Just watching the highlights to confirm my thoughts at the time. 1. He had plenty of time to take a touch and set himself. 2. The keeper is so far out of position, all he had to do was tuck it in at the near post, so much space. 3. This really is a shocking miss. 4. Anyone that thinks Bayo is the answer to our striking problems is an idiot.
I don't think anyone has suggested he's 'the answer to our striking problems', but if he keeps doing what he's doing: earning himself 2/3 good chances per game by getting in promising positions, he'll score a decent amount of goals over a season, as shown already. Even if he has a few especially wasteful days like yesterday. Watford fans so desperate for something to moan about after 2 good performances that they'll choose to scapegoat the striker with 2 goals in 3 games. And it's other fans that are idiots. Classic!
It's not moaning for the sake of moaning tho. Bayo is not going to shoot us into the Premier division Yes he scored against QPR and Stevenage and has got into good scoring positions in all 3 games . But that is the very least he should be doing ,playing up top as the focal point of the attack in a team that has had the lion's share of possession in all 3 matches. There will be games where we only have 30%-35% possession at most and this is where his game will be exposed .
Whoever was booing at the final whistle. **** off. That was a decent performance, but more importantly the players put 100% in. If you boo that you may as well stop watching football. We just have no finishing touch at the moment and clearly a side that is still adapting to a new coach.
Lol! In his defence , and this is typical Watford to have an important piece of the jigsaw missing, it is not his fault that there are few other options
If you're wanting a striker to shoot us into the Prem then no wonder you're moaning! Adjust your expectations! This is where we're at now. Most players we start will have some major flaws to their game. But as long as they're showing some desire and working hard I think they should be supported. It's what people have been demanding for the past few years, I thought?
Expectations ? I'll give you observations instead I have seen this team play with a completely different spirit from last season I have seen players all over the pitch at a 6-7-8/10 standard We have a very strong bench. We have good players yet to play because of fitness/injury The league table does not sort itself out until at least 10 games so we will not know how good\bad\average QPR and Plymouth are until then. But from what I have seen this season I am enthusiastic about our chances to improve on last year's position. And a decent striker will be a benefit to us
I was impressed by what I saw yesterday, we had a defined style of play and looked like a team. Both full backs played well and Hoedt was immense. Sema needs to be dropped for one of Asprilla/Ince/Chakavetzde, whilst he is better defensively he is huffing and puffing offensively at the moment. Bayo tries but is playing a role that does not suit him, he shirks any aerial battle which means that the ball is always coming back at us. Martins is a different player to last year, stronger and more direct. It also looks as though he has an extra half yard of pace. Defensively we coped well and only limited Plymouth to two good chances in the same passage of play. The only other times they got in was when desperate Dan decided to spice it up by passing to Plymouth players. Plymouth were a solid team playing for a draw with ten men behind the ball when we attacked. They played smart football, employing the dark arts when they needed to and played the atrocious ref well. Didn't think much of Mumba tbh. They should be fine if they play like that the rest of the season. Thought the atmosphere was the best it has been for a long while and was good to see the bunker back open pre game. The crowd did still feel nervy throughout but it's been such a long time since we had some belief in the team it's taking a while for it to translate to the collective crowd. It was a very entertaining game and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.
Bayo’s first effort was pretty good when he just fired past the post but after that just seemed to not connect well or be alert enough at times . Think Louza is going to get a few crackers - another decent effort yesterday. TBF Bachmann did come out well and pull off a very good save but yes definitely taking risks with the passing. They all seem coached to do it !
In fairness he did miss a couple of very good chances yesterday which would have most probably won us the game and then missed from 2 yards out to win the game in midweek, the criticism is justified and fair in my opinion.
Bayo was the reason we didn't win and Heodt was the reason we didn't lose. He bailed Bachmann out a fair few times when Plymouth did put us under pressure (which was, to our own making rather than them being on top). I like Bayo and think he has a place here as a squad player, off the bench striker which was ironically what Gray became during that purple patch he had. Problem is who else do we have? Healy, who hasn't been given a real chance yet to prove himself and.... erm... yeah. A lot of our goals are going to have to come from midfield. Louza, Martins and Asprilla are more than capable of scoring goals which until we sort out or striker problem will have to be our main source of them.
This may be controversial but I think if we keep him all season and he stays fit he will bag 15-20. However we still need another player capable of the same
And I'm sure he'll miss plenty more, too. The point I'm making is if he keeps getting into those positions, he'll also keep scoring. As a mid table Championship side, that's about standard for a striker
Left the game frustrated with the result but pleased with the performance. They defended well but got lucky at times. We all know Bayo has his limitations but had he tucked his late chance in would he be getting stick, thought his over all performance was ok and he was not alone as to being the reason we didn't score.
The club have already said that another striker is being sought, hence the number 9 shirt is currently vacant. Bayo is more than adequate as cover for a mid table Championship side We are not in the mix to go up this season, and nor should we be, as we would end up an embarrassment to the Premier League as Luton will be this season. We now have a group of younger players who need to develop on the pitch over the next couple of seasons.
