Anyone can be negative and you will be in most instances proved correct . Where I work there is a font of all football knowledge who announces at every WC or Euros that England " won't win it " . He is probably correct as he will have Spain , France, Germany , Brazil, Argentina etc etc in his locker against one team in England . Ask him who will win the WC\Euros and he cannot tell you . But every other July he struts around like a peacock as he was "right" because England never won
You misunderstand. My prediction is 18th, so only a couple of places below you. I’ve never said we would be relegated. That is a misconception spread by the forum spin merchants. I’ve only said a relegation fight, as a club finishing 18th could be considered to be this. The club is broke because if the idiocy of our owner. He’s screwed us over and we’re left with the dregs no one else wants. The results are better than performances, but I do not see good results are sustainable playing the way we regularly do. I see the Bristol performance has been quickly swept under the carpet, but it has to be considered and not dismissed so readily. We’re not building anything, we’re just trying to make do. I think fans are so onboard because we’ve not sacked a manager and the players tend to not give up quite so easily. But these are all things that should be standard at any club, not something to be necessarily celebrated. I think VI is doing a fantastic job, but the squad is crap. Our fanbase are a bit like receiving a pair of socks and a recycled gift at Christmas and pretending it’s everything they’ve ever wanted.
My take, I thought we were sharper than them all game, many times we nicked the ball off them when they had possession however in the first half we shot ourselves in the foot by trying to be too clever and over complicate things. we had lots of decent positions but always wanted more time which led to fluffing our chances, goodness knows how many one on ones we had! their goal was a good cross from right on the line, over the stranded Bachman and a free header for their CF to put the ball in the back of the net! We continued to huff and puff, but in the second half upped the stakes when Andrew’s came on and TDB went in the middle, our goal was similar to theirs a simple cross and a good header from Raj! The way Hurtado ran reminded me of a young GNW, very raw tried to do too much, ran into trouble, put one decent cross over which everyone missed and claimed an assist for TDB’s goal. An interesting match, typical FA cup tie, even had a rainbow over the stadium in the first half, onto the 4th round and away to QPR next Sunday!
We are always crap in these games for some reason. Chesterfield were a decent outfit, they will walk promotion and likely to be in the hunt at the top of L2 next season. TDB took his goal well. He is a car crash at RB but a decent career in midfield at L1 is ahead of him. Martins was anonymous again apart from trying to win cheap free kicks. Asprilla was crap and seems devoid of any football intelligence. It took him until the 76th minute to find a yard and put a decent cross in which got us an equaliser. 2 minutes later he's in an identical position with the box nicely loaded and awaiting a cross - but instead of putting another cross in, he cut inside, got crowded out and flopped on the floor holding his face. My wife turned to me during the game to ask why he always goes backwards... Rajovic is hopeless outside the box but incredible in front of goal - get some facking quality balls in the box. Healey looked like a fish out of water, on that showing it is clear why he sits behind Rajovic and Bayo for a starting spot. Bachmann looks like his confidence is shot to bits, coupled with not being very good at the best of times it was an uncomfortable watch.
I don’t think anyone is brushing the Bristol performance under the rug. It was disappointing. However we followed it up with a decent point with 10 men against stoke and a messy draw away at Plymouth. And a decent second 45 today, has helped us avoid a shock ejection from the cup. You seem equally happen to brush the performances at Preston away quick enough? Or the comeback at Blackburn? Forget about the ownership side of this because we are all on the same side there, but this team is not as bad as you are making out.
The absolute cheek of this guy to try and parrot this lie again just a few weeks after he already blocked me for having pointed out out that he was spouting b0ll0x and did predict a few times across the season that we could be relegated. If anyone wants to a fun challenge, copy what I posted in reply before below and see if he's so thin-skinned as to block you as well: https://wfcforums.com/index.php?thr...ich-town-12-12-2023.60666/page-6#post-3297443
For clarity are you saying Pozzo is an idiot, our squad is crap and we're in a relegation battle but won't go down and most of us got socks for Xmas?
But Preston and Blackburn were not good performances. They were amazing results but we could have lost both just as easily. This is what people can’t grasp. A good result doesn’t always mean a good performance. I thought we played much better against Southampton and Ipswich but only got a point. I recognise when we play well and are unlucky.
Earlier on in the season we weren't getting the results our performances deserved, but in the other direction - the home draw with Plymouth, the 1-0 losses to Stoke and Blackburn, and 3-3 draw with Coventry were all games we could have got more from on another day had the breaks gone our way. Someone should point these out to the thin-skinned poster who has me blocked because he can't stand being corrected.
