As far as I'm concerned if Dennis does the business on the pitch for us next season he can set fire to the team bus if he wants to....
Its like speaking to an anti vaxxer ... You offer no counter to the the criticism of Deeney other than saying everyone who doesnt rate him is thick as **** or that implying we aren't Watford fans.
Vardy and Cavani recently, though Vardy seemed basically finished as of halfway through last season and Cavani can't do the full 90 every game.
Which is perfectly valid for you, but I doubt the overwhelming majority of or fans have. They are forming a view that Cucho isn't good enough based on 60 minutes of not looking great yesterday while they refuse to form the same opinion of Deeney who has looked equally bad for the majority of the last 4 years. I don't think Cucho centrally is the answer as he looks to have far more impact from the left. However then I would probably rather have Dennis, Cucho and Sarr as the front 3 than Cucho, Deeney and Sarr as the front 3 and it is really just a case is who is less bad centrally out of Dennis and Cucho.
Needs no explanation. Anyone who trashed Deeney on a regular basis, just for being Deeney, is a **** as far as I’m concerned.
It's not trashing him to consider him a large drain of resource and a below par player. Your line of argument is childish.
There are plenty of exceptional strikers over 30 - Lewandowski, Benzema, Cavani, Vardy, Ibrahimovic etc. The difference is though that they have been good consistently over the years. There are very few who pop up in their 30s after 4-5 years on the decline and suddenly turn things around. Deeney looks far more likely to have taken the Rooney route and declined at a young age as a result of a combination of the hard yards he has put in over the years, playing on through injuries and probably not looking after himself in the best way off the field both in terms of his drinking and his desire to become a body builder.
I'd also pick pretty much anyone centrally ahead of Troy. I've not seen enough of Dennis again to tell if he'd be more suited centrally than Cucho. Honestly I'd personally go with Fletcher to start at the moment, with either of Dennis or Cucho on the left. Probably Dennis as he seems to offer a bit more defensively.
Vardy and Cavani (also Lewandowski) also all have much more naturally athletic builds and have generally kept themselves in good shape over the years.
I'm not trashing him "just for being Deeney." I am being critical of him for not being a good footballer any more. I would say exactly the same things about players I genuinely likely like Mariappa or those I don't like such as Gray.
HB1 Nobody is saying Deeney is a bad guy personally. I met him at a fan "meet and greet" day a while back and he seemed a likable bloke, very down to earth and a good knowledge of the sport. Some of his goals in his tenure with us have been world class (his one against West Ham was a stunner), and his side foot finish against Liverpool on that special occasion two seasons back are worthy of a mention. What people are getting at is his lack in footballing ability nowadays. He has always struggled with his weight and fitness, everyone knows this. His media personal seems to of overtaken his desire to be a good player, there could still be a decent player in there somewhere, but last season before his injury he was abysmal. It was a level down from where we are now and he continually looked our worst player most times. We do not have many better options that's very apparent - but he should be an impact sub at best. Gray is... well Gray, Perica is very hit and miss and hardly plays anyway. We have King, Fletcher and Cucho as possible alternatives, and I would prefer them starting ahead of Troy. I would love him to find his form of yesterday, but age and mobility have caught up with him. He needs to fight for a place in the side now, not given a team sheet with his name stenciled in using a marker pen.
HB1 after calling the entire forum thick morons for not believing Deeney is good enough to be our starting striker:
Xisco seems to have been playing Fletcher on the left wing so far in pre season so I guess that wont happen.
I would tend to agree. The obsession with Deeney is almost unhealthy to be honest. If we lose and Deeney plays it will be his fault. If we win and he plays it will in spite of Deeney. We have all be critical of Deeney in the past, including me, and I think that part of that is due to the fact we seem to not have found a player that is better. I haven’t seen Cucho but the consensus seems to be that he is not a central striker. Equally Dennis or Fletcher have no goal scoring record to fill us with hope. I am in the place that says play someone else as they may turn out to be better. But that does feel like hope rather than expectation, and we seem to have a lot of forwards that aren’t good enough
Was that Deeney not playing, Xisco coming in or a bit of both. Pedros scoring record was dreadful in the 2nd part of the season, so not sure it made much difference
The point is he no longer contributes anything worthwhile to the team, he detracts from it by altering our formation to accommodate him and the way we play. The point people are trying to make is it isn’t a question of not having better alternatives, he’s just better off out of the team whether we have a striker playing in his place or not. It’s not like he scores goals is it? It doesn’t matter if his replacement doesn’t score goals either, but at least we can play in a formation and a way that suits all the players on the pitch, and whoever plays in his place will offer something to the team that he no longer can. You have 10 outfield players and you can’t afford to accommodate any passengers because of what they did several years ago. This isn’t the NFL, we don’t need Deeney in the team just to win knockdowns from high balls. That isn’t obsession by the way, it’s just the reality of the situation.
We went from 1 game where we looked incapable of getting into our opponent's half and deeney' complaining that we "weren't playing direct enough" to battering out next opponent 6-0 playing 4-3-3 with the ball on the deck. There were a lot of factors in our improvement, but Deeney being dropped and us being able to play a sensible formation that suited every other member of the squad that wasn't Deeney was absolutely pivotal.
Sarr became good because he wasn't stuck out wide tracking back on the half way line as we played 442 to accommodate Deeney. Football is about 11 players and whether Deeney or JP or Cucho are better players in isolation is completely irrelevant. Deeney has a negative impact on the other players around him because he forces us to play a system that doesn't suit any of the other players.
Formation change was key. The early Xisco games with Deeney in the team were generally poor. The Coventry and QPR games were awful.
Playing Deeney forces us to play in a way that makes life easy for the opposition. It makes it very difficult for us to hurt the other team.
JP played more as a false 9 in the 443, like Firminio at Liverpool. He contributed a lot to the improved shape and overall performances of the team. I thought he was fantastic and I thought Deeney was sh1te.
Sounds like Buendia has a hip injury as well. Might actually be a good time to play them if they haven't spent the Grealish money by next weekend!
Guys, guys. You should surely all realise by now that it's pointless arguing with hb1. Over anything at all really but particularly on a matchday thread where things will rapidly detiorate into a yes he did, no he didn't type of exchange, he'll never listen to anything anyone else is saying and certainly not to any 'evidence' presented to counteract his original point. He'll simply keep reiterating the same thing over and over again ad nauseum (which in this case would seem to consist entirely of 'Troy doesn't like the Villa and might score against them'), will offer absolutely nothing new at all and would seem to think that his opinion carries particular weight because he's probably the most prolific poster on matchday threads. Whereas, of course, that carries absolutely no weight whatsoever. It's not at all scientific and it's not very bright. I've had plenty of run-ins with him in the past under a different guise. Probably best to simply leave him alone to thrash about in his own, custom built, padded cell. For the record, I love Troy Deeney to death and all he's done for our football club. But he's now well past his 'sell by date'.
