Watford Fc 4-1 Preston North End - 28/11/2020

We'll finish 7th somehow!
We'll beat Man City and win the cup! Believe!
We'll stay up! Easily!

As you predicted all of the above, could you please suggest that we WON'T go up?

 

Yes, it is a concern, before the QPR game he supposedly had a knock which would keep him out for a week. I don't think we're looking to sell him in January, and nor should we (if he and Cleverley are not back for Forest, then we're one knock away from starting with Phillips), but yes, I am concerned that he's yet to get to full fitness yet when it's almost December

 

Spot on. I think he can be forgiven for playing that way at the start of the season as he had to make do with what he had, or was allowed, to choose from. However, his decision to persist with his self-flagellating, negative, hope-to-win-1:0 "philosophy" even after the transfer window closed and he had more creative players available to him is what has stuck in my craw, and may eventually cost us automatic. The performances at Wycombe, Barnsley & QPR yielded 2 points, when 5 was an absolute minimum requirement, and 9 fully achievable if we had gone into those games with proper attacking intent.
If he reverts back to turgid safety first at Forest, I hope Gino realises that he WILL cost us promotion & he needs to go.

 

And you also said you were angry with Duxbury for having promotion as the goal when you thought it was better to go for promotion in the medium term. So, although I didn't have any particular poster in mind, forgive me for assuming that preferring medium term promotion meant "not this season".

 

Not been on here as much recently because of a busy time of year at work, don't like football without fans and sometimes the little arguments on here that go far to long.
All that aside what a thoroughly enjoyable game of football that was and felt Preston played their part in that as well. Deeney was excellent as mentioned by others and it was nice we didn't resort to lumping it up to him. I have always felt Deeney is a better player with the ball on the floor than thumped at him in the air from 70 yards away. Nothing against Gray but I am not sad to see him injured. he was better yesterday than at Bristol City but the bar was set at a pretty low level and that flick on the edge of our box which set them up for their best chance was just purely stupid. Pedro seemed to link up with Sarr and Deeney quite well so hopeful that's how we go at Forest
Chalobah I think gets a raw deal. He's not the player we all thought he was going to be but he does break up the play very well and maybe that goal will give him confidence to do more of that. I actually think he's been ok this season
Femenia is another who has become vital to how we play and I'm glad that Ivic has decided to that he can play as full back although I think his hand was forced by the absence of Sema. I would like to see Kiko go down the outside more often as he has a decent left foot but all too often cuts back in although he did produce a decent effort on goal in the build up to the first goal yesterday
Garner was my man of the match yesterday as we seem to play at a faster tempo when he's involved in the build up. I love Capoue but he does slow things down too much sometimes. We have players that can play quick passing moves as showed yesterday and it is something we need to do more of. Not having Gray involved will help
All in all a very enjoyable day and hope we play like that at Forest and beyond

 

We're coming for you, Leicester!

 

Kiko I believe is a very intelligent footballer, under-rated by many on here!

 

See you in 2045

 

When a high percentage of the forum will really be bed wetters!

 

I think whilst this is a slightly more considered view that is fairer than the posts I was originally reacting to, I think (unsurprisingly, of course, and it would very likely work the same in reverse) that it leans far too heavily towards your own second group in characterising the first, to the point of some disingenuity - I see almost no one whose viewpoint is clearly that we have no chance of promotion, and even fewer that we are not capable of putting in good performance - if anything, it is precisely the opposite. The point has been that we should be putting in performances of far greater and more consistent quality than we have been, both in the sense that a lot of our key players have been underperforming, and also that the tactics and subsitutions have often seemed to have a dampening effect and contributed to that failure.

The opposing group that you've described is essentially the actual viewpoint of those analysing and criticising the season and performances to date.

The part I have bolded is where I strongly disagree and would suggest that you are knowingly being unfair/disingenuous, because, as I have already said in a previous comment, pretty much every one of the strongest/most vociferous posters were the first to come in here and give their thoughts on the performance. Some others then gave it a little bit of a wait and then came heroically charging in asking where all those who analyse/criticise were, despite knowing full well the answer was 'earlier in the thread'.

The thing that strikes me as strange about all this is that those who do choose to take the very optimistic view seem to react in an almost violent way to those who discuss the deficiencies inherent in the team from week-to-week, game-to-game. It reminds me a little of a political cult, where any discussion, even, of any possible fallibility in the great leader (read: team) is treasonous and must be rooted out for the good of the collective/conspiracy. Its current analogue would seem to be the red-hatted mouthbreathers of the good ol' USA of today.

Read a great/horrifying article in the Washington Post by Missouri's Public Health Director last night, detailing her attempts to protect the public and save lives by recommending the most basic actions possible, and how it was met by those wonderful characters doing things like bringing guns to public health meetings on COVID and sending death threats to the families of the medical and health professionals trying to stop them from dying. She's decided to step down from her position.

 

If you're not in some sort of European Super League by then!

 

If they play like they did in the second half yesterday for the rest of the season then there will no longer be any bedwetters, happy clappers will be victorious and the wetters will surrender all their bedsheets to HMS PTL with immediate effect.

But yeah, happy to tone it down as the joke has run it's course.

 

We are the only side in the Championship to have scored in every home match this season.

Troy has become only the second Watford player since the 2nd World War to have scored for us in eleven consecutive seasons. Ross Jenkins is the other.

He has now scored 5 times in his last 5 starts for us (four of them penalties).

