We aren't getting promoted this season - not a chance. Bayo has quite obvious limitations but he is a clear step up from what we had to watch in that position last season. The team is better than last season. The style of play is better than last season. The effort is better than last season. It was a low bar to start from but the re-build will take a good couple of years, for the first time there are *signs* of change and that is a positive.
Factoring that in, that's the tally I think. He's a good shot stopper who's shown he's doing the sweeping part quite well I think. His distribution I expect will see some improvement over the Season but these first few months will be rough as this is already a naturally risky playstyle being exacerbated by a keeper having to adapt and improve.
And take a look at this shocking miss from a supposed Premier League striker in another game yesterday, that ended up also being scuffed miles wide! £30mil doesn't seem to get you much CF nowadays....
I'm generally positive after the game yesterday and agree with most of the player ratings, however there are a couple of players I tend to disagree about: Morris - I thought his defensive positioning was poor. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding his position, but it seemed like he didn't track his man much, leaving the flank exposed and a better team would've exploited the space a lot better than Plymouth did. He was reasonable going forward, but switched off defensively way too much to be a starter in my opinion. Asprilla - He was lively, ran at the defense and looked dangerous. But, I've seen a few people say it's a sign he's staying... For me it looked like the performance of somebody trying to leave on a high. Numerous times he had options, players overlapping or with space for a shot, but instead he went alone trying to get the glory. It looked to me like he was playing for himself and not the team. Like somebody about to leave would. Hopefully I'm wrong, we'll see. Other than that, agreed Bachmann looks out of his depth pushed up that high. In the Premier League we'd be conceding 2-3 goals a game from this tactic, but at this level it looks like we're going to get away with it more often than not.
Exactly this. It will cost us at times this season but over the course of the season the reward will outweigh the risk. The hysterics the first time we get caught out and it costs us a goal will be painful to witness, but it is an exciting style of football to watch.
I find it fascinating (and unexpected) that, what looked to the eye like an easy chance that should have been taken, has only an 18% chance of success, according to analysis of copious historical data.
His shot stopping ability is overplayed. I disagree but I could see why some think he is above average as a short stopper. However his ability with the ball is atrocious and it will cancel this out and then some.
Isn’t that because he didn’t take the ball further towards goal with the touch he should have taken? XG just compares to all shots from that spot and doesn’t factor in keeper/defence poorly positioned as it was for this one as far as I know.
Just watched the extended highlights. It's Bayo's finishing I want to talk about. He's a player you want to do well, as he works hard and he seems to be a really positive personality. He takes up some very good positions, but I think he can only score one type of goal. The back post tap in. He did that against QPR and Norwich last season. I think Rotherham away was a volley, which is admits to being his best every finish. The goal at Stevenage again was a back post side footed finish. Stoke away was another back post finish. So it's a pattern. Yes, I know the goal against Boro wasn't like this, but that's a one off. No goals with his head and he was supposed to have been strong in the air. I've not seen any evidence of this, certainly not for Watford. So, for me he's so similar to Gray. Works hard, finds good positions in the box and he's instinctive. First time side foots are his thing. Give him time on the ball and a moment to think what he will do, and his legs go to jelly. We saw it yesterday, when he was through, but took the shot far too early and scuffed it horribly. He did the exact same thing against Palace in the friendly too. I seem to remember he did something similar at Preston last year in a 0-0 draw. Like Gray, he has absolutely no composure in front of goal. I wouldn't have backed him to have taken that goal TDB scored against QPR. Currently, Bayo is our only option up front. Maybe Ismael is playing a little game with the board and saying, Healey is not my type of striker and Bayo can't take chances where a certain amount of thought process is involved. So, he's forcing their hand. It's going to be painful watching Gino spending money without the Bayat washing machine, but this is something he's going to have to do if we are going to be relatively successful this season. I don't blame Bayo for costing us three points yesterday, I blame Gino. He's not furnished the squad with players that can do the job. I won't blame Bachmann for all his poor passes and being caught on the ball which WILL lead to goals