I can't recall any time when we've had a run of fixtures as tough as the one we're in. I thought about the opening five games of 2016/17 that everyone was so worried about pre-season, but as it turned out Southampton and West Ham were nothing like as good as they had been the previous season and we got four points off them, and then there was the great victory over Man Utd, one of the few good games of the Mazzarri season. At Leicester we might scrape a point... I wrote just after Xisco's sacking that the one slight thing in our favour is that all the games against the top teams (Man Utd were in the top 4 at the time) are at home, and all of them except Chelsea (who failed to beat Burnley in their last game) had dropped points in winnable games - and then look what happened against Liverpool!
It's not just the aerial prowess....it's the off-the-ball run before he makes the header that will screw Sierralta...
This heat map should cover born athlete Tubby Moss' expected efforts on Saturday. Stonewall Man U decisions will be given from the centre circle as usual. The fella normally has X-Ray vision for the big 6 only. And here he is conferring with his VAR colleagues when he's not entirely sure of a decision. We're in safe hands this coming weekend.
Jon Moss is easily manipulated by the big teams, he will look at our players like they're pieces of ****.
It's funny because Arteta, a manager I compared to Solskjaer early in the Premier League thread, now looks much more likely to see out at least the rest of this season, whereas back in May when I made that post it seemed the exact opposite, especially at the start of this season when Arsenal lost three in a row without scoring. But now he seems to have put together a settled and solid team who seem to be more together, and whatever you may think of their gamemanship in their recent match against us, I like the way he's significantly reduced the average age and increased its English contingent. As for Solskjaer, I'm not sure what's gone wrong this season, because last one they finished second and went a season and a half unbeaten away from home. Has Ronaldo been a disruptive influence, was it Ole's idea to sign and then play him, or was he heavily persuaded by the powers above?
Ronaldo presents a tactical problem in that he basically refuses to press, and that's bad news for Ole because he has no real tactical plan or ability to impose any kind of ethos, and so he has no idea how to get anywhere near compensating for that in the way he sets up the team as a whole. Ole at Utd is quite reminiscent of a moneybags version of Xisco with us, to be honest.
Even if we play well we'll lose due to some brainless idiot (Danny Rose? Masina? Cathcart) doing something idiotic because he's an idiot.
Wouldn't it be funny if under Ole Man Utd were both the first team to lose a match at Watford one season and the first not to score against them this season? That said, it'll probably be 0-0 which won't suit either team very much.
Must win game. Real 8 pointer. Good time to be playing them with OGS still in situ ? WFC 0 MU 6 (Ighalo 3, Cleverley og 3). Come on Watford.
I'm not expecting to get completely spanked in this one. I think we will loose comfortably by 2 but I hope at least we can put in a shift defensively and in midfield that we can be proud of, rather than completely rolling over. I don't really see us creating any problems for this united defense. Maybe at some point it will come off Maguire's slab and fall to Dennis for our best chance of the game or maybe Sarr will turn up this time and get some joy against Shaw. More likely is King will be completely isolated, Dennis will get a couple of half chances that go nowhere and the midfield is too overrun to think about anything more than covering the bodies we play at CB.
Lose, we will comfortably lose. Comfortably loose are my jeans now I’ve lost weight. Call yourself a Dr ?
Don’t know what to expect with this one. We could find Utd in their OGS management skills ‘haven’t a clue what formation/plan we’re playing’ mode and sneak a narrow win. We could find Utd in irresistible individual skills form and give us a tonking. Utd play better away and we’ve been crap at home lately. But we’ve now got a head coach who knows a bit about the game. Living in hope we play out of our skins, and they miss the chances we present them. 1-1
I've just checked the stats on Jon Moss and our games, just to see if there is a bit of an imbalance....and hey presto....there is. He's officiated 18 of our games. 14 of these have been at Vicarage Road road!! Our record is (bearing in mind the vast majority are home matches) P 18 W 4 D 4 L 14 Yellow cards to Watford 45 Yellow card to the opposition 27 Penalties and reds are very low and not worth mentioning. 1 on each side. But I found, just with Kevin Friend, an extreme bias against Watford, and the stats seem to back that up. He doesn't give big calls, like Michael Oliver and his last minute penalties, but he does manipulate the game with free kicks and yellow cards against us. Watch out for it on Saturday. It's also very strange he only really officiates us at VR.
