Has he scored or assisted a goal yet? He looked excellent for us as well at times, also without adding either of the above to his game. I suspect Millwall fans are getting carried away due to seeing a flashy player for once
I'm not 100% sure but I don't think he has. I completely agree that his ability on the ball without an end product on a consistent basis does make him the type of player that regularly flatters to deceive. He's actually playing every game and is (apparently) the best player in that side though so hopefully this opportunity allows him to add some goals and assists to his game. Come the end of the season we'll have a better picture but I think it's harsh at this point, after three MOTM performances (on his team at least), to then berate him for a lack of goals etc.
1 win, 1 draw and 2 defeats in the 4 games since he joined them. 0 wins, 0 draws and 4 defeats in the 4 games prior to joining them.
According to whoscored.com Diego Fabbrini of Millwall has the 12th best pass completion in the league (91.3%). He is one place ahead of his namesake at Watford who has 90.6%. However, they both trail behind the Championship leader: none other than Bernard Mensah, who has an incredible 100% pass completion rate so far this season. Let's hope he can keep it up!
For Millwall fans it must be like watching a stripper on The Titanic as the ship slowly sinks. It won't change anything but it helps take their minds off the inevitable horror.
I can't help but feel that if this was O'Nien or Byers out on loan and got 3 man of the match awards right away everyone would be saying how well they are doing and how they are taking their chance and showing the clubs they have something to offer us. Seems a shame that Fabbrini continues to be a boo boy when he is consistently playing well at this level.
So, another game, another MOTM performance from Fabbrini. I can't see how Watford fans can view his excellent form as anything other than a good thing for us. Either he comes back to us as a better and more confident player, or he continues to increase his value and we get some £££ for him. Some comments from Millwall fans: He's their only real bright spark at the moment. I think he'd be getting more assists if they had someone other than Ricardo Fuller, Lee Gregory, Scott McDonald and Stefan Maierhofer up front.
I'm happy that he's performing well. Very happy, just some goals and assists now would be nice! Don't think the Byers argument is relative. If Fabbrini was a 19 year old home-grown youngster then I'd be more excited. Truth is we've all seen Fabbrini have more than one shocking game for us hence why people are cautiously negative. All good signs so far although I do question how hard it is to please Millwall fans but we'll see!
The O'Nien and Byers analogy isn't a great one. They're both younger, are both home grown and both have hardly had the opportunity to show what they could do here. If either went to a Championship side and started performing really well of course we'd be keen to see them return. Fabbrini has shown he's useless here. So much so the WO continue to report he was excluded from the squad and training as a result. I'm glad he's doing well at Millwall. Hopefully it bodes well for April when he will probably have one last chance to save his Watford career by showing he can play a part in what we're doing. But if he reverts to falling over again then I imagine he'll be gone by August regardless of what league we're in.
Maybe if Hoban or Murray then were doing it on loan at a championship club. I know Hoban is starting for us but has come under criticism for his recent performances. Say for example if we sign a CB on loan and Ekstrand came back, then it might be a better analogy if Hoban was to be loaned out (or Murray when he returns)
If Sean Murray was doing what Fabbrini is doing at Millwall, people would want him back. If you think 12 sporadic league starts is enough to brandish Fabbrini 'useless' then fair enough. Despite him producing MOTM-worthy performances some of those starts. Is Ikpeazu useless because he's not training with the squad? If you could find the quote that specifically names Fabbrini is either a disruptive influence or too useless to train, please do so.
As much as it may hurt you, the movement in this transfer window quite clearly showed who them comments were about. Dyer, McGugan, Andrews, Ranegie & Fabbrini. I don't think Fabbrini is disruptive, I would assume he was the one who just not fitting into training since we don't have a Number 10 role or a winger role in the 3-5-2.
Ikpeazu is a weird one to bring up. To the best of my knowledge he was never signed with the expectation that he would be anything other than a development player. We've already done the quote thing on this thread. This is no quote from Jokanovic. Frank Smith continues to write that he was one of the four excluded from training (as recently as Thursday he was still writing it - http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/11773349.Hornets_confirm_Ranegie_has_joined_Dalian_Aerbin/) I certainly wouldn't say he was disruptive. Which by default leaves 'not up to it' as the only other logical reason to exclude a player. You seem to forget the '12 sporadic league starts' are a direct by-product of his poor form. Appearances are earned aren't they?
