Anyone know how long Quina is out for ? I wonder if he can finally prove his quality after a mildy sucessive La Liga loan spell.
I will never, ever, forgive Leicester City for filling fans of so many clubs round the world with false hope that their team will one day achieve something.
Hey don’t be down, you might get to another cup final thirty years from now. That’s great going for a club like Watford.
Got round to watching the Arsenal game, a few thoughts: We were basically 1-1 until the kids came on, and the penalty which was just never a penalty, which isn't too bad. The biggest concern was that we generally looked too ponderous with our passing and lacking in ideas or desire to get the ball forward. Too often we just took the safe option backwards. Playing this way goals will remain hard to come by. Zinckernagel was crap again. I wondered if preseason would help but he still looks off the pace relative to most around him and gets dispossessed far too easily. He does popup with the odd key moment, but I'm not sure it's enough to compensate for how much of a liability he is the rest of the time. I remain unconvinced by Louza. At least he was a bit more creative with his passing than others, but he was terrible defensively, constantly chasing shadows. He might eventually be alright as the more advanced midfielder, but him starting early on as one of the two deep-lying midfielders would be asking for trouble in the PL. I also still think we'll have issues if we need Ngakia to make regular starts, lost the ball for the goal, and Nketia had him on toast. King didn't seem to offer much tbh. Sure he'd prob do more than Trondre, but it's a low bar. Fletcher looked rapid and honestly I thought he seemed far more of a goal threat than King. I'm not convinced either will get enough goals, but Fletcher got some earlier in preseason and came close today - some of you could be eating your words if he continues to look our best CF option. Dennis looks a menace, as many have already pointed out. His decision making in the final third could improve but there are still promising signs and he seems more of a threat than Sema. I'm also curious how he'd do at CF, but between him and Cucho LW is prob alright. Etebo should do well for us - Doucoure who? With Yokuslu hopefully joining to partner Etebo, I think our remaining priorities should be upgrades at #10 and CB. Striker might also still be needed if we can get a clear upgrade. We'll also need to hope Kiko is back fit asap.
Agree r.e. Louza and Zinckernagel. Both are too easy to get past, but we need at least one for their creativity. Louza was the better of the two yesterday in that regard. Assuming we stick with the 4-3-3, we should play Etebo, Yokuslu (assuming we sign him) and Louza. Three different players there - Yokuslu the sitter, Etebo more box-to-box, and Louza the creative spark.
Perhaps if we play both Etebo and Yokuslu we might be able to play someone more offensive in the #10 role. Cucho ended up there against Stevenage and WBA and Pedro could also play there, both having good defensive work rate.
Yes that could work (with Cucho, not sure about JP starting). I'd only consider it at home against teams we'll be looking to beat though.
Pre-season games are usually a false perspective to what happens when the proper season starts. So I am happy to wait before I decide how players are doing.
Man U have called off their friendly with Preston on Saturday due to a number covid cases. Bit of a trek but maybe Preston would welcome an alternative opponent?
Nice tweet from Cucho after the WBA game 'Vicarage Road was incredible today. Thanks to the fans for the support after such a long time without being able to enjoy (being with) them'
So that’s Preston and Sheff Utd without a fixture now on Saturday. Hopefully we’ve been on the blower and arranged a game with one of them. Knowing our luck, they will play each other instead.
Seems a nice lad. He also responded to a tweet by one or fans wondering whether he was going to get Cucho or Hernandez on the back of his shirt. Will make it a bit less painful when he moves to Cadiz on deadline day.
Surely all players must be double vaccinated by now …. Or are players getting it despite vaccinations…..or is just pingdemic enforced isolation ?
Maybe our transfer business has been so slow because we’re only signing players who are fully vaccinated. Once the other clubs start losing players to COVID, we’ll romp to safety.
You can still carry and be affected by the virus despite being vaccinated. Officials have been very clear about this from when the first experimental vaccines were started. As far as I know they are still experimental. We are guinea pigs.
They’re no more experimental than any other. You can carry it when vaccinated - your immune system won’t spring into action until you have caught it. The question is the number of vaccinated whose systems sniff the virus out before it hits vital load critical for transmission. Vaccines are not completely effective, as pointed out, because individuals’ immune response vary from person to person. Therefore a proportion of the vaccinated population can pass it on and a (smaller) proportion can still be affected by the virus, albeit with lesser effect than if they were unvaccinated.
It sounds like have managed to sort out a pre-season friendly with someone today at the training pitches: https://twitter.com/jasonhorwood92/status/1421414995536011266
Assuming when he writes inter-club friendly, he means internal. So based on that assumption we’re playing the u23’s or the first team 11 are playing the other first team 11.
Yeah you are probably right. We have about 3 squads worth of players so it probably makes sense. Fully expecting our resident spelling Nazi to write to groundskeeper now and correct his message.
There's no better preparation for the season than playing your teammates in a training ground kickabout.
Fair points . It's annoying as this is only 6 miles down the road from me on the same day I'm going to Leavesden.