0-0 But the score line far from tells the story as we had numerous opportunities but we were let down by poor decision making in the final third. Morris & Andrews both had good games but need to work on their crossing as it let us down today. The amount of times we got into their box and all we had to do was make a simple cut back for someone to fire home yet we'd go for goal and hammer the ball across the box for no reason. Bachmann worries me, I think most keepers would struggle to play the way VI wants him to play but some of his passing today was dreadful. As someone else posted we'll concede a few goals from it and he'll definitely get lobbed but hopefully we're a few goals up at the time! He did make a couple of good saves though and it's another clean sheet so he deserves credit for that. Our centre backs need to be closer together as a number of times Plymouth were able to thread a through ball straight through the middle of them for their guy to be nearly in on goal. Plenty more positives than negatives though. Martins was lively. Hoedt had his best game in a Watford shirt. Louza struggled to get involved but did hit the post with a cracking shot in the first half. We're a good striker away from being a really good team.
But will his teammates keep looking for him in those positions if he keeps missing them? Going by the brief highlights their keeper didn't have to make a save from his 3 big chances yesterday. No point bawling the bloke out for not being good enough though as I think he's trying. But we've got to be looking for better. And it sounds very much like we are.
Also, a prime Matty Vydra would love to play against us, our high line and less than pacy CB's would cause us mayhem.
Considering nobody else gets in those positions and takes those chances at a better rate, yes, of course they'll keep looking for him
QPR were dreadful but they won at Cardiff, and Stevenage are unbeaten, so it does add a bit more context to our start. Sounded from what Ismael said at the fans event in midweek that the plan is to sign a player to add depth / competition rather than an outright replacement for Bayo. It does make me wonder what the point of signing Healey was. I hadn't realised that last season Healey played only four games for Toulouse in Ligue 1 – three in August and then a sub appearance on the last day of the season. He missed almost the whole season with a cruciate ligament injury.
I'd imagine so, yes? Especially if his scoring rate stays consistent to what it's been during his time at the club. I think if he plays 35-40 games this season he'll get around 15 goals. If we're able to bring in better than that (or similar, but with better link-up play), I'd be pleasantly surprised.
Which is absolutely the logical response if football was based on stats and played on paper. But it's not. We've seen enough in recent seasons with greedy and/or lazy strikers to know if they don't score the goals, the midfielders lose faith and begin to do their own thing. Martins isn't going to bust a gut battling down the left and skipping two or three challenges just to watch Bayo duff up another chance. He'll start shooting himself or looking for an impossible pass to another teammate.
I think more importantly it's the confidence that will drain from the team if those guilt edged chances keep going astray. Bayo knows where to attack in the area, this is a redeeming feature of his game however he has failed to convert bread and butter goals in consecutive games. He was unlucky with his volley in the 1st half no doubt. However the attempt when clean through was shocking. The nearest defender was on his left, the GK was in nomansland, he had time to take an extra touch and pass it by the keeper . Similarly the Plymouth number 9 had a good chance in the 1st half but appeared not to trust his left foot and just poked it at Bachman with his right. You would have thought that strikers at that level would have a decent "swinger"
He was a signing without thought. Ticked a lot of boxes. Free, injury prone and no one else wanted him. It was too good an opportunity to let pass us by. He's clearly not a player Ismael rates, so I wouldn't expect to see much from him until October at the earliest, once the next head coach comes in.
- Bayos miss near the end of the game - 0.18 xG (or an 18% chance of scoring), although was still the shot with the best chance of scoring (aka highest xG shot) that we took in the game. Could've taken it closer to goal though to improve that. - Our chances were relatively split up between our players. Surprisingly Andrews took the most shots (5 - 0.29 xG), with Bayo, Louza and Sema all taking 3 each (0.35 xG, 0.13 xG + 0.17 xG) - Plymouth almost matched our total xG but a good chunk of their xG came from Randells chance just after HT that Bachmann did well to save (0.27 xG) which throws things off a bit. Interesting that all their best chances came down our right hand side. - In both our league games so far our pressing (the pressure + pressure regains) stats have been about the same as our opponents, which considering we've dominated possession in both those games is impressive and backs up the eye test that VI has got the team pressing really well. We rank 3rd in the league for PPDA (passes per defensive action - How many passes does a team allow the opponent before making a defensive action - tackle, interception, foul) which is encouraging to see!
But Bayo isn't greedy or lazy, he's just a poor finisher, but nobody else in the squad (apart from possibly Healey, who seems to be out of favour at the moment) has a track record of getting into those areas and taking chances even at the rate of Bayo. We'll need someone to take those chances, and for now, Bayo is as likely as anyone to do so
But how many points will his shot stopping gain us? Surely they will cancel each other out over the season I think we would struggle to find a sweeper keeper who has his shot stopping ability because they would be playing in a top division.