this season, I will blame Gino for ensuring we don't have a keeper that can play the manager's system. Ismael is doing a good job. The vast majority of players have upped their game. There are promising signs. But football is all about scoring goals at one end and keeping them out at the other. Personally, I think our defence is decent at Championship level. If Hoet can maintain the form of yesterday, he's going to be an asset. Maybe involving him in the leadership group has played to his ego and he's taking the job seriously, as he feels valued. If that's the case, it's a very shrewd move by Ismael. We lack on the right wing. Sema does his best, but I don't really think he can do a job there. He just doesn't have the pace. God knows what's happened to Kalu. Was part of the pre-season, in all the photos, but once it comes to match time, he's not even in the squad. We still have Ince, and I think he'll actually do quite well in this team, so I'm hoping he can plug a hole there. Asprilla did a good job when he came on, but I like seeing Asprilla more central, where he can destroy teams with his passing, like the winning goal chance he set up yesterday. We've got some quality. Asprilla, Georgi and Louza are our ballers. Ince will probably be at the level of Martins, but will be adequate. I've always liked TDB, and hopefully he can stay injury free and we'll get to see a real player emerge. I shudder when Livermore enters the fray though. He looks massively unfit and overweight. I don't like players you have to protect on the pitch. He's a liability with his pace and we have to use other players to cover for him. This isn't ideal. Not sure why it's so damn hard to sign the right players. I do not buy into the story we have no money. We've coined nearly £60m in transfer fees, spent next to nothing. I'm not saying money isn't tight, we all know the debt Gino has placed the club under by his idiotic running of the club, but there have to be some funds available. 21 senior players out the door and only 5 coming in, leaves a healthy reduction in salaries too. We do have money to spend, and we've got to do the business now, before we drop more points along the way. Already 2 points down now due to inactivity in the market.
Other than putting the ball wide when he was clean through near the end Bayo did okay IMO. I thought he was unlucky not to find the back of the net on at least two occasions, and I think he will definitely reach double figures for us this season and possibly he might get as many as 15 to 20 goals in all.
I think it does take into account in where the defending team are positioned, but clearly doesn't factor that the striker can take the ball closer to goal and make the opportunity easier, put it this way, if your average striker gets into that position with the oppo where they were, you'd expect the ball to hit the back of the net more than 18% of the time
I agree, the fact is, it doesn't look as he can play up front by himself, often yesterday there wasn't the support in front of goal when the ball was bouncing around!
Varies from model to model, but the Statsbomb model tracks goalkeeper/defender position as well, their attempted lob of Bachmann was 0.07 xG for instance as he shot was relatively unopposed with Bachmann miles off his line whilst Bayos shot in the first 10 mins that just missed the post and was taken between the penalty spot + 6 yard area was only slightly higher at 0.09 xG due to having so many bodies around him
That depends at what level surely. As with Bachmann's passing, I think people have too high expectations of how clinical Champ strikers typically are. Those talking about how better teams than Plymouth will punish our mistakes passing out from the back, Plymouth seem like they could be a fairly average Champ side this season yet most the time they didn't even get shots away after they received the ball with Bachmann miles off his line.
Not desperate to moan at all mate. I’ve praised the performance. It’s frustrating though that we should have come away with all three points. Our performance deserved it. A major reason we didn’t, is because of Bayo. An average championship striker buries that chance or at bare minimum hits the target. You put any of Phillips, Vydra, Deeney, Graham, King, Pedro, Ighalo, etc in that position yesterday and I would put my house on it that they all hit the target at the very least. Andre Gray did the same thing. He got himself into good positions all the time, problem was he fluffed them, like Bayo. We’re not talking about half chances Bayo is missing, these clear cut chances. You can’t afford to carry a striker that misses 3-4 chances a game in this league. VI and Hoedt were clearly talking about Bayo in their post match interviews. They know he should have scored. My expectations are the floor for this season. All I want is us to play good football, which we are so far. Fight and play with passion, which we are so far. However I do expect my striker to score easy opportunities when presented, not miss most of them. I’ve predicted us to finish 16th this season. Thing is it shouldn’t be 2 goals in 3 games, we should be talking about 5-6 goals in 3 games.
