It seems to be a requirement of the job - to put your name to obviously stupid transfer moves. It's been a regular feature of enough coaches now and the only ones I can remember not toeing the line (Silva and Ivic) were shortly dispatched.
Cleverley seriously got his tactics and set up wrong If you miss p!$$ easy chances, Baah, Sissoko header & Bayo, at this level you get punished. We had zero control of the game, it was only for a two minute spell just before half time that we started to make close passing patterns, little 1-2s, triangles and keeping possession. The number of times the wing backs received the ball with their back to their goal was laughable, why did we keep playing short passes into the wide channels instead of trying to release people behind ? Basically it was crap.
Burnsy mentioned on Shoutbox last night that Morris was a League 2 standard player but last night he fitted in perfectly because everybody else played at that standard! Nobody really comes out with any credit from that but I will give Louza a little bit of a break. He is without doubt the forum boo boy and I think many write their report on him no matter what he does. There was even somebody who said he was waste of time last night despite admitting that they only saw the a small amount of the game. If we had a striker of any substance he would have had two assists last night and certainly did not give the ball away as much as the rest of the team. He's not been great, hence he's barely played but he was not awful last night. I want to like Bayo as he certainly tries but my god he is absolutely woeful. I would give Jebbison a run in the team just to see what he's like because Bayo is without question not the answer Strange subs again, especially Ogbonna. If going 4 at the back take Morris off, very strange unless he was struggling Last night was the worst we've played under Clevs and Saturday is really important now to see if we get a reaction. The fact is though, we are 8th and I think we would have all been pretty happy with that at the start of the season but games like that have a habit of knocking the stuffing out of you so it's a big ask. On the plus side we simply cannot play worse than that.
I remember some getting excited about Louza after a performance against the mighty MK Dons but think we know where we is really at now.
I would like to add that all the subs that did come on were just as rubbish as the players they replaced. It was just one of those nights.
We were of course missing our best 2 players in TDB and the highly-rated Jebbison, so we do need to cut TC a little bit of slack.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Watford player with as much talent but so little enthusiasm to play as much as Imran Louza. The closest is probably Roberto Pereyra but even then he was more talented and could turn it on more than Louza can. It’s blindingly obvious he doesn’t want to be here.
He's been hanging around like a bad smell for far too long. He joined a very toxic dressing room and was part of the most unenthusiastic team to represent this club I have ever seen. Certainly not going to miss him when he finally leaves.
I don’t see it this way. Whilst I’m sure you’re right that he would like a move, I didn’t think he looked disinterested yesterday. As we have him we should use him. He’s way more talented than your average championship midfielder.
This about sums it up for me. He's a good player, I'm sure of it. But we aren't getting the best out of him. Part of that is probably down to him, part how he's used and part what is around him. It's a shame, but it probably is best if he leaves, if he stays, I always do feel that at least he offers us something different. In style he's probably more suited to the PL to be honest, just not really good enough for it.
Did anyone else watching on Sky keep getting Watford related ads every 10 minutes? I was looking out for PNE equivalents then, but they never appeared. Does this mean Sky know who I follow? In any case, I wonder how that deal works - who pays for that exposure (the supplier?) and who do they pay - Sky or Watford, who their contract is presumably with directly?
Got to say I think there may be something in this. I've assumed that it was part of an early season sorting out thing. Also I wonder if he talked the side into a defeated mind set with his talk of needing rotation of players, even 'though he may be right.
I think a lot of his good qualities aren’t suited to this division but also the position he plays. Always saw him as more of a final third player. First touch, final pass, shooting, agility are what I believe are some of his better qualities. Work rate, tackling, strength, all things required in the deeper position, he certainly does not possess. Undoubtedly talented but just doesn’t seem it’ll happen for him here. Think he was one of the better ones last night mind.
I've got a long standing prediction with some poster on my ignore list, where I guaranteed he'd be a 100m player before he had even started a game for us, and I'm sticking with that.
This season very much feels like one with a rookie manager feeling his way in. There have been some real Highs and lows so far. I didn’t see the Preston match but it does seem like Tom is being a bit naive at times , coupled with players putting in very inconsistent efforts . It feels like when it all comes together we can produce some great attacking football but it can equally all fall apart. Our lack of a decent no 9 confounds this as if we had someone who could finish consistently we could potentially haul ourselves back into matches even when we are playing badly. It has the feel of a mid table season with maybe the occasional flirt with the top 10 which is ok by me. The biggest conundrum is upfront though . Bayo looked like scoring occasionally in the past but he seems to be missing everything at the moment. Jebbison has looked ineffective so far ( but needs more of a chance). Doumbia not ready . Trying Baah was a decent punt , but did we miss his impact from wide? At least we seem to be putting in the performances at home and let’s hope that continues vs Boro !
I'm intrigued what it was you saw him doing that made you think he was "growing into the game" and "putting in effort"? I quite accept that I am not fully au fait with all the intricacies of modern football, but what was he contributing towards our cause? How did he progress us forwards towards the opposition goal, link up play, slot through inventive and creative passes, take on an opposition player and beat him, win an aerial battle or defend effectively? When the ball comes to him, he almost never controls it and looks up, he never carries it towards the opposition goal. On many occasions he simply does the 'straight back at ya' wall pass and sends it directly back to whoever passed it to him. On others, he plays an ultra safe 10 yard backpass to a defender or the keeper, achieving very little indeed. The idea behind passing in football is to give the ball to a teammate who is in a better position than you. But Louza also specialises the the short pass to someone in a worse position than himself - a teammate marked closely, whilst he himself had time and space to do something much more creative and progressive with it. He did make one single blind hack forward down the wing, which fortunately fell for one of ours, but that was the only mildly positive thing I saw him do. Otherwise he vaguely jogged around the midfield, waving one arm regularly as though he were directing things and seemingly trying to make himself unavailable to receive the ball by being well behind it or hiding behind an opposition player. I was astounded he stayed on, but maybe TC, like you, was seeing something I was missing. What was it you saw and I missed from his contribution?
Two passes/crosses that had we had a half decent striker would have ended up as a goal. Part of his job is to create chances. He did that and we blew it
Lets face it the performance was awful, no fight, no defensive awareness re the goals conceded, no ability to score the goals we should have done, I was very lucky that straight after the match I was in the prediction league office, hence took my mind off what I had witnessed and confirmed that it had been an equally miserable night for all Prediction League participants!
As @Knight GT says, there were some potentially game changing contributions that were wasted. Apart from that, maybe it’s down to interpretation. I have seen Louza play much better than that and I have seen him play a lot worse. In those poor displays it seemed very obvious that he didn’t want to be there. Now I would say it looks like he’s sorted his head out. I certainly didn’t think he was hiding, but I imagine his confidence isn’t sky high. Would love to see that come back, because that would make all the difference to his game.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zv4q...ey=36g9grmidr6mb2xdyeezkqyl8&st=6kg27e1t&dl=0 Not sure why anyone would want to, but the options there @BigRossLittleRoss @Sahorn @Vic
