Why is Deeney STILL untouchable?

Strike force you missed out Welbeck so they did try to improve that side of things.

 

OK Deeney should not be starting right now, but he should also not be getting all the vitriol he has been getting on this thread.

After all it is up to the team manager whether he starts or not, plus he is and has been a great servant for this club so does not deserve all the **** he is getting right now. Furthermore he probably will still have a role to play providing his knee fully recovers, though possibly that will not be as an automatic starter but more likely as a squad player mainly from the bench.

 

Cant believe the amount of people calling deeney a useless **** and saying they hate him. Get a grip fellas

 

I don't hate the bloke, I don't wish any harm and I hope he gets a decent follow-up career, somewhere.

Football is a game, a sport, so it isn't the be-all-and-end-all, but keen fans devote a lot of emotional energy in a football team, probably only secondary to our family. Over my years watching Watford, there have been close pals with a few players, I've been invited to three of their stag-do's and weddings, and I would have happily given a genuine warm man-hug to maybe hundreds of them, particularly through the Taylor years. But right now, there is only a few I feel much warmth for in the Watford team. Hughes for his effort, Sarr likewise, but more in sympathy for his frustration he obviously feels. Maybe Masina, who I think is a good bloke who just got pilloried for a bad game, and Dawson who is doing his limited best, and perhaps Doucoure, who is just devoid of confidence right now, and I really feel for the young lads like Pedro and Quina who have seen such terrible, terrible individual performances on the pitch, yet they are barely given a chance, their confidence must be smashed. Such ignorant leadership in the club can destroy young fledgling careers.

The culture hasn't been great since we came up. I don't know why there appears to be such a continual sense of unrest behind the scenes at the club. Let's be honest, it has been there even when our position in the league has been OK. Of course, one of the constant factors have been the Pozzo's throughout that time, But when we also look at the poor attitude mindset displayed on the pitch too, there is another constant in Deeney, and I can't help thinking that he is a bad apple, even if some of the players themselves don't even realise it.

Deeney is just the opposite of what I would look for in a footballer, the complete and absolute opposite. If I had a son who wanted to be a footballer, Deeney is the last player I would want my son to emulate. I'm not going to repeat why, as I have done it many times. But if Deeney approached me, I'd just walk away. I said about a month or two ago that he makes me feel sick. And he does, I can't help it.

 

Not sure I agree with this. We all get that you are hysterical in your view with Deeney but just calm down a bit.

Deeney has been very good for Watford FC, and Watford FC has been very good for Deeney and he is made for life. For a low value signing from Walsall it has worked well for all parties and Deeney deserves more respect than is being shown.

What you seem to miss is that the Deeney not being sold, replaced, upgraded or whatever you want to call it is not down to Deeney. As much as you want to hate him and foam at the mouth about him being here, that is not down to him. If GP/FG wanted to replace him then they could have done and my view is they should have done. But they haven't. Do you really think they were about to sign off recruitment of a big money striker but Deeney wouldn't allow them to? Of course not. Because whilst Deeney is the captain he is still an employee and if the owners want to replace him then they can. If the coach wants to play a different style of football then they can.

Deeney should have been replaced sometime ago but this endless slagging him off rather than Giraldi or Pozzo is just silly.

 

I don’t hate Deeney and will look back with happiness at the majority of his work with us. But with every passing game, those memories diminish and he sullying his good name with us.

 

Fair enough. I despise him.

 

He would have always been the Captain that took us up. Now he'll always be the one that took us down too.

 

I would imagine that most of us here have had a fairly rotten few weeks from the middle of March up until recently. Unable to get out and do much. Furloughed from work. Anxious about future prospects. Kept apart from family and friends. Etc.

And most of us looked forward to the prospect of football returning, even though we knew we couldn’t attend the matches. Something to take our minds off lockdown. Some normality returned.

And several clubs seemed to embrace this too. Their players spoke of being pleased to be able to return to work. Happy to let the season conclude on the field of play rather than be voided or decided by points per game statistics.

But that wasn’t the mood music coming from our club. Our captain was everywhere in the media, declaring to one and all that he wasn’t going to resume training. Other players followed his lead.

