The Premier League - 2021-2022

Aw bless u RS2, that joke went right over your head! Are u related to R2D2 by any chance?

 

Played in the Copa America too, he's gonna be absolutely wrecked by November like he was for us!

 

Oddschecker, which averages all the betting companies, has us second bottom. Taking Watford-tinted glasses off, that feels about right based on relative squads today.

 

4 new refs in the PL for the new season:

https://www.caughtoffside.com/2021/...four-new-refereeing-appointments-this-season/

Harrington is the ref who was in charge for the battle of Bournemouth away. Brooks did the home games where we beat Luton, Norwich and Brizzle City so was a good omen last season. We saw less of the other two and the couple of Watford games they did referee were not memorable.

And it’s goodbye to Lee Mason, who moves on a free transfer to Stockley Park, while Mike Dean has decided to keep on going for another season.

 

Sounds like they're worried about how they're gonna get through our defence at the Etihad and see Kane as the answer

 

This is good news that Mike Dean is staying on. He's the only referee that gives us a fair deal in the Prem. Pleased to see Mason going, although he will still be haunting us from Stockley Park. Got to give the new guys a chance and hope they raise the officiating standards. The one thing the Euros proved is how appalling English referees are. The gulf in class was there for all to see.

 

Is there a rule that prohibits international referees in the PL? The standard of the Euros refereeing is what is required and the PL is a long way off.

 

Funny you should say that, as one of the 4 just promoted is Jarred Gillet, who is one of Australia's top refs. Though I think he's only on loan while he does a postgrad course at Liverpool Uni.

The reality though is at the Euros you see the best refs. I can't see why we'd assume the German or Italian leagues don't have their own versions of Simon Hooper or Lee Mason or whatever?

 

True, most remember the worst decisions. I think the worst officiated match was the ref who did the France v Portugal game. Doing a bit of a search he happened to be the same ref who did the ECL final.

 

I thought that Australian ref was awful when we had him last season. Too much whistle for my liking.

 

The big one is the BBC's Phil McNulty. Predicted we'd go down four seasons in a row when we stayed up, then thought we would be comfortable and we went down. We need him to tip us to go straight back down if we're to have any chance of staying up.

 

There is a crucial whistling section in 'Waltzing Matilda' so he ought to be cut some slack on that issue. Ingrained habits die hard.

 

It seems to me that the club is already looking at the parachute payments for next year.
The transfer dealings have been very poor. Players on a free transfer, complete nobodies and one player who may be ok (Louza) Unfortunately, his name is the banner will be playing under.
I do hope for the best for the new season but l see nothing, nothing at the club which makes me feel that we will finish other than rock bottom in the Premier league. Rocket bottom by a long way.

My three bets for relegation are Brentford, Palace and Watford.
Outside bets are Southampton, Newcastle, Brighton and Burnley.

My joker bet is that Watford finish with the lowest ever points total and fail to win a game away from home in the Premier league.

We are favourites with all the media outlets, UK and Overseas, to be relegated with ease. Not one of them has us down for anything other than relegation.

I hope for the best, but this feels like the GT promotion season and the reluctance of the club to strengthen the side. Result, relegation, almost by Christmas.

I think the club is already looking at relegation and is limiting its financial outgoings in preparation for season 2022/23 in the Championship .
Good business sense or a realistic understanding that the current team is simply not good enough to maintain Premier league status.

It will be an interesting season. Fingers are crossed, but l am with the overwhelming opinion of many fans that relegation is a foregone conclusion.

I hope to be proved wrong.

 

"Rocket bottom".

 

Where are all these predictions, I think I've only seen one (and yes we were 20th...), but is it a tad too early still for people to predict our inevitable demise?

 

People making final predictions before the window closes is pointless. I’ve said it before so I’m not going to rehash it all over again.

However I will break my rule, because if you think we’re finishing below Norwich then I am truly lost for words. We’ve beaten them the last 4 games in a row, with Buendia playing. We’ve played them 17 times since 2005 and only lost 5 times, one of which was a cup game. Buendia absolutely carried them in the Prem and in the championship. Losing him is the equivalent to us losing Sarr. No chance we finish below Norwich.

As of right now we’ve had a better window than most that will be in and around us.

As HB1 said in the squad thread, this years squad compared to our relegation squad is much stronger, bar CM. The club know this, hence the constant communication from Giaretta that we are after another CM.

Nath said it the other day and I agree with him, i’m quietly confident about this season. Think we will surprise a lot of teams. The pace that we have upfront now will make a lot of team nervous playing us. Teams won’t look forward to playing again Sarr, King, Dennis as a front three. Throw in Pedro, Cucho, Baah, Fletcher and Deeney to rotate/come off the bench and our forward options are very good for a team of our stature. The players want to play in the Premier League. The team chemistry feels like it’s at an all time high. The boys will be going into this season knowing the job at hand. They know what they must do to stay in Premier League.

Our squad depth overall is very good. Just one starting 11 CM away from having a complete squad that will be very competitive.

