We have worked hard and listened to people in the home games clearly to some extent which makes the away performances even more frustration and confusing/. If we were just really bad generally then this result might be expected more - albeit not accepted.
Was that after they had to take off their 2 central defenders and play a wing back/midfield at the back though ?
Agreed, although being super critical there was one cutback I thought he could have taken a touch and hit but he tried a backheel that barely travelled an inch.
I normally agree / like your posts, but im absolutley baffled as why your scratching around trying to find excuses for what we saw yestetday. In the most important fixture of the season we produced that, the very defination of the undefendable. Its going to take a hell of a lot to turn my mindset, and i suspect many other fans, around.
Rumours that our end was chanting Edwards' name at the end of the game! You couldn't make it up (although I just did).
He had more chances than Bayo but what irks me is he really seems to avoid getting into a physical battle with a CB. I don't rate either, but at this point we're better off giving Jebbison a run of games because at least there's a chance he'll improve with game time that Bayo won't.
The thing is though - what we saw yesterday isn't really "a typical Championship battle". We'll get similarish types of games against the likes of Millwall, Preston and Luton this season. We'd have got them against Rotherham when they were still in the Champ. But teams who play like that and pitches like that are certainly no longer in the majority in this division. And as I've pointed out elsewhere, on the flip-side you've got fans of clubs like Stoke, Boro and Sunderland who have said that we've actually bullied them in the games against them this season. We also held our own in our game against Coventry this season whereas last year we were generally out-fought by them. Heck, we even actually already managed to win away at Millwall this season (even if it was narrowly) with them and their fans bang up for it. Again, that's not something which has generally been close to happening for us in recent season. I wouldn't call Sissoko a central midfielder unable or unwilling to "dig in" and "get nasty". There have been games this season where he's been immense and a battling machine. I also wouldn't call defenders like Pollock and Porteous that either. Are you already forgetting Pollock's towering displays with his Terry Butcher bandage?! With Porteous if anything he generally tries too hard to play nasty and win at all costs and ends up on the side of recklessness. While of course it would be good to have some more "grafters" in the squad, it would also be good to have more quality in the squad, more pace, more goals etc. etc. We're set-up with a focus on playing a certain way. Cleverley could do with being a bit more pragmatic at times with our shape and personnel, particularly away, but there are limits to how many types of players you can have in a squad when they'll only be wanted for occasional games or scenarios (as Rajovic found out). The lack of a good all-round number 9 has far more often been more of a glaring miss this season than a lack of steel. The most obvious overall difference maker for us this season though rather seems to be that the apparent intensity and energy levels of the team when playing away have too often been below what we've shown at home. I really have no idea why this is but it has often just looked as if we're too often playing below the level of what we've demonstrated we're capable of, and speed of thought or speed of body is somehow a split-second behind what it should be. Millwall and Man City have shown it's not impossible that we could reach the required levels away, but generally it's the home and away standard of performance which has looked night and day. Our energy levels though yesterday weren't actually as bad though as they were in games like Norwich (which was a very different type of challenge). Your post is another of the numerous short term, relatively myopic ones in this thread which are reading too much in to the single most recent game and trying to use it as the sole basis from which to extrapolate from, while having forgotten the actual broader themes and context.
Another thing was them being helped to do that by the ref who kept giving them free-kicks at even the merest whiff of contact - with Luton then using basically every free-kick the ref gifted them as the excuse to throw all their defenders long and hoof it in to the box.
I wonder if the coach the players travel on to match days is inadvertently pumping sleeping gas out in to the vehicle or something. Or the seats are too hard (or made of memory foam). Something like that.
In the minds of some fans who care about what people who live in a 5hit-hole not even that near to Watford think. At the end of the day though, it's still just one game away from home against a difficult opponent in difficult conditions which we didn't win and that was only worth 3 points - the same amount of points as any other game. We played worse against Norwich. But people didn't spit their dummies out to the same degree just because of who the opposition were. We were poor at set-pieces and struggled to play our usual game in the conditions, but aside from that people are making out like we were getting regularly torn to shreds while never troubling them, which wasn't the case. We're not very good away at the moment; we were before the Luton game, and we still appear to be after it. I'm not saying that it's great we're currently not able to be at our peak performance levels away from home, but people are taking other things from this one game that aren't there.
Luton are/were dirty cahunts themselves. And he didn't award the FK which really mattered when Bayo was fouled while potentially through on goal. If such top-levels stats really told the whole story then what about the one where they had 13 shots on goal and we were not that far behind them on 9?