Just to be clear, they had every right to do so. I’m not criticising them. It’s not for me to tell anybody else in life what to do. The same as if I’d decided I didn’t feel safe going back to work, I wouldn’t want others (especially strangers) telling me I was stupid or wrong. It’s totally their own business and their decision to make..

But I can’t help but feel it got us off to a bad start once we knew football was coming back, and I’m not sure we’ve recovered from that. We seemed to have a lot of negativity as a club towards Project Re-start and maybe that’s affected us, even if only subconsciously.

Interested to hear what others think...

 

I still don't think Deeney deserves criticism for his reasoning behind not immediately returning to training. He'll get dogs abuse from the usual suspects on here, especially now but the world was a very different place shortly before that - a lot of players were anxious about it. I'll criticise him for his performances on the pitch and the coaches that keep picking him, not the man for being worried about his family. Especially when I have been/am.

I think it's more about the club not thinking the season would resume. I think they underestimated the feeling among the PL teams and thought they'd all fall in line to get it cancelled. A Udinese director (their Giraldi I think) openly stated that he'd been informed by the Watford hierarchy that the season was over. I think that perspective ran through to the players at home.

And let's be honest, they've been hardly motivated all season. They were never going to bust themselves to keep super fit in their homes for a club they don't care about. And that attitude comes from the top down.

 

Certainly no criticism from me either. It was every player’s right to deal with the issue of the return to work individually.

But such is today’s world that a club captain saying he wouldn’t be returning to training is bound to attract a disproportionate amount of media coverage, and gives the impression to the world that while many clubs appeared on the surface to be fine about the re-start, ours wasn’t.

Then you had Duxbury writing an article which again gave the impression that we as a club weren’t happy. Saying that we would lose our home advantage without crowds etc (while missing the point that any lost home advantage could be balanced out by playing away matches in empty grounds. Not that it has of course as we’ve lost all our away games since lockdown).

So the message coming out of the club six weeks ago wasn’t ‘great we can return to doing what we love doing best, let’s go smash the opposition and stay up on merit’. It was ‘it’s not safe, it’s not fair etc’

I think it’s the same as when managers bleat on about tiredness. If you say your players will get tired with so many matches, lo and behold they start feeling tired.

Ours haven’t looked right since the re-start and I agree that mentally and physically we’ve lacked an edge. That’s inexcusable.

And don’t even mention the party!

 

I respect Deeneys positive contributions to the club over the years and wish the lad no I'll will.
But over the last few years it has seemed he was living on past successes and maybe not giving a hundred percent like keeping weight down and physically fit enough for this level.
I do accept that he could have moved but chose not to, but I sometimes wonder whether this was down to loyalty or remaining in familiar settings.
I do feel that there is a certain amount of laziness within the squad as implied by coaches questioning fitness standards of players and that when the squad get familiar/comfortable with new coaches they sit back a bit and I dont know why but I feel Mr Watford has to much influence.
Over the past few seasons hes hardly been a great example of the effort expected of the players he captains.
I think if we rebuild Troy should be first to fall on his sword

 

Interesting to look at our goals scored/conceded compared to last season. We've only conceded two more than last season, but we've scored 18 fewer. Deulofeu, Pereyra, Doucoure, Capoue, Gray have all scored fewer this season than last. Deeney has stayed the same.

 

So what we can take from that is that we've had a similar number of penalties awarded, eh.

 

Ha! What you can take from that is that he is consistent and I thought it would upset a few people who are hell bent on making Deeney the boo boy.

What you can also take from that is that it isn't all about Deeney - our forward unit as a whole have been poor. Even those who people get very excited about. Deulofeu "magic man" himself with a return of three is poor.

 

A fair point perhaps but maybe how many goals from "open play " has TD scored
this year and last ?. Apart from Gray who just does not score the others are midfield
or attacking midfielders and reliant on good play from forwards to get the team up
the pitch

 

Is Deeney not reliant on good play from midfielders as well though? Again this won't be popular with the anti Deeney protests but it has been noticeable how much deeper he has been dropping this season to try and get things moving. He was hammered against Villa at home for being nowhere near the box for one of our goals...conveniently forgetting he had just won the ball back near the centre circle after Deulofeou bottled a tackle, and it was that tackle that started the move. "Boo Deeney, we only scored because you weren't in the box - BOOOOOOO Deeney!"

