My Man of the Match was King Ken. Boro obviously fancied their chances down their right hand side, probably because their man had more pace and plenty of skill. But Sema was immense throughout that first half, when it was backs to the wall time. He showed a very experienced display of strength and timing.
Boro displayed excellent ball skills and teamwork, especially in the first half. I'm not at all sure Watford were deliberately playing defensively, but were driven back. Having said that, Middlesbrough created very few chances in front of goal.
TBF they did remind me of us, they were absolutely pinning us in and at one point had 90% possession but doing very little with it , lots of over hit passes into the box and no one with absolute killer quality. The goal they scored was more due to confusion than skill, then the capitulated and lost 2-1, played some nice football, **** in the final third didn’t take their chances. They could almost be the northern Watford.
Im conflicted. Do we praise Tom for his subs or complain about the terrible team and tactics for the first 61 minutes?
We set up to counter attack, certainly in the first half. I thought that was fairly clear and Cleverley confirmed it in his post-match comments.
They were the better team. A bit like Cleverley as a manager, Jebbison will need games, he wasn't good but there's flashes there and I think he's raw, he will make mistakes and what we needed is a seasoned striker not a risk but he's here now so we might as well develop him because unlike Bayo, there's a chance he could get better. Sema did really well with a tricky customer in Doak. Dele-Bashiru with maybe his best game in a Watford shirt. Pollock a revelation, Porteous quietly steady too and Ogbonna solid. Clean sheets can't be miles off, if Keben is good then that would be very helpful.
I heard this too and thought it was very, very poor. I don’t understand the mentality of anyone doing this to one of our players before they’ve even touched the ball.
I’ve just noticed that 4 out of our next 5 games are away. If we’re going to turn around our away form, now would certainly be a good time.
Not seen it mentioned, and I know he messed up for the goal but I thought Sema was excellent today. The ball kept going out to Doak and he dealt with him really well. Think Ogbonna is an upgrade on Hoedt as well, fair play to the club on that one.
A shame that Sema’s one defensive lapse was punished, because other than that he did a great job defensively against a bright young player, even if for the most part he’s not the same force going forward Hoedt was an option for the left hand side of the back 3 or the middle, which Ogbonna is not, and I don’t think Ogbonna has Hoedt’s raking passes in his locker (Pollock at his best does though, see Bayo’s goal vs Derby), but I am pleased with how Ogbonna has settled
I don't think there's much of a chance he gets better enough before his loan ends. He's currently too far off it. If we owned him then fine, play him still, but we don't so we might as well ship him back to Muff so we can bring in someone who might do something.
While he did well for the mos part, no chance he deserves Man of the Match with the terrible error that directly led to their only goal.
By the second international break we're normally discussing "who is next" - so what a welcome change of pace!
Agreed. Payne's command of the English language certainly isn't great, particularly how he pronounces and stumbles on unusual player names, but his tactical breakdowns are consistently very good. They are definitely strong enough to more than make up for the frequent language stumbles.
Does anyone know where the Dennis rumours are coming from? Genuine or just some Twitter speculation ? Asking for a friend .
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bg7r...ey=k8ohy5dtnfzgvwvc0b85fkhka&st=z55t0yut&dl=0 @BigRossLittleRoss @Sahorn @Vic
But were they? I was disappointed with them. They certainly passed the ball around well, especially in the first half, but just doing that doesn’t win matches. Over the whole game I would say each team had about the same number of good chances to score. We took two to their one, even though we didn’t play well until the last 15 minutes. For me Sunderland and certainly Coventry were more dangerous teams when they played us.
I think so, don’t love stats but they had the bigger chances, Bond made some important saves, don’t really remember their keeper making many.
I posted the rumour but the peice was from Twitter (I refuse to call it X). It's not 100% the truth, but when is anything you read online. I cannot see any legs to it, but if he's a free agent then why not?
Middlesbrough's goal was down to Ince, who had a mixed game. Why the hell did he backheel to TDB, who had like a split second to get rid of the ball, chopped down their man and they scored from the resulting free kick. All Ince had to do was clear it out of play, he was trying to do a party trick when near the edge of our box at a time Boro' were looking very dangerous. I don't blame Sema, the deflection was cruel but the whole attack began with Ince.
As soon as we levelled the scores their whole game changed. Sitting on a 1-0 lead (as we know) is very dangerous and we took our chance when it came. I think that knocked them for six because before that they looked very comfortable and were happy to see out a narrow win. We certainly gained a confidence boost and went for the winner while they sat back and tried to defend what they had. We showed how good we can be, but it shouldn't take the opposition scoring for us to get going attack wise, which has happened more than once this season.
Football in a nutshell. We played most the game like we were defending a 1 nil lead in injury time. Jebbison was running around like a headless Bayo, we really need to address the striker situation ASAP because none of them are fit for purpose. We didn't look like scoring until Baah came on. I thought Ince and Sema were excellent and the latter had Doak in his pocket all game. Nothing better than attacking the Rookery end in the 2nd half. Roll on the neanderthals.
Bayo, Rajovic, Baah, Jebisson... Bayo links up well, runs the channels and seems to have the best control over the football. He gets into some good positions but either isn't confident, or isn't good at finishing, or both. Rajovic is / was a lumbering plank who instinctively knew where the goal was. Jebbison seems lost and is much weaker than both the above in ploughing a lone furrow as the one forward, maybe a better goalscorer but so far is the inexperienced lightweight loanee. Baah looks the most exciting, he puts himself about, is strong and can beat a defender. Again like Jebbison he looked a little lost starting as the only forward. But unlike Jebbison he adds chaos in the opposition box. Not a terribly gifted technician with the ball. I'd start Bayo, but be hooking him off for Baah second half, with Jebbison being thrown in when chasing games. I'd rather have Raj for this but if we kept Raj, Baah wouldn't have the same opportunity to get minutes. Bayo in my opinion makes the team more cohesive, so he starts, Baah comes on to put the cat in with the pigeons. Baah starts scoring regularly? Then he comes in to the starting 11.
Thanks, my head just exploded, and I've just come down with a flu-ey cold so the room is now covered in a thick layer of slippery green mucus.
