The idea that because some people on here can recognise problems/the actual situation, or, god forbid, have a different opinion to you on the relative strengths or weaknesses of the team, it means they are 'looking forward to a potential relegation', is so pathetically disingenuous it is laughable - honestly an embarrassment of a claim. That's why we all choose to spend our free time discussing the team on here, and talking about what we think should/needs to happen, isn't it? Because we hate the team, and love to see it fail. Are you trying to instigate some kind of sycophant olympics? Apart from the idea that you have any kind of monopoly on how to 'support' or what makes a 'supporter', it's just so utterly arrogant it's almost hard to believe. Almost.
Not sure I’ve mentioned it, but Deeney has 6 non penalty goals in the last two and a half years. That’s 51 starts. It’s 9 fewer than Andre Gray! We are doomed
I thought Troy had a knock, if so why was he on the bench and why did he come on? I'm at the point now where I can fully believe Troy telling Xisco when he's playing, how long he's playing for, when to sub him on and when to sub him off.
Thrashed by Palace who have in place a manager that was never rated at Nice. Cathcart is simply awful and Cleverley is over the hill and Gosling is not good enough for the Premier. Palace fan forums laughing at how terrible Watford were and giving us absolutely no chance of survival. I am beginning to wish l had put more than €100 on my bet. It's been dreadful so far and the pre-season could be the highlights of the season.
To be honest it was a friendly game which was played like one. The pace of the game was extremely slow with no real intensity to it, most of the players were reluctant to make challenges and we had just come off the back of what was probably an intesne week of training at St Georges Park. Yeah we played crap but at the end of the day it was a pre season friendly. We had key players missing and we probably have players to come in. Who knows what our starting 11 will be once the season is up and running. I am not saying we won't struggle but seeing so many fans ******* the bed over a pre season friendly is ridiculous.
It's pre season mate. It's about getting minutes in the tank for the meltdown. Nothing wrong with that. Next week we hit the meltdown hard.
That’s right, an hour before ko when the starting line up comes out. That’s when it really starts to get going. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
We could be Sheff Weds, Ipswich, Sunderland, Portsmouth, Bolton, Oxford, Wigan, Charlton, all teams that have been in the top division and are now in Division One! We aren’t we are Watford going into a season in the top league in Europe but people still moan!
Watched the highlights and read through the comments on here: - That team is still pretty different to the one that will start the season. It's fair enough now those claiming we should have used this game to practice with a more settled team, but I'm actually quite please Xisco has used it as an opportunity to try out a few more things - eg Sema in midfield, Cathcart in defence, Cucho CF. There's a pretty big reason why him doing this yesterday was a good thing - it will have hopefully underlined how absolutely gash our backup options are, and could encourage us to make some more signings before the window shuts. It seems likely for instance that Kucka will be earmarked for the most advanced midfielder spot next week, but I'd rather he concludes now that Sema should never be involved again, there or anywhere else, than him trying it in a competitive PL match and it costing us. Similarly, I'm pretty sure Xisco will have already known that Sierralta is our best CB, but it's better he realises now that without him we're screwed and Cathcart is terrible, than if he's forced to find it out once the window shuts in case Sierralta gets injured. - On a related note, the Benteke goal emphasised something which was also an issue in the Championship, we seriously lack aerial presence in defending set-pieces. Even with Sierralta and Masina back in the side we lack anyone capable of sufficiently marking players excellent in the air. Expect the likes of Maguire, Mings, van Dijk, Dunk etc. to score some easy corner goals against us this season. - I've been consistent in never really rating Ngakia and have said that if Kiko gets injured or suspended we're screwed. Today seemed to emphasise why and it appears a few others are finally waking up to this. Kiko should at least start next week though, which will improve us compared to today. - Our lack of a decent CF still doesn't seem to have been addressed. Cucho is not good enough as a lone striker, struggles to get involved and isn't enough of a goal threat. King if he's ever fit will be a good improvement at best over Trondre. From pre-season Fletcher seems to have appeared our sharpest striker. For our hopes of survival in the PL that's a big worry. - It looked another incredibly soft pen, but Rose still does not seem ready to even replace the mediocre Masina, who at least seems fairly solid defensively now. Rose's tackle seemed unnecessary and he still seems off the pace. - As per the above, I think we could still do with 3 quality additions, in CB, CM and CF. This will likely require us splashing a bit of cash though. Unless we've been saving a bit until the end of the window to see where it most needs to be deployed, it seems unlikely we'll have what's required to make good enough signings. I've thought throughout the summer that unless we add some real quality to key areas we'll go straight back down, and as things stand even with our first choice players staying available throughout the season (which won't be possible anyway with the Afcon) we seem highly likely to go straight back down.
Whilst there is hope there is optimism If you are expecting relegation no point following the team. If you do then there is a little bit of hope in your heart
This 'minutes in the bank' term is complete rubbish. Some are clutching at straws if this is their reasoning why we have looked so bloody poor in pre season. Fitness, l agree, but lack of ideas or a cutting edge is obvious to many fans. Promotion was the early sunshine, now the day is becoming very grey/cloudy and very soon it will pour down and flood. The stark realisation that we are simply not going to be good enough is dawning on many fans and media outlets. The club is preparing for relegation, some could say it's a wise move given our massive debts. Even Barcelona are making large cuts. Of course, we all hope for the best and desire this squad to perform miracles in order to stay up. We have to give way to the reality of what we see in front of us.