If it’s all better than last season and we finished 6 points off the play offs, that would suggest we’re in with a chance this season. I don’t think play offs are out of reach this season. I would be surprised but I look at the teams who made it last season and would be amazed if anybody would have picked them to finish 3rd-6th. Maybe Boro. you never know in this league and we’ve had an encouraging start. A couple of astute signings before the window slams shut and we could have a chance
Well, considering xG is based on the supposedly 'average' striker, I'm just saying the metric, useful as it is, is flawed as that was a more than 18% opportunity. I remember our promotion, we did equal the Championship defensive record, but boy were there some glaring misses from opposition strikers! I think this season the quality of the division is higher, but not massively so, after all, these players are in the Championship for a reason
I'd say the league as a whole is stronger this season. But it is an unpredictable league so you can never say never, I just don't see it happening. Our squad last season looked like a mid table squad to me and so does this seasons, just with differing approaches.
Well yes, that's my point. Probably, but it's also one which in line with the above you wouldn't expect to see scored every time at this level either.
Angles, angles... (image taken from one of the matchday vlogs people do). It was a bad miss by Bayo, he had to at least hit the target and he missed it by some distance. In his defence, the ball from Asprilla was perfectly angled but ever so slightly underhit meaning Bayo had to chop his stride a little just before he shot because of the direction he was running across. I thought he should have taken it on another touch too but wasn't completely unreasonable to take it first time. It's definitely not a sitter though. His other two chances were both difficult, the volley in a crowded box trying to hook it from behind him and his shot from the Andrews cut back was well blocked.
That Bayo chance isn’t as easy as some are making out. He did hit it poorly though so no complaints with that part of the argument. But those goals aren’t always scored - as Reids has shown us they are scored 18/100 times. 2 goals in 3 games. I would imagine this is in line with what he’s expected to score based on the expected goals model - @reids ?
I’m still more concerned at how sh1te he is whenever a high ball comes in…that’ll lead to more soft goals conceded than via average EFL forwards taking adequate advantage of his misplaced passing out from the back.
I think yesterday showed us that we clearly need another striker, especially if Healey ends up being a dud.
It’s a shame Ismael wasn’t managing the squad we had last season. A proper system and a kick up the backside was perhaps all they needed.
To be fair, prime Matt V would love to play for us if we keep on like we’ve started. He’d have double figures after a handful of games if he was playing instead of Bayo.
Don't have xG data (good xG data anyway!) on the league cup game, but between the 2 league games he's taken 1.58 xG and scored once
Asprilla made more passes than Sema despite being on the pitch for less of the game. Was Ken playing for himself and not the team as well?
Thanks for the reply, that’s a shame then as he’s below (slightly) in the league, but could be bang on including the cup. Personally think he’s taking a bit too much slack this early on. Not saying he’s definitely ‘the answer’ but doesn’t appear (to me) to be ‘the problem’ Edit - I would definitely be on board with and really hope we do get another striker.
To me he absolutely rushed the chance because he doesn’t have the confidence in his ability to finish in those situations. For those old enough to remember Gary Penrice, when he first came to Watford, scored those one-on-one chances time and again (way, way above 18% of the time) because he was certain he could do it.
How many shots did he have? (Genuine question, I don't know). And Ken just wasn't really making an impact. Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk
Yeah I agree he made a hash of his chance so deserves criticism for that one moment. But it still doesn’t make it a chance he absolutely should score and also doesn’t mean he’s not good in other situations. I’d say poor effort in a situation where strikers don’t normally score but can and do 1 in 5 times. And yes I remember Penrice, really good player who I liked a lot in a poor era for the club (overall)
Doubt Stevenage will help his stats greatly. Should think the chance he scored was a moderately high xG. And then in the second half their keeper saved a Bayo tap in from 3-4yds which I guess would have been an even higher xG too.
