Surprised at all the doom and gloom. This is what you wanted isn't it? No premier League football, just fun nights in the championship. You just can't beat the excitement of lousy players scoring own goals. I love it!
That could be a massive point for us, puts us seven points above relegation with most results going our way. If only Asprilla had slipped in Ken in the first half!
Do we not get lousy players scoring own goals in the Premier League? Kucka v Norwich springs to mind immediately.
Laughable announcement at the end tonight of a 16k attendance. I was there and it was closer to half that, embarrassing
Terrible first half, bit better second half. Andrews looked miles off the pace first half, he was crap and if he wasn't 'one of our own' he would have had a few more grumbles. Bachmann shouldn't have come out for the ball over the top and Andrews shouldn't have headed a ball back on target. Both at blame. How much blame you equate to each is irrelevant - they were both to blame. Dennis was a waste of a shirt and at one point in the first half I genuinely forgot he was on the pitch. He has been an awful signing. Lewis, same old crap but still managing to get worse every week. Asprilla - bags of talent but his decision making is awful. I know lots of people immediately like to jump to his defence if anything remotely negative is said about him but he seems brainless at times.
I agree with most of what you say however VI doesn't have to pick either of them . He could play a false 9 or he could play one of the CBs up top and if that player gained good possession just once in a match and the rest of the attack played off him then that's an improvement. People say " yeah but Bayo presses well " but that means he didn't get possession and if he he could get hold of the ball then he wouldn't have to waste so much energy pressing.
Lewis looked a really good loan signing when it was announced. We've either killed him or his confidence was shot to pieces before he joined. He adds nothing, and subtracts a hell of a lot.
Completely the wrong club to come to when returning from a year out or whatever. I’m sure he’ll go on to be moderately decent again elsewhere.
I'm not sure he did, he just had the hype tag. My brother in law is a Newcastle fan and he was quite clear in his view of Jamal Lewis and he has been spot on. Duff player who seemingly got carried in a decent team for a season and has managed to blag a career off the back of it.
My son got mugged yesterday on the way home from school by some feral c*nt on an e-scooter wearing a balaclava, who made him hand over his coat. He was really shaken up but said he still wanted to go to the game to take his mind off it. I don't know whether to thank Watford for being so pathetic and half arsed in an empty stadium it made things seem not that bad, or whether to be angry that things are so bad there's zero joy or anything uplifting. Val certainly appears to live up to his "can't last a season" history, but the squad is so weak it feels partly academic. It's all on the tw*t in the director's box ultimately.
Ahh sorry to hear that. And for a coat. Poor lad. I would suggest reinforcing that the vast, vast majority of people in the world are good. Except that mugger, our players, Val and Gino of course.
Sorry to hear this, where was that? Some people need a claw hammer to the head (the mugger, not your son).
A different mistake to what we're used to, but still typical Bachmann in the sense that he made some good saves but still ended up costing us. He's one of the better goalkeepers in the league in terms of pure shot-stopping, but in just about every other area he's sub-par
I get what you're getting at - I'm a bit surprised any club loans us anyone - but he just looks like a nothing defender. No presence, no great tackling ability, not strong on or off the ball and not a particularly good passer. At times he's a willing runner and other times he's not. Whatever the reason he's clearly got zero motivation being here. Which begs the question of what he's looking for to perform. Presumably a side dominant in possession and on the up where he doesn't have to do much actual defending?
I don’t think we will go down. But given we will inevitably sack Ismael at some point in the very near future, I suspect Gino (to an extent) will regret not doing it last week (or even a few weeks ago) and allowing Ismael to burn through a relatively easy spell of fixtures with little to show for it. For once, it may be that when you look at this season in total isolation, Gino’s trigger finger wasn’t itchy enough.
Hardly played the last 2 seasons, not unlike Danny Rose (except a bit fitter!), I must admit I thought his time at Norwich would at least be a positive sign that he could do a job in the Championship, but even that was 5 years ago now!
Leighton Buzzard, normal route from school. There's a group of wannabe badmen who speak like "dey is proper G's innit" that seem to be responsible for loads of stuff, including picking off school kids. I'm all in favour of the claw hammer treatment.
They just don't know when to be decisive anymore, Silva, Gracia and Xisco could have been sacked months before they were, in the end, all were sacked at a halfway house time which didn't do us any favours at all. In the past, you feel he would have been gone the minute the rumours started, what's the point of keeping him if you know you're going to van him?
I don’t recall much of him from before he got injured at Newcastle so can’t remember if he was just an overhyped English player or if he was any good. Taking away the usual ‘come on u orns’ bias, none of our players look any good and look completely devoid of confidence and interest, which isn’t going to help a player trying to find those aspects after a long term injury. He’s very much like every fullback we’ve had since the Holebas era. Seemingly ***** at defending but with more ability going forward, which fits into the Pozzo philosophy of being completely and utterly ignorant of the defensive side of recruitment.
