Watford FC 0- AFC Bournemouth - 06/10/2018

AFCB were always going to have too much pace for our defence. Terrible to listen to how easy it was for them. We were tatically poor after the sending off.
Who would have thought the our slide towards danger would begin in early October?
We have a run of games coming up against teams who at the beginning of the season were forecasted to be in the relegation battle. We will be hanging on for survival if we fail to win against these fellow strugglers.

 

The officiating was abysmal, but we were second best all over. We lacked intelligence, pace, guile and guts.

 

Yes, Bournemouth for one. They play nice football but their behaviour is a disgrace

 

Muff aren't a good side no

But they play a certain way, we've seen it year after year, they overload and exploit the flanks. The narrow 442 that turns into a 4222 that Gracia has us playing just concedes all that lovely space. It really is fooball tactic 101 mistake to just ignore how the opposition plays.

 

Don't react to the virgin troll. He'll only start masturbating on his sticky keyboard.

 

Merited, but some grammatical spring cleaning also needed from ourselves this evening. Understandable in the circs, I guess.

 

They weren't tremendous at any point today. They scored their first and second against the run of play.

 

Looks like Man Utd are trying to ‘better’ our result today lol

 

That was depressing especially having to sit through that second half ... and especially as it was bloody Bournemouth !

Hope not too many overreactions though as we’ve played much better up until now . We were poor today though . I thought we never got going before they scored. We didn’t seem to mix up the play like we have in previous matches , just long balls to Deeney all the time . Also as people have said we were just asking to be caught on the break .Bournemouth just got ten men behind the ball and hit us on the break .

I didn’t think the first booking for Kabasele was a yellow as I see challenges like that all the time in the box. So thought the sending off was harsh and basically ended the match as a contest .

Also agree that keeping Capoue as a makeshift centre back was an odd decision , as the first thing we needed was to add a bit of stability and not concede and then we may have been able to build from there .

Second half was a non event . Muff just continued to sit back and soak up pressure and we couldn’t find a way past them.Very difficult to watch but as I said we have been decent so far this season . Maybe we should be making more use of the quality we have in the Squad though .

Hope we can start turning this around at wolves

 

Never mind today's result, looks like the points we dropped at home to manure could be worse

 

Will accept that. Did we tread on a rake by thinking we could ignore their threat because we were playing well and had not played badly all season? Over confidence? Combination of things including a bad day for kabasele.

 

Well, we always seem to have a stinker at home at some point. Last season it was Huddersfield.

No point in dwelling on this one, as it was totally out of context compared to what has gone on before.

We were playing really well before the red card. Even at 0-1 I was unconcerned as it was against the run of play.

Bournemouth had one of those days, where everything turned to gold. The only predictable things were Jon Moss would be appalling and Bournemouth would get a penalty.

Sometimes you have to say well done to your opponent. They were superior in every department. Wilson, Lerma & King were different class and their movement with pace caused us too many problems.

Today is not important, it's how we bounce back is what counts. The fixture list hasn't been too kind in that respect as we have 2 weeks to think about things and then it's Wolves away.....hmmm.

The only area of concern was the organisational changes or lack of them after the sending off. There was no need to persist with two up front. We needed to keep things tight and try to stay in the match at that point. Not sure why Gracia's not giving Chalobah any minutes. For me this is a disappointment.

I would have taken off Gray for Chalobah, ride the inevitable storm then try to come back in the second half. The third goal on half time killed the game as a contest. Not sure why he brought on Mapps at 0-4. For me that didn't make much sense. If Mapps was going to play, it should have been straight after the red card. That's just my opinion, but trying to stay in the game by keeping 4 at the back or boosting the midfield and sacrificing a misfiring striker, would have been a better play.

No one likes to see their team lose as today, but so far this season, it's a one off. Bournemouth lost 0-4 at Burnley and bounced back very well. We'll see now if our start was a fluke, or whether today was a strange anomaly in an otherwise extremely good season.

 

Thought we played like a Championship side today. Too many long balls, too many hoofs to Deeney and flick ons to no-one. Top many touches on the ball before releasing it by Hughes, Doucoure and Pereyra. Defence terrible today. We really miss Janmaat - Kiko looked lightweight after Navarro at Arsenal last week. I'd like to see Success start. Hate to say it, but Bournemouth were really well organised, got everyone behind the ball when we came forward, closed down our options and broke really quickly - and we backed off as they came forward and did not get enough players back. Third and fourth goals were gifts really, huge gaps at the back. Did not see anything like this coming after the last few weeks. Surely we cannot play as bad as this again this season - Wolves, Huddersfield and Newcastle coming up - tough games...

 

It is what it is!

 

But what is it?

 

Very poor today. What a **** way to spend an afternoon. Wet, cold and watching that ********.

I think we've been victims of our own success. Gracia can't really change too much given we've been winning, but think it's time to change things now. 4-3-3 would suit this team I think, and allow us to get the best out of our best players.

 

One of the worst days of my life.

 

The breakaway goal was after a bright start for us where we created chances, despite the fact that their midfield seemed to have taken the initiative. The penalty and sending off was the point where Gracia should have brought on Mapps for Gray or Hughes (especially as Cathcart was also on a yellow). I thought Hughes was below par today, and Pereya was a bit of a passenger. Success was ok when he came on, demonstrating why he is a better footballer than Gray. Could have been a different game if Cathcart scores from the corner. But we need to get a result at Molyneaux, a win against Huddersfield and a result at Newcastle. If we not all the pessimists will be saying those two extra goals conceded might be the negative goal difference that sends us down. At least Harry is back.

 

An embarrassing and gutless performance against a side who were just better and wanted it more.

Interesting that before today the forum, generally, didn’t want Marriappa anywhere near the team - saying that he should be a backup player. Now people are calling for him to have been involved in this match sooner than he was!

 

The reason it was 3-0 before half time was due to JG not putting another CB on leaving King unmarked.

 

Kabasele always seems to get caught out in scenarios like today.

 

Exactly,don’t react. It’s no Virgin troll though. We all know who it is.

 

It could be a chant used by fans who are finally accepting there lot in life:

What is it?
It is what it is
what is it?
It is what it is.

We could throw in a few ‘we go again - it is what it is’, just to mix it up a bit.

 

Do we need Prodl in the defence after that performance?

 

we go again

 

I’m not going again after that ****.

 

Prodl isn’t the answer imo. Given Kabasele and Cathcart now look somewhat out of form we are going to pay for the obvious failure to bring in a centre back this summer. Gracia has a hand tied behind his back.

 

Isn't that what a "backup" player does?

 

"Much more to blame was flavour-of-the-month Kabasele, who let Mitrovic get goal-side of him in the goal area. He's still making costly mistakes, I see; just possibly slightly fewer of them." Sorry to be Mr Smug - but that was my comment after the Fulham match. We also had the penalty against Spurs and the penalty-that-should-have-been against Arsenal. Kabasele plays well for most of the time, and I suppose that's why people like him, but then he makes occasional but costly mistakes. He needs to work on the ways he gets out-positioned by attackers and then ends up making rash challenges.
Having said that, he was pulled back by the shirt by the Muff player before they even reached the penalty box; we should have a free kick then and there and the penalty call would have been irrelevent.

 

I guess it’s the fickle nature of the football fan.