On the subject of spot kicks, we’ve now scored from all of our last seven taken, plus three in a penalty shoot out and one in a friendly, so technically that’s eleven in a row.

Pedro has five goals for us this season, and we’ve won all of the five matches in which he’s scored.

Yesterday was Chalobah’s first goal for six years.

Three players netted for the first time this season yesterday, which I think is quite unusual considering it was our 16th match. (14 league, two cup).

Strangely this season we are yet to have a 2 goal performance. We’ve had 0, 1, 3 and now 4 but not got to two goals and stopped scoring.

 

These are my thoughts exactly, I get the frustration and I have been frustrated with the performances, but would another manager really have done any better under the circumstances? At the end of the day we are a couple of points from first place and one from 2nd spot. I am aware that we have one of the best sides in the league, but, The Championship is not an easy league plenty of established Premier League teams have come dow and have struggled. If you would have said to me at the start of the season that we would be a couple of points of top spot and had only lost two games at this stage of this season I would have snapped your hand off for that. I do wonder what many of our supporters expect, the way the majority of our supporters are on Social Media etc.. you would think that we were down near the bottom of the league.

I just hope that the fans that are lucky enough to go to the games get behind the lads and show some positivity.

 

Vlad was dealt a hand that wasn't as good as it looked (The Times described it as 'a ridiculously strong squad'). Some of our established stars left, some wanted to leave, some were long term injured. The club clearly counted on Perv and Suarez until too late, so we started with no fit left back or centre forward. And a dearth of left-footers.

With our terrible defensive record last season, it's not surprising that Vlad concentrated on keeping the goals-against down. Rational, but I've hated the dire football that has been served up until yesterday. Surprisingly, Capoue's come-back didn't help, but Troy's has. He isn't the player he was, but he gives us shape and makes others play better. He needs a partner, though, and that has meant we needed to shed one of the back five - which has been a good thing. Hopefully Vlad will keep this formation, risking a weakness at left back now we've got a better structure for attacking.

But one swallow doesn't make a summer: we'll see what happens next.

 

When Jeff Stelling said this yesterday I thought for once he must have got a stat wrong.

 

Indeed.

His last goal in England was January 2015, for Reading v Sheff Wed, so it’s just under six years.

His last senior goal was December 2015, for Napoli in the Europa League. So five years minus a month.

 

I think Joao Pedro is a huge talent. He’s had some quiet games, which I think is expected given his age and relative inexperience, but his control of the ball and understanding of what’s going on around him is top class.

His finishing is a little suspect at times, but should improve with time, and he’s got that ability to make something spectacular happen out of nothing.

Excited to continue watching his development.

 

I'd buy a subscription to EvertonTV, then

 

I'm no lover of dirty Leeds but I got a smug satisfaction in seeing them beat Everton yesterday

 

At his best Troy makes every player around him better, at his worst he's a passenger. Yesterday looked like we were seeing him back near his best, hope it continues.

 

In fairness that tongue in cheek jokes and when people take the piss out of themselves I don’t mind, that’s ‘banter’. But it’s the 2 sides that have completely dug their trenches and just can’t back down now and use every thread and every opportunity to point out the same thing again and again that became boring and annoying about 2 months ago but is still hijacking every part of this forum now.

I think the person who started the bigger picture thread has a good point. If we were in the stands watching these games then there would be a lot more common ground. You’d have the happy feeling of winning half our matches, only losing 2 from 14 and 3rd in the league singing e-I-e-I-e-I-o up the football league we go.....but still knowing that it’s been far from perfect.

 

I don’t know if it’s Ivic’s input or Troy has decided himself to tone down the ‘main man’ thing but he’s not been as vocal, the club aren’t always sending him out for interviews now and he just seems to be playing as a part of the team rather than Troy and the rest. Happy with his performances So far this season.

 

Notable that both Pedros goals ( one allowed, one disallowed) were from a very similar training ground set piece routine.

Good to see that Ivic has listened to Jokas advice that set pieces are vital to a successful Championship season.

Just need to work on defending them better.

 

His best was when he was about 4 stone lighter and about 6 years ago. He won’t be getting back to that again.

Best we can hope for is that he consistently plays like he did yesterday.

 

I think most of us can probably say the same about ourselves

 

Speak for yourself!

 

Was only joking Malts , when I called you a BW.

And thx for the compliment of calling me a young man

 

Bizarre to think that between 2008 and 2011 we went 3 years without being awarded a penalty at the Vic.......

 

Arguably in any league rather than just the Championship, we went down last season by 1 point (and 2 GD) with the worst offensive corner record in the league - a good set-piece programme would have got us at least a couple more goals which may have proved decisive.

 

Food for thought . No doubt .

 

I'm obviously rather bias here, but I think the game is gonna see a huge shift in focus in terms of set-pieces over the next few seasons (even more so with Covid as teams look at finding more cost efficient ways of scoring goals). More analysis, more dedicated staff (analysts/coaches) which should see a much higher proportion of set-piece goals.

 

Wrote this after the Bristol City game:

Also, huge black mark against Ivic for our set pieces. Every corner, City did something different. Sometimes stacked the six yard box, sometimes had everyone running to near, sometimes had them starting outside the box. We did the same every time. Garner's delivery is actually for the most part pretty good, it's whizzed in at pace but we don't get our head on anything. I get he's trying to get it low and flat into the six yard box but the number of times it's headed away unchallenged as we never have someone going across the near post is ridiculous

Good to see they're reading the forum, even if they've failed to employ @reids !