Whatever happens enjoy it. This time last year as we were going into the Championship season, our team was all over the place, disunified, players wanting out, club in a financial mess to the point that we all knew, promotion back to the Prem would be the only way of getting us out of it, and the list just goes on. Bottom line, most of us were thinking play-offs at best, some of us, including me, thought we had blown it. We didn’t. We’re back!

Fast forward a year and outside of the Hughes nonsense, it’s nothing like last year. Smiles on the players faces, players wanting to prove themselves, players laughing with each other, Xisco kept on so no managerial change. So much to be positive about.

Regardless of what happens, we are in a good place. We get relegated, we won’t be in so much as a financial mess as last time, and will have a competitive squad to bounce right back again.

Again, I don’t like making predications until the window closes, but as of right now, I don’t think we go down.

 

From the same guy who said we'd get relegated last season. I think you might be the most negative person i've ever seen. Cheer up mate.

 

The first part is fair enough, however, despite the question marks," bottom line" most of us still seemed to expect us to get promoted - probably due to the quality in the squad despite the disunity. 17 out of the 28 predictions on here at the start of the season had us in the automatic spots:

https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/championship-watford-predictions-2020-21.57468/

Brentford and Norwich will also have decent team morale next season so we also can't just rely on that to finish ahead of them +1 other.

This bit is also fair enough but pace isn't the be all and end all - Fulham had plenty of it up front with Lookman, Cavaleiro, Decordova-Reid, and Maja (with Loftus-Cheek sometimes supporting), yet they still generally struggled to score goals. None of their attackers were as good as Sarr at least, but as our relegation season showed when Geri got injured, we'll still need at least one of our new signings in either the CF or LW positions to a be a hit, otherwise we'll be too easy to nullify again with Sarr as our only real threat.

 

Also have to take into account that we have objectively the least impressive head coach in the league, to boot, of course.

 

Yes l did say relegation. Had we carried on playing the way we did against Coventry then relegation may have been on the cards.
I was surprised we got promotion. Pleased, but surprised. The Championship was so weak, you can only play what is put in front of you.
I do think our transfer dealings are poor in general.
I will enjoy the season. I anticipate relegation, so anything other than that will be good.
I will place my bets. It could be money lost, but who cares. It not called gambling without reason.
I totally agree, it does sound negative. What would you rather l say? We are going to win the Premier league, FA Cup and the League Cup. Go unbeaten and score goals for fun.
The middle ground or survival is nothing to speak about. Who does that?
It will be an interesting season. I do hope for the best for all Watford fans out there.

 

A spiffing post Sir!!!

As Malteser did throughout last season, long may you (and he/she) keep reminding us to enjoy the ride this season.

 

LOL, if we'd lost every single game 10-0 after Coventry, we still wouldn't have gone down!

 

What is the track record for all these various people who make predictions? We know about McNulty but what about the others? I bet they say any promoted team not a 'big' club like Leeds or Wolves, or the latest darlings like Bournemouth or Brentford, will get relegated.
One of Man U, Man C or Liverpool will be champions. Other Euro places taken by Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal. They will add their 'dark horse' to that which they will get wrong. Dark horses will be Leeds or Wolves. Mid table mediocrity will be Everton, West Ham, Newcastle and Southampton. The rest will survive.

That is written with no knowledge of the relative quality of any team's squad. Absolutely no research has gone into it. If these experts were any good they would make a fortune from betting.

 

Thank you Markoa. I enjoyed that, I needed that, you've cheered me up after all the negativity!

 

Probably true. To say if we’d played like we did against Coventry every game after that and as a result would have gone down is a bit of a stretch. Marooned in mid table, yes, but relegated? No way.

 

I've just looked at last season's predictions. I will only believe Folkstone Orn. One or two others were reasonable. I was rubbish.

 

What the **** are you talking about? After we played Coventry we were 4th with 48 points. Wycombe finished 22nd with 43 points last season.

 

Might have scraped into the play-offs, may even have beaten Swansea in the semis but we'd have lost to Bournemouth or Barnsley in the final, and that doesn't bear thinking about!

 

Genuinely looking forward to having Watford back in the league next season. I couldn’t give two ***** about any of the other Prem but I like Watford and seeing as I’ve been posting on here for so long despite some of the really unsavoury crisp based bullying I receive I’ve formed an attitude of badly wanting to beat you but being able to get involved in the bantz if we don’t.

 

You never predict anything but failure even saying we would get relegated last year. If you feel like that about football, why bother?

 

It just an opinion. It doesn't bother me at all.
As with England in the Euro final,. We lost. it felt not so good at the time, but the next morning all was fine. I don't dwell on any result, not at all.
You have your view and l have mine.
I never claim to be right or claim to be an elite member of this site.
I don't wish to conform to the desire of the owners of this site to kiss ass.
We are all fans, blinded by fantasy or reality, who really cares?

 

Aah, reality. Good to see you got the point of the message.
Excellent.

 

That wasn't the point, but it's ok.
It is what it is.