The Premier League - 2021-2022

The most disappointing thing about this season apart from the lack of clean sheets is the home form - I was confident that the Vic was going to be a tough place for opposition teams like at newly promoted clubs Stoke and Burnley and that would play a part in us staying up, but we’ve already dropped more points at home than we did all of last season.

What were the reasons for the brilliant home record of W19 D2 L2? Great defence combined with poor finishing by the oppo? Or teams were generally more afraid to attack at that level? IIRC the only teams who really attacked us were Brentford, Reading and Blackburn, but on the other hand it’s not like we were constantly pinning the rest in their own half - even Wycombe and Rotherham had a few chances each.

 

It's really incredibly simple: the vast majority of teams at Championship level are terrible - much, much worse than the Prem in terms of individual players, managers/coaches and squad, and pretty significantly worse even than that upper echelon of the league itself, thanks to a few rich owners and teams who've come down with parachute payments leading to increased stratification.

That doesn't mean that it's not possible for a lesser quality team with worse players to pull off an upset or out-coach a richer, higher-quality team, of course; that's football. But it does mean that the vast majority of the time, we were facing players of a lower quality producing fewer opportunities against us in the first place, because their attacking systems were not as sophisticated and they were simultaneously too scared of an attack that included the most expensive player ever to play in the league to push up and pressure us consistently. Facing those less-sophisticated styles of play also suited Sierralta enormously, specifically, because he is so aerially dominant - they were rarely attempting to play round him in the first place, and when they put it in the mixer he'd return to sender all day long.

When they did get their opportunities, they were also therefore more likely to miss the target altogether, or produce a shot that was easy to save, relative to what we are now facing up here. On top of that, our midfielders were far superior to their opposition, in a relative sense, compared to now - our first line of defence with Chalobah and Hughes often did the defence's job before they even needed to (which was just as well). They functioned better as a midfield than almost any opponent they faced - now, our midfield functions worse than almost any opponent they face, so we've gone from a defensive force multiplier, to a further force handicap.

 

Right but that doesn’t really answer the first part of the post. I agree with LO: I had hoped that we would be more difficult to beat at home than we have been given how strong we were last year.

 

Sure, well I didn't directly address the 'home' part because I just don't see it as being hugely impactful - especially at the highest level. Being at the Vic isn't going to magically make one of the worst defences ever at this level twice as good, just because the players are slightly more familiar with the surroundings. That 'terrible defence' aspect is powers more important/influential.

I don't really see why we'd be particularly expected to be resolute in the way that those two teams London referenced were/are, either - we're not in any way a Stoke or a Burnley - under Xisco, especially, we are pretty much the exact opposite. It doesn't make any sense to expect the never-say-die bloody-minded organisation of the two teams most known for that in the past two decades of the Prem, when we barely had any tactical organisation at all, let alone the relative quality of the defensive players involved.

 

With all this 'dirty' money coming into the premier league the chances of small clubs like Watford remaining in the division are diminishing year on year unless they also get a massive cash investment.

 

??

 

Gerrard to Villa, really hard to tell how that could turn out but would be great if he slips, sorry, flops.

 

All things being equal, given your use of the past tense I assume you are talking about the seasons all three teams got promoted, and the stats suggest very differently.

Watford conceded 30 goals all of last season, whereas Stoke conceded 55, which is pretty poor for a promoted side. Even Burnley, who have mostly been solid under Dyche, with the exception of 2018/19, conceded 35 in their second promotion. Between QPR and the end of the season not one opposition player scored at home, and I thought that would carry over to some extent into the following season (of course, I didn’t reckon on Sierralta being unavailable most of the time, sometimes for inexplicable reasons).

I looked at Stoke’s signings for the 2008/09 season and clearly Abdoulaye Faye and Higginbotham made the difference, and likely experienced central midfielders Olofinjana and Amdy Faye (although you can’t tell me those two were any better than Sissoko and Kucka on paper): https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/stoke-city/transfers/verein/512/saison_id/2008. But still, I’m surprised a slightly weaker version of a defence that conceded 30 goals should be that much worse than a defence that conceded 55 and added just two central defenders and no full backs.

