Sorry if already posted, but from their forum: "Great day out all round. Very impressed with Watford. Parked up in the Atria Centre. Watfords answer to Meadowhall only a lot nicer and smack bang in he Town centre., loads of nice trendy bars/restaurants. 10 min walk to the ground. Good football chat with respectful, knowledgeable Watford fans. Wish them luck on their FA Cup journey and all the best for the rest of their season." Which begs the obvious question - How **** must Chesterfield be?
I feel I'm in a good position to answer this. ******* ****. Meadowhall is actually pretty decent though.
You seem to have a bit of a narrative about the Preston game being a freak result. Yes we could and should have been behind at the break, Hamer made some brilliant saves to keep us in it, but that’s what he is paid to do. Second half we completely took them to bits and could have had more. Go and watch the game again, it’s in the safe. It was a game of two halves certainly but it was not a freak result.
There is always an excuse for the popular players. They are wide attacking players, but they often slow the game down and are reluctant to cross to a striker who thrives on balls in the box. Martins has the same amount of assists as Sierralta this season. One trick pony - cut inside and shoot. Stop him doing that and he is a waste of a shirt.
I’ve seen the entire match. First half was relatively even. Both sides had big chances. Preston probably just shaded it though, but in the second half it was all Preston. They dominated, but we had 5 or 6 isolated attacks and scored from 4 of them. I’ve never quite seen a game like that before. It was a very strange match. Rarely does a team under pressure score from virtually every break away move, but that’s pretty much how it went. Hamer was MotM, so calling it a freak result was a pretty accurate description. But some people only see the result and look no further, and base their entire opinion on that.
Well I’ve watched the whole game too and see it very differently. Preston bossed the first half, we took them to pieces in short order second. We are going to have to agree to disagree.
Actually I was there. After 40 minutes I was contemplating bailing out because my train had been cancelled because we were so poor . It was not an even match . Then we equalised and the 2cnd half we just cut them to pieces on the break without them really offering much. Hamer kept us in the game during the first 40 and kept out a couple of late efforts when the game was won . This team has something about them . They can turn a bad 1st half/going behind around . Bristol City was a blip . IMO.
As I say, I watched the entire game too. Bayo went around the keeper and had his shot cleared off the line. We scored and I think there was another big chance. I’m talking more about the big chances both sides created. In the first half. I think Preston had 4 and we had 3. Second half Preston did dominant possession. It’s not true to say they didn’t. We just picked them off with 5 isolated attacks and scored from 4 of them. Our finishing was a different level for that one game. It was lethal and clinical. But Preston did dominate. They kept loading the ball into the box, but we continually repelled them. This is why it was a freak result, because a game that follows that pattern of play rarely sees a 5-1 victory.
Well if any of our players could pass, cross and shoot well, they wouldn't be here, would they? We were talking about Asprilla, who has been our most productive wide player this season, but if you're talking about Martins, you can't just ignore his 5 goals. It's not ideal at the moment with Bayo suspended and Healey not match fit, but once he's back, Rajovic should be benched unless we're in Hail Mary territory
I didn't see it from the LGT right in front of me so not sure how they would have saw from the Vicarage Road End.
If you can't just ignore Martins 5 goals then you shouldn't just ignore Rajovic's 9 and want him benched. This is my point...Rajovic wouldn't be a problem if Asprilla and Martins put some decent crosses in. They can do it, Asprilla did it yesterday, they just need to do it a lot more than once a game. It is a modern football thing that they seem more obsessed with keeping possession and playing it safe rather than putting regular crosses into dangerous areas. Despite what the football hipsters will tell you, football remains a very simple game.
I guess if you don’t routinely move beyond 25 miles of the M25 you might be surprised how nice Watford Town centre is to most places. How many realise that the Harlequin/Atria centre is the 11th biggest shopping centre in the UK. Bigger than Meadowhall, Milton Keynes, Brent Cross or the Victoria Centre in Nottingham. Having spent a lot of time for work in Derbyshire, Notts and South Yorkshire, everywhere has its good and bad, and while I don’t like most of Watford, it really is a better place to live than many. As to the game, I thought we looked complacent, and Chesterfield good for a fifth tier team. Their goal should be disappointed with being beaten at the near post. The good news is Rajovic is looking likely target for next seasons promoted teams from League 1. I truly hope he is not in the squad next August. Martins too would be better off elsewhere.
Drop Martins and play who though, who in the team can match his contributions so far? If you play Rajovic, you need a) the balls in to be good, which they rarely are, and detracts from what Asprilla and Martins are best at, and b) him to actually put them away, otherwise he is totally useless, have him from the bench if we need a goal, but don't start him. He's our top scorer this season, but it's not as if Bayo never scores (6 goals and 3 assists, the same amount of goal contributions as Rajovic), and he contributes far more to the team aside from his goals
Haha. Just been watching the highlights. Aldershot showing Chesterfield how to be a proper non-league team and gift some goals. Also… Chalobah gets a rare start for WBA, and what a finish.
I know some people are diaspointed that we didn't go through more convincingly because Chesterfield are non league but imo this is a little entitled, arrogant and disrespectful. Chesterfield knocked out 2 top half league 1 teams in previous rounds whose fans I suspect would have been grateful to have got through. They're no mugs and this was a potential bannana skin navigated with a second half comeback. I'm really glad we're in the 4th round for the first time since we beat Wolves eons ago and am looking forward to seeing who we get in the 4th round draw.
The complaints are largely that although we beat them, we played badly and were outplayed for major parts of the game. It’s not entitlement to expect better than that against a tier 5 team, however much mental gymnastics people want to go through to place them a couple of divisions higher than they actually are. Not long ago I remember people were calling it entitled to moan about drawing games against fellow championship sides like Rotherham, now we’ve seemingly extended that to non-league opposition, who exactly are we expected to beat convincingly?
This thread delivers. Expecting to outperform a non league team at home is entitlement. Asking about the club management structure is entitlement. Our fans are deeply odd. No better environment for the likes of Pozzo/Bayat to operate.
I'm hearing we were in fact 2nd on MoTD. Though, TBF, Chesterfield were 2nd on MoTD and they just happened to be playing us. Watching the highlights you'd think our 2 goals were about the only time we broke into the Chesterfield half....
OK but don't expect us to be buying better players with our limited funds. I actually think our strike force is pretty reasonable compared to most mid table champ sides backed up by the fact only 5 teams have scored more than us. OK none of our forwards are perfect or would get into the top 5 of the division but given our reduced finances we may have to live with that.
I'm really not sure we should be expecting to beat anyone convincingly, and I guess to expect to do so would be what I would consider to be entitlement but appreciate this is just my opinion and not a fact. However, sometimes we do beat teams convincingly and it's all the more enjoyable because i didnt automatically expect it.. This season we have beaten 3 teams convincingly which is probably more than most other championship teams have done.
I can see why you and HB1 clash, I can admit that he can come across as overly pessimistic, but to go into any game, even against non-league opposition at home with a full strength team with zero expectation, and viewing any sort of critique of the teams performance as entitled, arrogant and disrespectful is really no different, if not actually a more extreme view, just at the complete other end of the scale. I must admit it would be nice to share your view though, and would probably make supporting Watford a lot easier if you view any sort or positive result against any team as a positive, no matter how bad our performance or low ranked they are.
