Never ever understood that line ‘only fit enough for the bench’. If a CB gets injured in minute one, then he needs to be fit enough for 89 mins. Fit enough for the bench, fit enough to play.
Well, the bench is unarguably back up to the starting 11, so presumably when a squad like ours has injuries, and the manager is forced to take a risk with a half fit player, they'd think on the balance of things that it's slightly lower risk to start them from the bench.
Happy with that lineup all things considered. Especially with the formation. I hated 3atb when we did it with Ivic and hated it when we did it with Edwards. If you don't have personel for it or if you don't know how to implement it properly with the players available, don't do it.
4 3 3 or 4 2 3 1? It's probably formationless as Bilic is planning on playing total football like the Dutch in the 70s.
Yes, it's just a shame those players don't play like £5m and £6m players and that money could have been used to replace players who have underperformed for us for 5 years.
Watching from a bar in Cyprus. On holiday with a Man Utd fan, so doing back to back games. Feel like such a lad.
I do think he's overly criticised for what he does; decent finisher, decent awareness in the box, gets shots off on target enough to force saves. Does however have a first touch that pays homage to André Gray and cannot play a target man role despite his frame. But he's a £3m striker at most.
He has decent movement and can score, but any centre-forward has to be able to reliably receive and keep the ball. Bayo is very poor at that.
Real shame about Hause being on the bench. Will be interesting to see Gaspar play at RB, he should hopefully be a lot better with less attacking responsibility and with Sarr in front of him.
Also, I hung my hat on Gaspar being a good addition and someone the fans will take to. Today is the first day of that… (I hope.)
A tough start for Bilic with so many injuries leaving him with that defence. Sierralta needs to rediscover the level of performance he started the season with.
He's playing RB today though, and he definitely seems more suited to that role. A major problem is he was initially signed as a RWB.
Encouraging start, then straight back into our shell. Front 4 mostly non existent. Gaspar ok, but has the distribution of a non league player. Good to be ahead but rather obviously we need a 2nd
Thank **** we sacked Edwards. Football is a simple game and that man made it as difficult as possible.
A win!! My bets are hopeless. The horse finishes halfway down the field. Blocked according to the trainer and Watford win away. I did win a free ticket on the lotto. A good win for all fans today
Yep. We looked ridiculous doing it, but it was the right decision. Should never have been appointed in the first place
If they had pulled out all the stops and appointed someone like Bilic (maybe not Bilic himself as apparently he turned us down), I would have accepted and respected it, but to give Edwards 10 games without a proper team was mad
Fully agree. He cannot act as a focal point which drops him below that £5m mark. I like him and think he does more good than people give credit for, but his inability to hold and pass the ball like Davis can is painful to watch.
As soon as all our key players are actually played in their real positions we start playing well. Who'd have thought. Squad is clearly suited to a 4 atb , I'd rather win games with Bilic than 'send a message to the board' with Rob by playing Kamara RWB and Sarr in a front 2.
The defence of Edwards was that he wasn't given the players he needed, well that's just football, you never get all the players you want. The fact is that he left the side with rock bottom confidence
A glimpse of how good we could be , but we need to cut out the 20 min spells of over running the ball and **** passed also sky presenters hate us louza calmed the ship down when he came on , and nice to see the strikers score In our good spells , most players did well , but not sure about kanas Elle and Gaspar