For some balance, I've checked a couple of other long serving referees in Watford matches. Andre Marriner P 16 W 8 D 5 L 3 Yellow cards to Watford 29 Yellow card to the opposition 25 Red cards to Watford 1 Red cards to opposition 0 Penalties to Watford 1 Penalties to opposition 1 Mike Dean P 24 W 6 D 9 L 9 Yellow cards to Watford 52 Yellow card to the opposition 45 Red cards to Watford 3 Red cards to opposition 2 Penalties to Watford 5 Penalties to opposition 6 From these two officials, it's what I expected. Pretty much in line with their officiating. Bookings for and against are pretty equal. Only a slight lean against Watford, which is acceptable. With Jon Moss and Kevin Friend the story is very different. Kevin Friend P 19 W 2 D 6 L 11 Yellow cards to Watford 44 Yellow card to the opposition 23 Red cards to Watford 1 Red cards to opposition 1 Penalties to Watford 1 Penalties to opposition 6 Jon Moss P 18 W 4 D 4 L 14 Yellow cards to Watford 45 Yellow card to the opposition 27 Red cards to Watford 1 Red cards to opposition 2 Penalties to Watford 2 Penalties to opposition 2 I think it's very clear, there is a big lean against Watford for free kicks and yellow cards with Moss and Friend. Also Kevin Friend's 6-1 penalty ratio is very obvious. I've not checked any other referee, but I would expect the vast majority will have a similar reading to that of Marriner and Dean, in terms of difference between things for and against Watford.
Maybe let’s not worry who the ref is and turn up ourselves and perform ? Be solid at the back , winning midfield battles and actually look like scoring a goal . TBH if the penalties he has given against us are anything like Danny Rose’s “challenge” v Arsenal then can we really complain!? About the one thing Friend did get right and Rose could have been booked /sent off . Most people don’t like Mike Dean tbh - he gets more stick from fans than the rest.
Good analysis HB1. Time to leave a ‘Dear Jon’ letter in his dressing room with these stats. ‘Please stop playing away Jon, or we’ll leave you ..’
Who are those games against? If they are against sides in the top 6 then stands to reason we will be defending more, will have to make more challenges and almost inevitably will pick up more yellow cards. I'm not arguing the fact he is a dreadful ref because he is but is he really that biased? If those games are against the top 6 then I would expect that kind of record, in fact I would think it would be worse than that
I'll add Anthony Taylor's stats in as well Anthony Taylor P 23 W 6 D 5 L 12 Yellow cards to Watford 55 Yellow card to the opposition 53 Red cards to Watford 0 Red cards to opposition 1 Penalties to Watford 3 Penalties to opposition 3 Again, he's been very even in how he's attributed the yellow card ratio. So Taylor, Dean & Marriner have stats over many years in officiating our games, and it's clear the yellow card distribution is quite even. But Friend and Moss punish Watford greatly, with a massive difference between yellow cards for us and our opponents. It's probably the only way to prove that a clear level of bias truly exists with certain referees.
Realistically, these stats lack a lot of context. Certainly, they show exactly what you describe. But it’s completely based upon a viewpoint that depends on even teams, even skill set, home/away advantage being disregarded, even number of fouls, tackles, attempts, penalty decisions and virtually every other football related incident being evenly aligned. It’s a good study but you’d need a lot more data before making any firm conclusions. Equally, it doesn’t prove you wrong and shows just how difficult it would be to prove any real bias.
Yup. It's not completely invalid but, for example, things like the yellow card stats rely on an assumption that they should even be the same or closely matched in the first place.
I'd love to see those stats for season 12/13 when the FL was intent on breaking the Pozzo model so other teams didnt copy it.
I'm not sure how else you can analyse this as perception is easily challenged. You can only really go on cold, hard facts. I think the yellow card data is very telling. The scope is over at least a 15 years period and I have selected 5 top referees who have officiated during this time. I had my suspicious on Moss and Friend just from perception. So I dug a little deeper, and looked at yellow cards as the driving force. For me, that's indicative of fouls given away as I suspect a high yellow card total would indicate a high volume of free kicks conceded. That conclusion seems logical to me. These referees have taken a similar amount of Watford games, and Dean, Marriner and Taylor have given us slightly more yellows than the opposition. This is the type of result I would have expected. I'm sure if I looked at the totals of more referees who have regularly taken Watford games over the past 15 years, I would imagine the result would be similar. For example, Dean has booked a lot of Watford players, but also booked a lot of the opposition. That's his style, but the distribution seems fair, as it does with Taylor and Marriner. Even Michael Oliver, who has taken us 22 times, has given Watford 40 yellow cards and 33 to the opposition. He has dumped on us with penalties over the years though, with 7 against and 3 for, but our overall record is P 22 W 8 D 3 L 11. When I watch Moss and Friend take our games, I've often felt cheated or hard done by, and the stats back this up. Moss 45-27 and Friend 44-23 seems to be a far too big a discrepancy when you compare them to other officials, during the same time period, and playing against the same type of opponents. Giving early yellow cards in a game, or cheap free kicks against us, or turning a blind eye to the opposition's fouls, heavily influences a match. I'm not even looking at the big controversial decisions, although there have been a lot of these also. I think there is enough evidence to certainly suggest we are not being treated fairly by these two officials.
Think we'll lose 4 or 5 nil. Law of averages says we won't win 2 home games in a row against them, plus we are rubbish. But I'm not going so I couldn't give a shyt.
I hope he doesn't repeat his goal celebration from the recent England v Albania game if he does get one on Saturday