I dont think anyone at the end of last season thought we were going to have anything but a relegation scrap on our hands this season. Will give the season ten games as usual to see where we are I suppose. I see the same unhappy people using an internet forum to boost their egos or whatever, strange behaviour, I hope they find happiness soon.
Some good points. Throw in that Bachmann doesn't come off his line for crosses/free kicks/corners, the goals will flow in with ease. I fancy putting money on that Danny Rose will not play for us in the Premier league. It's worth a punt.
We won all our pre-season games in 2019/20 but went down. Likewise i would imagine some teams have stayed up after a poor preseason as well. What happens preseason doesn't necessarily have any correlation of what happens in the league. You may be right we may get relegated. But nothing is certain. QSF kept us up with basically a 'championship' team, being organised and playing a certain way, so I'd rather see how the season plays out and hope there are 3 (or more) teams worse than us at the final reckoning with perhaps a managerial change along the way.
And there I was, wondering what had happened to Meldrew. Turns out he moved to the Alps to continue being a miserable ****.
Some 'complainers' (eg Jumbo) are really moaning about missed opportunity: the opportunity to still be competitive and quasi-established in the EPL, an opportunity blown by strange profligacy of the hierarchy. Crazy long-term contracts to players too old to justify them; a scatter-gun approach to recruitment preventing organic evolution of the squad; bizarre (verging on immoral) treatment of potentially promising young talent; inability to inculcate some form of footballing 'philosophy' so that every head coach has to start from scratch, with inevitable results. We are in the mess we are now due to all the above. I believe even if we'd not made all those errors, for WFC every season in the EPL would be primarily a battle for survival. Occasionally we'd have a 'cup final' season & once in a while we'd come up short and go down. Having made all those errors the situation has shifted to pure survival being the only indicator of a good season. I, and even such as Jumbo, no longer whine about underwhelming recruitment; that is inevitable after the full impact of 2-3 years of poor decision making fully rolls out. Had we not gone up last year we could well be on the way to being the next Sheff Weds & that should never have been the case even after relegation from the Prem. The fact that it is so is the real reason for many supporters' disenchantment & anger.
Speaking for myself, I’m not “disenchanted or angry”. I just love watching football and supporting Watford, whatever division they are in. I’m really looking forward to going to Vicarage Road on Saturday after so long and will enjoy it win, lose or draw.
Thinking we'll probably go down this season doesn't mean I'm not going to follow the team because I'm obviously hoping we stay up. I went to the FA Cup final expecting Man City to beat us but did I hope we'd win? Of course I did.
For myself, I'm disappointed at the impact of the decisions I've listed. But as my username might suggest, to follow a WFC that has effectively established itself in the top 30 in English football when it had barely featured above 50th place when I started going is in itself 'success'; pace those whose timeline leads them to 'expect' more.
But your post started with "I think everyone should be expecting relegation". Not everyone does you know.
I don't think we can blame Xisco. We have players sittting out over contract issues. It is a week before the season starts and we are still ******* about trying to sign a ball winning midfielder which we desparetly need. Some of the players who we have brought in have not played any football in a while and are probably working on fitness. We have had players at The Euros and Copa America who have joined the squad late and we also have one or two key players with knocks.
This is spot on, objectively avoiding relegation from the champo is a successful season for WFC and Top 12 in the Champo is success. But what is so hard to swallow is that we had evolved (thanks to the Pozzo family) into something really awesome, culminating in the cup semi final victory. Then due to a catalogue of disastrous, bizarre, delusional, arrogant and complacent decisions the whole thing fell apart and we would indeed be the next Sheff Weds were it not for Troy's injury. In 2 short years we went from that glorious day at Wembley to relying on a lucky injury to our club captain to save us from complete financial meltdown. It's incomprehensible. If Gino didnt own the club both him and Scott would've been sacked for their incompetence. I'm hoping we can survive this season but if we don't, last season's promotion may start to look like little more than a dead cat bounce.
You seriously think that squad is good enough to stay up?? Actually you think Gray is a good player, what am I saying.
I think this season will be far less frustrating than our relegation season. I don't think I'll be tearing my hair out wondering why Cleverley looks so hopeless compared to say Doucoure or Capoue. Expectations are extremely low. Despite the criticism of our scouting system, we've always seemingly found at least one gem per season that gives us something different. Now with the new work permit system we're limited in who we can bring in, and the targets on offer are all well known to most other clubs. Still I wouldn't put it past us to find a few decent deals before the transfer window ends, but I'm expecting a pretty pedestrian, hard working side with limited quality to go with it. Still looking forward to seeing what happens though
I don't think this is much of an issue - the vast majority of the gems we've found in the past are players we could have still signed with the new work permit system. We've signed a lot of players from the Belgian, French, Italian and Brazilian top leagues and pretty much any senior player from them would still be obtainable. There are also the likes of the Russian and Mexican leagues still viable if we wish to look further afield. The bigger is that we seem to have pretty much bugger all to spend.
