries have stacked up and his athleticism has started to drop, the weaknesses in his mentality and game have become even starker.
I'm fairly happy right now. We've been poor for much of the season and yet now sit in the play offs. Bilic is the right man to take us forward, players are close to a break - I just see us coming back stronger in December, and bilic will hopefully bring in a couple of key players in January which could tip us towards top 3.... Of course Sarr will come back after WC with a bad ACL injury.... Q: any theories on which positions Bilic will want to bolster (sounds like he's hoping for 2).....?
From those stills: 1. What is that defender doing? No attempt to block the cross 2. Keeper is two steps too close to his goal. He could easily still defend the near post but would be much more ready for a whipped cross. 3. Easy to say when not at full speed, but here (and live) the keeper looks like he was caught flat footed and was way too slow to react (or at least reactive rather than proactive). You don't want to let a ball curling away go past your body before you make an intervention as you'll always be stretching for it, and the keeper doesn't seem to react until that point. Maybe he didn't expect the amount of curve, but I still think he's reacted too slowly there and was caught a bit like a deer in headlights on his line. So overall I'd argue all our fans would have thought the cross was poor with a better keeping starting position and a slightly more proactive approach by the keeper (that you'd expect at this level). However, it was actually an excellent cross for Kalu to attack the near post in an angled run across the keeper. So whilst you're arguing its a good cross because of the keepers intervention and consequence, I'm still arguing it was a good cross, but the keeper/ intervention has nothing to do with it.
Regarding point 1, I think it was that millisecond the defender looks like a statue, otherwise he did attempt to block the cross but I'd argue he was too far from Sarr As for your final point, I'm arguing it was a good cross because it was behind the defence and reasonably far out from the keeper. Other people are denying it was a good cross because the keeper made an error. I think the keeper did make an error by being a little late to intercept but did what he could to rectify it, it was unfortunate for him the ball fell to Pedro.
Agree with all this, although I've certainly questioned his commitment to Watford on a few occasions!
Thought it was a good performance all in, fairly comfortable defensively but lacked a cutting edge. Thought our midfield two had their best game together but we're guilty of overplaying it at times. It's promising signs so far.
I think the keeper was slow to react as it was perfectly placed and pace for a striker to run onto near post/centrally and it took him a split second to realise there was no-one arriving there to meet it, and so it would go right the way through to the back post.
It's amazing what we'll find to argue about when the team's played well and won! Has anyone got any views on the bugler's performance? I thought he was very good. What did you think, Nath? A few too many flat notes?
Straight at the keeper? See below, Ball is basically just on his fingertips. He has to go full stretch to get one hand on it!! It may officially not be an assist as it touches another player but without question he created that goal
Yes because, as I've said, the goalkeepers positioning and handling of the situation was absolutely terrible. As pointed out by others on here and as pointed out by McAnuff on the post match analysis. His woeful positioning is why "He has to go full stretch to get one hand on it!!". It was effectively a near post cross to no one, that the goalkeeper somehow contrived to make a complete mess of and gift to Pedro, who was absolutely nowhere near where the cross was originally going. I'd say 9 times out of 10 a competent goalkeeper should and does claim that ball in. It's not a great cross, it's absolutely not an assist, and it was going nowhere near Pedro where it ended up until the keeper had a complete disaster and pushed it to him. It's not worth going over and over. Some think it was a poor to average cross that we got lucky with in the end, others think it was a good cross because it was "in the right area" even though no one was in that area. Again, the fact is though that it definitely wasn't actually an "assist" as others have said (I know you haven't personally claimed it was) and, most importantly, Sarr was overall pretty poor once again.