What is so strange, immature, false or contrarian about saying that it was a: "5hit pitch, 5hit ref, 5hit game." ? It was a 5hit pitch, 5hit ref, and 5hit game, was it not? Sometimes people also try and complain my posts are too long, so I thought I'd give a six word summary as an intro for those without the will or ability to read more than that. Of all the petulant, immature, expletive-filled posts in this thread it is very odd that you would try and pick on such a basic, matter of fact statement as that one as being indicative of anything. Really clutching at straws there. And I've probably spent more time on self-reflection than everyone in this thread combined. That in itself might have indeed been a waste of time though?...
It's not short term as I've had this issue with the squad for the past three seasons. If you look around the squad, there are not enough strong characters to do well in this league. The broader themes and context is that this will be the third season in a row we're nowhere near promotion. And, in my opinion, that's down in no small part due to us not having enough players that can mix it for a 46 game season.
To tell you the truth I am not massively disappointed with the result and performance. I kind of expected it, considering how our away performance has been. Football is football, and results can go either way, but treating the fans with decency and respect is something that can and should be guaranteed. I didn't attend Luton away last time but yesterday was a shambles. It felt like a completely dehumanizing experience being herded onto coaches like cattle. No alcoholic drink is allowed on the coaches either. However, the club still dared to charge the club for the coach travel. This was made even worse by the fact I travel from North of Luton for games, so I had to travel further and pay more money for train fare. The guy working for the club, the lad that usually bangs the drum, appeared a bit rude and had an inflated self-importance. Luton fans will have the luxury of doing whatever they feel like at the game at Vicarage Road despite them being the club with a history thuggery and violence. A genuine question as I'm genuinely interested to know the answer but does any other club in the county have to go through this unpleasant experience to attend an away game against their rivals? I won't be going next season and that has nothing to do with the gutless players and everything to do with being treated like a ****.
I can accept that's your opinion, but imo I don't think it's been as evident or as costly in this particular season so far. Again, I'll accept you can have that view - but take a look at the teams of Leicester and Southampton which got promoted last season and tell me how many of them are ones you'd say "can mix it" at all?! Both teams seemed far from the profile of having lots of lower league battle-hardened cloggers. Nor did either team really ever resort to "hoof it in to the mixer and hope for second balls" football.
Swansea v Cardiff games get treated like this, I think also Burnley v Blackburn and Chester v Wrexham. It's pretty common in Europe.
Fair enough, it needs to stop; in my opinion, it completely ruins the experience. Would probably just think it is what it is if it was a two-way thing, but the fact only Watford has to oblige to these rules is a joke.
The 'reason' appears to be because L*t*n as a club do not offer such 'organised travel' then Herts Constabulary cannot insist on it the way Beds can. Maybe the solution is not allowing sale of away tickets for the game at the Vic.
Appears a bit a bit of a stupid rule this. Watford usually only provide a handful of coaches nowhere near the amount they have to for this game. I agree Watford should insist on it but they won't.
Just seen the stats from yesterday. One of our players has zero completed passes it you discount kick off, zero shots and zero successful dribbles and lost possession 6 times . Elite striker attributes my a**e.
What a surprise, a series of patronising and/or self-justifying posts to several on this forum helping them to understand how they have got things wrong. I'm sure we are truly grateful for the large helpings of tosh you supply. Who could have guessed this was on its way? From petulant to patronising, what a great leap forward in your posting style. I assume that the record-breaking time you spent on self-reflection has concluded and you've find that you have been right all along. To use your own posting style, what a happy outcome for you.
This.!!! My biggest bugbear about the championship and bottom eight in the Prem - is the way numerous (mainly foreign) managers seem to think that a) their theories, tactics and "way to play" are the only way to go, and b) they can coach their new current squad accordingly to great things. It rarely works and gone are the days where a manager says "I'm going to play these guys to suit their strengths". The biggest lunacy right now is "playing it out from the back" - from most teams that just don't have the players capable of it. GT would have loved to have been around to motivate a mob of keen players these days. I guess the fans in general create the pressure to play the beautiful game but right now we really could do with a Robbo, Mooney, Jenkins, Kennedy, Johnson..... (etc etc etc). I think Tom is letting our guys go long when needed but that performance at Ltn was heartless....
It’s actually really fun when you put one single person on ignore - it become’s hugely obvious that person winds up so many others and are genuinely a bit strange. Once more, this is aimed at the person you are ignoring as it’s incredibly obvious who it is, and not yourself.
There is a school of thought that managers who do this are using the club they manage to show bigger clubs what they are attempting to do and if they had better players then they would be successful. Think Vincent Kompany and that bloke at Southampton who is either planning to rip up the Championship next season playing out from the back or looking for a better job .