The Observer's numbers did not add up. Keith Andrews left this club on deadline day; whatever you say, that is a fact. If we believe, without corroboration, that the Observer is right about four players, then why was Andrews not one of them? When they put to Jokanovic the four players they believed it to be, he refused to confirm it, and then spoke about 'some' players (didn't even confirm it was four). If you choose to believe without question what the wobbly prints to sell hits, that is up to you, but the Observer has not named a source for their claim or even declared one to be anonymous leaving it to be an opinion and not news; you shouldn't expect others to get caught up in the same trap that you got snagged in. The Watford Observer is great, and Smith does a good job, but they get things wrong: the Player Power story regarding Beppe was wrong, and they were big enough to eventually publish an explanation of why, but they continued to report it as a major factor over Beppe's last weeks, until they got to the truth of the matter. So it's not impossible that they are reporting in misunderstanding of the facts now. Hey, you may be right, but at the moment there is only unsupported news paper speculation to back you up, even though certain facts, Keith Andrews, that suggest strongly that it is at least a little erroneous.
Fact is at the moment he is still a Watford player (albeit one out on loan) and I for one would rather read about him playing well and picking up MotM awards that about him playing 5hite, as for him not providing assists or scoring goals, look what he has around him to work with. At the end of the day you cannot polish a ****, and in footballing terms that is what Millwall are at the moment. OK he didn't do it here, that's why he's out on loan, but he is doing it there, and could well come back a better, stronger, more confident player, and any Watford fan that doesn't want that is a strange kind of fan.
I'm not expecting anyone to get caught up in anything. You choose not to believe it, fair enough, I think we all get the message now. To me it's perfectly logical. The fact is Jokanovic got rid of everyone one of those players in January, Fabbrini included. Fabbrini hasn't appeared in a single Jokanovic squad even as an unused sub. The actions speak louder than Frank Smith's words in this case. To me they provide corroboration. To you they're meaningless. Neither really matters.
Have Millwall seen any more from Fab than we have in previous outings? If he starts consistently scoring or creating goals for them, then fair enough, that would be impressive Otherwise it would appear that their expectations and the relative standard of their squad are simply much lower
There's a difference between not being good enough and being in a team that doesn't have a position for you. Fabbrini is a winger, or a number 10. 3-5-2 doesn't have either of those. Thus, he's gone on loan. It's not difficult.
So what's the point in bringing him back in April then? Are we changing formation before then? What formation do Millwall play?
An extra option? Injuries? Didn't we switch to a 4-3-3 at some point yesterday? I believe they've switched around but they play with wingers, usually with Fuller as the focal point.
We did and often do. And that's my point. Joka loves 4-3-3. It seems to be his preferred formation not withstanding the fact the squad is built for 3-5-2 and he's left often starting with that. Yet he couldn't even find the opportunity to put Fabbrini on the bench for god's sake. I understand the home-grown rule plays a part but you're not telling me there wasn't a single game he could have given him a go in when we moved to 4-3-3. Even with Forestieri having an injury prone year he's preferred to play Vydra in the hole.
That is cool, and you choose to believe what you believe, and "I think we all get the message now". Just to recap though, five former first team players left, not four. The Wobby has confirmed that the four players they named have left, but they have not been able to confirm them to be the players Jokanovic was talking about (when they tried, Jokanovic did not confirm either names or number), which leaves room for speculation. There is also another who, at this moment, has a question mark over his head, given that he was mentioned along side Renegie and others as a possible disruptive element at the end of last season, who may not be playing for us at the moment because he is injured, or may not have been sent on loan because he is injured. I hope Ekstrand is not one of the players excluded by Jokanovic, but he was as closely connected with end of season unrest as Ranegie was, so I have a nagging doubt there, which I think one or two others may share, and nothing in the Wobby has removed that concern. If the Wobby could just say that there is an anonymous source at the club that has told them the names I could start taking it a bit more seriously, but they have said nothing about a source, so it remains only their opinion.