As the competition progresses, we will be more likely to be the underdogs. I am happy that we are in the 4th round. Happy we avoided a reply. Reasonably happy with the 2nd half performance today. Enjoyed the last minute winner. I wouldn’t be as negative on the team as others on the forum. I was frustrated at times today. I thought Sierralta, TDB (at right back) and Morris were problematic. Not sure about Bachmann for the goal. Healey is limited, certainly as a lone striker. Our new Colombian needs to settle in before we can judge him, but he got an assist. Other than that, we were ok (special mention on Asprilla’s 2nd half efforts). TDB was much better in midfield. The team’s attitude was off today. I saw that Val had a chat with Andrews after the game. I think he was criticising his casualness towards the end presumably because he ran into trouble in his own half and sloppily let the ball over the sideline under his feet. His attitude is usually spot on, but those incidents were indicative of a general carelessness today, throughout the team. I think they will brush that lethargy away and get up and running again. If we had been playing a Prem team, we may have been more focused and alert today. Anyway we got over the line and now face tricky away games, but our away form is decent at the moment, so there are reasons to be optimistic (maybe!!!’). Fair play to Chesterfield, btw, a good professional performance from a non league outfit.
Almost. I don’t think it a relegation battle anymore, unless we completely fold, which is not something I’ve totally discounted. Our ace in the pack is Val. He’s the only reason we’re not in the bottom three. Without VI we go down, but we’re not going down with him in charge. The discipline he’s installed, along with the fitness is very impressive.
I received some socks for Christmas. As I have at least 40 pairs of tennis socks,half unopened,this was something of a disappointment. Not a disappointment on the L*t*n being promoted scale,but a disappointment none the less.
You can’t always have everything you want, I will be happy with “amazing results “ or any win tbh, should they be a result of a good performance that is a bonus.
Performances have to be ever improving. That is progress in my book. Getting lucky results, however welcome, just confuses the real picture. That luck soon runs out. We could easily have lost today. Small margins went our way. No way did we deserve 9 points from Hull, Blackburn and Preston, but we got them. Very nice too, but I do not trust it. Just imagine had we lost all those games, playing exactly the same. I think people’s view would be totally different. Good results are masking where we really are, but I’m expecting the wheels to come off at some point.
Highlights- well some of it ! Nicely worked winner . https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/67873061
Not much to add to what’s been said already. The midgets came to town, headbutted us in the balls while we were showboating and then we squashed them in the best way possible in modern football. Heard one of their fans walking down Vicarage Road saying they didn’t want another game anyway, so they were glad there was no replay. More time to concentrate on the league than a cup they’d never win. That’s the magic of the FA Cup right there.
Looking at the BBC highlights, I really don't see what Bachmann could have done for the goal. It's a cross right on the byline that goes out to centre of the edge of the 6 yard box with accuracy and power that's bending away and there is no goalkeeper on this planet who can come out and try to cut it out from there. His positioning at the near post is standard for any level. I agree that Bachmann did not fill me with confidence as his passing and general play felt uncomposed and low on confidence with a few dud passes today but the goal is not on him at all.
Well below par today but that is typical Watford in these types of games. Yes, we played poorly today a against a much weaker side but I think there has been a bit of an over reaction by some on here.
Haven't seen us in the flesh for a while. Healy isn't the answer on that showing, and he is injured again by the look of it. But in the warm ups we did a practice routine of firing it into him, and laying it off for the midfielders. The routine was quite impressive with quick passes and movement. Come the game itself and despite Healy being in the right areas we decided it would be more worthwhile to ignore him and pass it around a bit at the back. Eventually he stopped making the effort as did Martins and Asprilla. Coincided with their goal but we ran out of ideas rather than had the stuffing knocked out of us. Martins and Asprilla on the wrong wings meant they both wanted to cut inside and make things complicated for themselves. Chesterfields best options were always set pieces and crosses, so what do we do? Leave them space out wide to cross it in and give away a series of silly free kicks. Once they scored they also gained a little bit of belief and also started to get at us a little seeing we were not tying to stop them. I thought they'd score again to be honest. They played it simple and quickly and it worked for them, we made our own life difficult and slow. I like the width we play with but I don't think we needed to be pinging 50 yard cross field balls every single time, just one simple pass was often what was required on multiple occasions but our decision making was horrendous (including Andrew's comedy moment where he kept the ball in then watched it roll out). TDB was good in midfield, Rajovic vastly superior to Healy but when he came on we put the wide men on their natural wings. Imagine the shock when a simple cross then made an impact? Who knew football was easy? (GT, the answer is GT). Sierralta and Hoedt did well dealing with a number 9 who seemed to think he was in a wrestling match, funny seeing the Spireite fans getting annoyed that the championship defenders and the ref (sometimes) didn't just allow it. Bachman was his usual. One very good save but a couple of comedy moments.
I can’t really get my head around Val playing Healey on his own up front. And the fact he had those three show ponies preening around behind him providing next to no service made it even worse. I’d really like to see us try two up top for a bit or at least as an option to change things up in match. I think it could benefit Raj too to sometimes have a partner closer by.
To be fair we rode our luck a bit against Hull but not many teams will go there and get three points. We showed real grit and determination in that game and got rewarded. We had more shots and a higher XG away at blackburn and although we didn't really show up in the first half against Preston we ripped them apart in the 2nd half. We won 5-1 at deepdale.
Joao Pedro showing today how poor the club has been at coaching players - used effectively he'd have got us promoted by himself last year
