Can't say I know tons about Colchester, but a few more names I recognise in their XI for the second game of the day, including their captain Tommy Smith (no, not that one!). Will we have followed suit by having a stronger XI for this game?
It is really frustrating that we are limited to the Colchester United media pages to get the bare minimum information about the game today.
This is the most important game of the season for me, when I calibrate how soon to start booing the team. And the club have ruined it.
Unannounced player(s), Hughes playing, players being worked on before a final decision being made on who stays and who goes, certain players excluded from the line ups giving away that we don’t want them, the kit. Pick any of the above for the reason(s) behind the secrecy today. My guess, we’re playing in one of our new kits.
I get that today is just at the training ground so the club probably haven't bothered with any info, just like they didn't bother against Millwall until after the game. It's probably a bigger deal for Colchester going to a massive Premier League club.
We're currently scoring a goal every 30 minutes in pre-season. If we transfer that to the league games then I calculate we're going to score at least 114 goals this season.
Should be enough to finish second, behind Man City once they sign Kane and Grealish, and shafted us 9-0 in both fixtures.
The Hornets’ first-team squad gained crucial minutes in two training ground matches against Colchester United today. In the first of the 60-minute games at London Colney, Watford ran out 2-1 winners thanks to Isma*la Sarr’s penalty and a Dapo Mebude goal. Alan Judge was on target for the visitors. A new line-up of players then defeated Hayden Mullins’ Colchester 2-0 in the second match, with Cucho Hernández and Dan Gosling among the goals. Today’s games followed Wednesday’s 3-2 friendly win over Millwall, in which Domingos Quina, Adam Masina and Ashley Fletcher were on target at Watford’s training ground. Watford put this on the website 43mins ago.
I'm quite happy with this. I predict Fletcher 20 Dennis 15 King 15 Pedro 15 Sarr 15 Deeney 15 Cucho 10 Sema 4 Gray 0
He can do the defensive work of a wide player but at Huesca he was pretty lethal through the middle, albeit in the second division. Depends on the system but it's good that he's adaptable, as are a few of our forwards.
I know it is only preseason, but this attack looks seriously exciting. If we plug the CB hole, then I could easily see Sarr, Cucho and Pedro with King, Fletch, Dennis and maybe Mebude as backup getting enough goals to finish in the top 10. If we don't concede tons. Troy, Success and Gray don't have a way into the team anymore.
We won 2-0, with Cucho and Gosling scoring, yet they're described as being only "among the goals"? Were there other goals being scored around them which no one bothered to count in the final score?! Or did Gosling and Cucho spend half the match playing about with the netting?
We’ve all played like this in the playground. After a while everyone loses track and someone says shall we call it 3-3? This new relaxed approach will work well in the Premier League for us. After City get their first six we can suggest we call it 2-1 to them.
Good idea, though the match report will also still be rather confusing: "Man City beat Watford 2-1, with Jesus, Sterling, Bernardo Silva, Mahrez, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Walker, Foden, Mendy and Dias among the goals".