Really sorry your son went through that Robert. I hope he's ok and give him a hug from me. Idiots on the estates will never change, it's the culture of today's youth and it's only getting worse the closer to London and the bigger cities. I do hope you can get his coat back at some point. At least the players' did their best to make it a better day.
Lewis makes Holebas (and any of our other former Pozzo LBs) look like Maldini tbf, and he's little better than Morris going the other way
I would easily have Morris in over Lewis for the remaining ten games of this awful season. Morris gets a bit of stick but at least he competes for the ball and does things. Lewis can be shipped back to Tyneside with a "non RSVP" note attached saying "never again...". He undoubtedly can be a talent, but he either cannot be bothered or has lost his ability to change a game. I'll go for the former.
We had a proper go - for the first time in months - and that's all I ask for now. The stats back that up as well. Despite having way less possession (36.9%) we had more shots (20-11), more dribbles (12-7), more aerials won (23-13), more tackles (20-13) and more corners (9-3). On a whole, I think we just about deserved to win that, but I'll take a point. One step closer to safety. Can we have only in-swinging corners from now on, please? Bachmann - 5 - Typical performance from him. Disastrous decisions and game changing saves all bundled up together... credit for not letting the OG affect him too much. Andrews - 5 - Such a mixed bag. Looked rusty, but his pace is always valuable. Get him back in form quickly. Porteous - 7 - Blood and thunder. More positives than negatives and generally glad to have him back despite his rash decisions sometimes. Hoedt - 8 - Great captain's performance. Leads by example. Lewis - 3 - Don't know if he's just bored, knackered or simply not good enough. Would much rather have Morris there. Livermore - 5 - Not his finest performance and rightly subbed at HT. Looks tired. Dele-Bashiru - 6 - Poor first half but grew into the game in the no. 6 role in the second half. Might be a good long term solution there. Dennis - 5 - Sparks here and there, but still doesn't look match sharp. Next month, maybe? Asprilla - 6 - Hit and miss. Always looks dangerous but little paid off yesterday. Sema - 5 - Needs a rest. Bayo - 6 - Great pressing with high intensity. Didn't have much luck with the ball, though. Chakvetadze - 8 - Changed the game completely for us. Charged through the lines again and again. Just lacked a little bit of composure in the box. Kone - 7 - Positive contribution and seemed to enjoy having TDB in the no. 6 role behind him. Rajovic - ? - Not a footballer. We lost all intensity up front when he came on. I'd much rather play Ince up front as a false nine. Ismael - 7 - Credit where it's due. He changed the game plan and mixed up the team selection and formation. When things didn't work he did the proper adjustments. Changing to 4-3-3 at HF with TDB, Kone and Chakvetadze in the middle was the right call and took Paterson out of the game. One positive thing that has come out of the bonkers experiment of playing TDB at right back is that he now looks much better defensively. I really hope he gets a run in the team in the no. 6 role as a deep lying playmaker type. Livermore needs a rest and TDB is a better ball player.
Was it an expensive coat? I only ask because it happened to a mate very recently for his Canada Goose coat, this wasn’t Watford but round the Chiswick area, they pulled a knife on him when he walked out of a pub! How your son is OK anyway.
Agree with these ratings, except too positive about Dennis and negative about Andrews. Hoedt was absolutely up for it, geeing up the crowd, smashing a ball with his hand (off the pitch) back to Bachmann, and superb cross field passes. But mainly they play like they have never met before
Both Asprilla and Dennis were guilty last night of being greedy with goal attempts when there was a team mate far better placed. Fair enough if we're 4-0 up , you can expect a bit of greediness, but when you're trying to get back in the game or trying to nick the win, why blast it at goal when you've got half a dozen players in front of you ready to block the shot. Val needs to drum this into them........ if he somehow manages to keep his job.
I also wonder what they do in training. Surely Val would be doing scenario sessions where our defenders attempt to play out whilst being pressed continuously by another bunch of mainly forwards, and he "coaches" them his ideas. Obviously not. I've said it 3 years now, other teams/managers know we're brittle at the back and don't like being pressed, so their first tactic on the list is just "press high" and we will struggle. Nobody is frightened of us, At all...
Was decent at Norwich. Klopp wanted to take him to Liverpool but Norwich priced them out - and he ended up at Newcastle and I have it on good authority that his attitude wasn’t good after all that. Then he got injured to boot, Newcastle got taken over and he was deemed not required…and I think we have been the recipients of all that.
And anyone that's ever played football would tell you not to play a hurried, no look back-pass between your own posts. It's a schoolboy mistake (though when playing full-back for the school team I'm sure I never made such a mistake). If in doubt, put it out. Or at the very least put the ball wide of your own net in case you or the GK mess up. As an aside, though it doesn't make any difference to my above point, while Hoedt wasn't under much immediate pressure from an opponent, he had got himself in to a rather panicked muddle with his poor touches beforehand; the team had also made some errors in the build-up to the incident, meaning he had found himself in a bit of a panic to get rid of the ball. He even went with his wrong foot for the pass, which indicates the mess he was in.