 

Well I literally said the way those teams 'were/are', so no, I'm not entirely talking in the past tense, but regardless, this is mostly irrelevant - this is the point of my last reply anyway, but I'll make it again - drawing those kinds of conclusions/predictions from what our team did last season, defensively in particular, is/was misguided, for all the reasons I stated.

Just listing goals conceded for each side is meaningless if you don't take into account any of the context - no one is saying we didn't have an amazing defensive record last season - the more relevant part, though, is how and why. That is what explains the disparity between last season and this, and why it was folly to expect it to carry on.

The Championship is a different league to when either of Burnley or Stoke were promoted, and last season was a special case of its own, plus Stoke and Burnley (Stoke in particular) were going up into very different leagues to what we have arrived back in. I just don't see the comparison in the first place, given the way we achieved the defensive record, and it clearly doesn't bear any fruit given the subsequent reality.

 

Well, OK but I am not convinced.

I've heard that Sir Elton John may also be a celebrity fan?

 

Psh, doubt it.

But based on that Jay DeMerit video above then Alan Shearer might be another one!

 

Celebrity cash wouldn’t be nearly enough. No doubt Elton is loaded, but I highly doubt he fancies splurging a couple of hundred million on some ungrateful footballers that could be left to his family instead.

The game has long since moved on, for a club like us you need a billionaire as an absolute minimum to make a dent in the top half and then stay there indefinitely.

Mike Ashley’s net worth is £3.4bn and even he didn't fancy burning a few hundred million a year on some ungrateful beer bellied geordies.

You need someone who can afford to spend at least £100m every year, year in year out, and not be worried about ever seeing it again, that isn’t most ‘celebrities’ if you’re talking about people like film stars and musicians etc.

Generally if the people who can afford it are celebrities, they’re only celebrities through being stinking rich, like Elon Musk or Bill Gates.

 

Paging @The undeniable truth.

 

Oh yeah also, when I was said 'relative quality' I was talking about our players relative to who they were facing last season and this, not relative to random old Stoke and Burnley sides.

 

On a tangent. Mike Ashley is one of the most under rated premier league characters of the last 2 decades. The bit when he vomited into a fireplace and the rest of the sports direct boardroom cheered is brilliant.

 

Fwiw I think you can survive in the PL without it, much like we did for five years, I’m talking about becoming an established top half team with little to no threat of relegation. I think that needs somebody who can regularly pump in a few hundred million with no return other than the value of the club on their balance sheet.

I think it’s slightly different for the clubs like Arsenal and Spurs, as their income dwarfs ours, so they can in theory tread water in mid table with minimal investment from their owners own pockets. Of course the fans don’t like that much though, and of course to buy one of these clubs you needs a spare billion or two in the first place.

 

Frank Lampard's Norwich, Steven Gerrard's Villa and moneybags Newcastle are going to hoover up all the media focus outside the top 6.

 

So we go under the radar - lovely!

 

I'm sure there will be a nod to us on the day we go down.

 

You need to get the right flow and cadence:

It’s Frank Lampard’s Norwich City and Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa.

 

Well after he leaves his £2million a year job for the BBC, he should have an extra day free each week ( at least for 38 weeks a year) to tweet to his hearts content.

 

Maybe Rangers should look at the guys who have just been sacked at Newcastle, Spurs, Norwich and Villa as possible replacements for Gerrard as all four would probably do just a good a job for them as he did.

 

Fixed for you

 

Not sure why the club are posting this on the official site as it wont affect us, however, just out of interest here are next season's arrangements for the Premier League season.

A complete shutdown from November 14th until December 26th.

Premier League Statement: Season 2022/23 Dates - Watford FC

 

1 weeks preparation with the national team for a World Cup is absolutely appalling.

 

That's a great point, but I suppose it all comes down to how important do people think the World Cup is compared to club football, i.e. does anyone really care if England do well or not? Of course some (including me) do, but I suspect there will be less interest in this than a normal summer tournament when people are more likely to get behind England because there is nothing else on, football-wise. For many, Qatar will be seen as an irritation disrupting the natural rhythm of the season.

 

A 6 week international break in the middle of the season is absolutely appalling.