 

Which is quite damning for the other options we have. Four managers this season alone have decided he is the best in that position for the way we play.

 

Gray has hardly started this season, and Delefeo been injured so that explains them. Doucoure and Capoo, yes, not had enough goals from midfield in general.

 

Course he does not score. He doesn't start.

 

You could equally argue that he shouldn't have been dropping deep to get things moving, that's neither his role nor his game, and he was hardly very successful at it when he did it the vast majority of the time.

It's similar to when Rooney was declining and couldn't keep up, it's exactly what he tried to do and he got criticised strongly for it, because it was the wrong thing to do, and frankly was partly an excuse to try and deflect from his abysmal movement in the final third, which was of course still far, far superior to anything Deeney has managed in the past few years.

 

Absolutely.
However his lack of mobility and his dropping off deep surely means
that he will be struggling to get into a scoring area during a counter attack.
Also if you play 1 up top and he drops back then the opposition can squeeze
and there is no outball.

 

Deulofeou - 30 games last season, 10 goals. 28 games this season, 4 goals.

All of our forwards have delivered less overall.

 

The game is full of opinions . You may think he is Premier division quality.
Myself and a handful of others do not share that view .
He scored 9 for Burnley the season before we bought him . If we had 2 forwards
who could score 9/10 a season then that would be happy days . But we havent
unfortunately.

 

And that is the bigger issue I think - the way we set up. We should be playing with a two. Playing with a one just simply doesn't work for us, but if we do play that way then the best person for it is Deeney.

If we played with a two on Sunday and got at Arsenal with pace, like you said, I'd have more faith we might pinch a point.

 

I’d argue that if he didn’t have the benefit of that piece of elastic that goes round his arm, then four managers wouldn’t have decided he’s the best in that position.

God knows what the tick list is for the recruitment team when they sign players - but leadership qualities isn’t one of them. Deeney is in a vacuum of one when it comes to that - hence why he is picked. Their is no chain of reliable succession behind him.

 

You are correct IMO.
If he is dropping too deep then defenders can take a risk and give him a few yards as they know he doesn't have the pace to get away . Welbeck and Sarr cannot be left anywhere.

I can remember a couple of years ago when Zlatan was at Manure and as good he was he was as slow
as arseholes and their attacking play was ponderous. Today Rashford Martial etc get the ball and attack at pace to try and get a shot underway within 6 seconds .

 

I’ve watched the team broadly since the restart in all our games - but last night I made a particular point of watching Deeney closer. I said it in real time in the shout box - he just had no concept of positional play. He played in the CM or AM positions the whole game. At times he was stood in CM jogging backwards and not once did it occur to him that he was the spearhead of the attack, he was the striker, ‘I better turn back and keep on their last man’....

It seems he wants to be jack of all trades on the pitch, but he’s master of none. At one point Foster took a catch from a corner and ran to the edge of his box to launch a quick attack - he dithered trying to find a target...and then Deeney strolled past him. Fair enough he was defending the corner - but you’re an attacker and should be busting your balls to get into attack when we had possession.

He’s finished at this level and he won’t be prolific again in the Championship either. He just doesn’t have the fitness, discipline or structure to play on well into his 30’s at a decent level. As fans, we all need to come to terms with that now and stop making excuses for him.

 

Really? Four separate managers, and all the while they have a better player waiting in the wings but they wouldn't play them because Deeney is captain? Sounds fanciful but unlikely. Where were they for August, September and October when Deeney was out injured and we weren't firing?

 

Oh right, didn't realise Delefeo had played that many games this season.

 

Also electric players need to be partnered with other quick players.
If Sarr breaks away then he needs other forwards to keep up with him
either to receive a pass or get onto a 2cnd ball\deflection\etc.
Someone jogging along 20 yards behind will not get on the end of a tap in.