FA Cup Final - Manchester City 6-0 Watford FC - 18/05/2019 Match Thread

I'm not saying we should buy these players from Brighton, Bournemouth or Burnley. I was just giving examples of clubs of similar standing to us, have been able to do it, and they do not have the resources in scouting network as we do.

Having said that, we did make a move for Dawson last season, and Cahill is on a free, so there could be some interest from us in him.

 

I think we will sign a top quality centre back this window. It would be crazy not to.

 

You're right. Britos, new 1yr contract.

 

I think it was actually the games after the semi where Capoue & Doucoure needed to be rested & that's just when Cleverley (again) & Quina both got injured.

 

Would take Dawson in a flash, was disappointing last year when we didn't make a proper effort to sign him. I'd be a bit wary about signing someone like Cahill from a big team, is he past it at this stage? Either way he's not getting any younger

 

The Arsenal game is where it all went wrong. They worked their socks of for 80 mins, and while we got something at Huddersfield we looked jaded by the Southampton game and then Wolves again a few days later was too much and this is where our (lack of) squad depth really shows. Throw in Chelsea away and another 10-man slog against West Ham and it's no surprise that our midfield's legs had gone when the 3rd City goal went in.

 

Christensen would cost about £30 million!

 

I don't see it that way, I think the Premiership can learn a hell of a lot from the way Guardiola coaches. City players hunt in packs, if they lose the ball they immediately close in on whoever gets it, wherever it is on the pitch. That happened on the lead up to their third when Doucoure was surrounded and lost possession. It's generally more tiring chasing the ball than passing it and Man City are masters of keeping the ball but getting it back as quick as they can if they do lose it. They force the mistakes that get them possession back. I don't think they're fitter than other teams, but they know how to use that fitness. Brilliant tactics (though it hurts me to say after watching us being subject to them!).

 

Have the tickets gone on sale for Cat C yet ?

 

How did the parade go at Cassiobury Park yesterday?

 

Just noticed that the red and yellow flags were arranged so that the red was a close up of the moose/hart from the club badge. Was this the intention?

 

I think they're all flat screens now?

 

I haven’t watched those teams other than when we’ve played them, so I’ll take your word about those players being better (although only Ake coming back would really excite me) but can you answer this: if our high goals against is due to our lack of quality in central defence, how come all the Prem teams you mentioned have conceded more goals than us, despite them having much better CBs and two of them playing a more defensive style?

And TBH, without meaning to sound delusional or arrogant, if we go into next season thinking these clubs, all of which will likely be among the favourites for relegation next season, to be at our level, then we will be in serious trouble.

 

It was a re run of the final. The team didn’t turn up.

 

Again, I've not said we should sign these players, but they were examples of clubs with better central defenders on their books than us, IMO. Just because those teams have conceded more goals, doesn't mean their central defenders are poor. There are lots of other elements that go into how a team concedes goals. Their style of play, their midfield, defending from the front, their keeper, their full backs etc.

Bournemouth, Burnley & Brighton are certainly clubs of our level, but doesn't mean we'll be in trouble.

 

It has been a long, lingering illness, but football finally died for me on Saturday. From the heady days of the late 70s and early 80s, it has been expiring ever since. I had a vague, uneasy feeling when the Premier League was formed that eventually it would throttle the life out of the sport that I once loved - and I was right. There were a couple of very brief periods of remission (in 99 and 06), but the inexorable slide towards oblivion has continued and gathered pace. Money is now everything, commercialism rules supreme, vastly overpaid players dominate, multi-billionaire owners dictate who should win everything and the media fawns over a select few. The corpse of the game gives a few twitches, but rigor-mortise has now set in in the league table and the top 6 will ossify there for the next few decades.

 

Aside from that leicester season does anyone recall when the top 4, 5 or 6 was anything else? Was it 1982?

 

Just checked. Everton broke in a couple of times to the top 6, but the top 4 have consisted of the same top 6 sides since early 2000's. Newcastle Leeds and Blackburn involved.

 

Leeds and Blackburn have won the league in the 90s and both clubs had spells of a few seasons in the top 4.

I remember QPR, Villa and Sheff Weds coming top 4 since 1982. Everton have won it and later came top 4 against the odds.

Forest as well I think?

 

You can have mine for a tenner

 

No

 

Yes I remember the foul on Hughes. It was cynical and a yellow would have been in order. No chance with Friend...but he did hold off booking Holebas who was trying to turn a disputed throw-in into a state trial.

 

No, i’m with you, fwtw.

I find him infuriating to watch.

 

There have been quite a few others, especially up to the early Premier League years, albeit mostly fleetingly - Newcastle, Villa, Everton and Leeds have had spells in the top 6, and smaller clubs like Wimbledon, Derby, Sheffield Wednesday, Forest, Blackburn, Bolton, West Ham, QPR, Palace, Norwich and Ipswich have been up there briefly. Even Southampton finished 6th as recently as 2016.

However, since the decline of Leeds, the resurgence of Spurs and Sheikh Mansour’s takeover of Man City, the top 6 has become pretty much established, to the extent that even when a surprise team like Leicester, Southampton or Newcastle breaks in, and Chelsea, Liverpool or Man Utd have a terrible season, it’s business as usual the following season. Boring!

 

This made me chuckle. He’s a kn0b sometimes isn’t he.

 

I remember going to our game at the City of Manchester stadium or whatever it was called back then. A very rare non-defeat, and the only time I’ve felt anything remotely approaching joy in our encounters with them since the opening game of the Vialli season after a long period during which we kept missing each other (the one other draw in the same season saw us relegated). Yes, it was a crap game and we should’ve won that kind of game to stay up, but at that time any away points felt like winning promotion, the stadium was impressive if without the character of Maine Road, there was a great atmosphere under the floodlights with us singing old Watford songs, and it was the longest away trip I’d made up to that point bar Everton (took an overnight coach back). In many ways, I miss the PL as it was back then, but of course not the seasons we had!

 

Wow!

Why didn’t you point him down the M1?

To us, that is.

 

Pitiful.

I doubt the BBC has much interest in converting the overwhelmingly male audience to women’s football.

Much easier to preach.

 

GKOTS award?