Sort of what QSF 2.0 and Mullins had to contend with. QSF had Arsenal and City (yes, that game) - Mullins had Arsenal and oh, guess who? City. I would of thought common sense prevail here. If we do have to make a change, let's get the Month of Death out the way first - but, I doubt Gino will wait that long.
Funny, I see it differently, and I don't see the problem with posting stuff like this online at all - to me it's not even really a rant, let alone laying into the players, just saying it how it is. The problem with most promoted sides, apart from the intrinsic lack of quality compared to most other teams in the Prem, is mental/psychological - the players are so used to winning and dominating most games, stringing together a dozen or more passes through teams, and winning the ball back on most occasions they give it away, that they struggle to cope with situations when things aren't going their way, as will happen most of the time at the top level. I believe this is what Giaretta means when he says the players must "grow up" ie adapt quickly or sink back down.
I meant funny in the sense that Newcastle played so well (not that their performance was perfect by any means, with their inept finishing and habit of giving away needless throw-ins) yet still failed once again to get three points, not that our performance was.
Giarettta is the master of the positive platitude. It’s the first time I’ve seen him post something critical. I found it a bit surprising and a sign that not all is well.
It has some good sports journalists and some cr@p ones like most papers. It annoys me because all the other match reports are done by journos who've been to the game. Week after week it's the same old shyte for the Watford report unless we are playing one of the more 'attractive' teams. I like to see someone's professional opinion about us as sometimes you do get some interesting insight. Not this current drivel. It's a total lack of respect paid to the club and it's Watford supporting readers. Just saying like.
Don't worry, when Delia and Co. give Farke the boot, Gino will be on the blower fast than Deeney can get to a burger bar
Thanks so much for posting this. I’ve been wanting to see it again for years, especially the legendary Rankin save, and have never been able to find it. I had forgotten what a great game it was. How amazing to see through today’s lens how much the League Cup (3rd round!) meant back then and how a 3rd tier team was able to go to somewhere like Old Trafford and really take the game to their opponents.
Great find. I’ve looked for loads of these old videos over the years but looks like “you orns tv” is the place to find them.
I don’t mind anyone drawing attention to our often risible play or the deficiencies in our defensive line up. But the fact remains that most of the psychobabble about player or director motivations is just that, babble. The coach will play players in the best form. The ideas that he doesn’t because variously he’s a boy in a man’s body, or a happenstance appointment like Forest Gump, or mad or intellectually deficient are just effing daft. If he doesn’t play one winsome Championship CB (I mean FFS this is the Premier League, let’s not pin all our hopes on him) the reason will be explicable. If Munoz was any of the things you imply, the players wouldn’t like him and we wouldn’t have got promoted. It’s not 1950s Russia. We would know. He will probably not last. He’s struggling on limited time to get a tune out of 14 new players, assorted old men and some decent forwards. It needs to gel in the next 5-6 games. It probably won’t. But it won’t be because his brain blew a fuse over Sierralta.
The Sunday Times journo said that the ref was constantly barracked, mocked and booed off by the Watford fans. He made it sound like bullying xenophobia, as he ignored the ref's shortcomings. He said it was a "filthy" game, which it was, by modern standards, but didn't link this to the ref's inconsistency.
Maybe, but if it gets our players to buck their ideas up then it can only be a good thing in the longer run.
The Times if anything have been worse than the Guardian/Observer when it comes to match reports involving us (though I haven't read any for a long time, they may have got a lot better). I remember a dreadfully patronising report by David McVay on our game at Everton in the 1999/00 season, and their writers seemed reluctant to report on anything below the Prem, with disparaging remarks about the standard of Div. 1/the Championship. Their best reporter on Watford is Bill Edgar who's a stats nerd.
Yes, although I didn't discover that until relatively recently although he's written for them since at least 2000, when I first started reading his reports. At first I thought his style was overly critical, but then I warmed to him - he's always fair-minded without being biased, writing about us pretty much how many of us would do even when winning. The Telegraph had a Watford fan called Tony Francis writing for them for a while, but he wrote thought pieces rather than reports, in a somewhat contrivedly humorous and often wacky way. Some Watford fans liked him, but TBH I found him completely unfunny - BSaD showed how it's done, in writing articles/reports that are funny but with a purpose and serious context.
Think it was Telegraph who had some guy following us during the Boothroyd Premier league season and clearly he didn't have a lot of positive things to say! Maybe he was just fed up with having to watch us lose most weeks and listening to Aidy waffle on whilst his mates were watching the big boys. And as we know the clubs weren't very media friendly at the time. The worse report I remember was after then Leeds Play-off final when Louise Taylor basically said how dare a team like us get promoted playing as we did and what tough luck it was for Leeds who would surely be promoted with better players the next season (they actually got relegated themselves I believe) https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2006/may/22/sport.comment
I agree , but even a bozo like myself saw , during the 1st half , our "outball" player from a short GK was Sissoko. I knew Steve Bruce would sort this out and in the 2cnd half Saint-Maximan picked up Sissoko and as we had no plan b every GK ended up being played long . Admittedly we were slightly better in the 2cnd period but I was still surprised that we didn't have another player looking for a short ball
Yes, I remember that well - and there was this awful report from the same paper - you'd think they'd be nicer about us now that we were out of a league we didn't "belong" in! https://www.theguardian.com/football/2001/jan/08/match.sport18
TBH Ben looked very uncomfortable trying to play it sideways and was keen to just get it forward as anyone of his age probably would tbh but obviously we want to play differently even though our defenders aren't particularly good on the ball.. Names like Steve Watson and Stephen Hughes hardly sound like the sort of players who were going to be playing free flowing football tbh. And Water Smith wasn't know for it either. I think that Mooney goal was a typically excellent first time effort from outside the area...
Agreed. Absolutely fantastic keeper. A pillar of strength behind the defence as well in terms of communication.
I think in Coton autobiography it was a conflict of interest. Peter Swailes’ Man City would have had to pay a big chunk to Watford if he made an international appearance. Swailes as also on FA committee so used the reputation thing as an angle.
I know , it’s hardly like Vicarage Road is some kind of cauldron of hate . It’s more a mildly reheated apathy .
