Match Day Thread Watford v Hull City

I know this won't go down well on here but the truth is he's not as good as many make him out to be. If you like your goalie standing with his foot on the ball looking around for an outlet then good for you. His limitations are there for all to see. Yes, I realise he's probably the best they have right now but he's bang average, sorry.

 

I've made this point previously but he had a purple patch start of last season and lived off that reputation despite our set up meaning he had almost nothing to do second half of the season.

 

One thing you need to take into account is that the defence in front of him is worse than last season. We had one of the best defences last term, but as yet we are nowhere near as good as last season.

However, I do agree he is not playing as well as last season, I can see Harvey Cartwright being our number one next season.

 

Well, unfortunately for me, it was a total disaster of events. I flew back from Vietnam to NZ midweek, and on my calendar which updates kick-off time to where you are it on Friday when I checked 3am. I set my alarm for 2.30.am, turned on the laptop after making a cup of coffee, only to see them walking off at HT. I hadn't realised NZ clocks changes at 2am.

Being buoyed by seeing we were winning, only to then witness a poor 2nd half to add to my disappointment of missing the first half.

Unable therefore to give a real reflection on the whole game, I will watch the first half when it comes available on Tiger+.

It's looking likely Ajayi is certainly needed. Hughes is not having the best of times just now, so I wonder whether he might be rested for a game or two.

Let's hope they are recovered and can get back to winning ways Tuesday.

 

Coyle, Hughes and Egan played last season, Giles is better at lb than McLoughlin. How exactly is the defence worse?

 

Poor man's jason lokilo!

 

@Kalman II not sure if it was you that said this recently, but Dennis Cirkin is out of contract in Summer and if “upgrading the defence” was a priority then he’d be a good start on a free transfer.

 

I think against Watford we needed to keep the ball so needed our best ‘ball controllers ‘ on.
Disappointing to see Hughes jump to head away today but lead with shoulder and not head and get out jumped . So many players seemed late to everything , long passes were too long , we had effort but little quality . , against a very mobile skilful side we struggled .

 

Didn’t see any of game, how did we play in summary ? Deserved defeat ?

 

Regardless of who plays we're shipping 2 goals a game which is a lot worse than last season.

 

A bit of both or maybe lack of organisation. A few goals we have conceded the midfield has been nowhere to be seen when they should have been in and around the box picking up enemy insurgents. I think the individual errors may well be down to players being caught under pressure trying to keep an eye on two enemies at once and not giving full attention to either.

 

He really wasn’t that great last season either. He’s been shocking this season. Dunno what wage Racioppi was on but pretty sure he’d be getting his chance now.

 

Although some of the errors leading to goals are clearly defensive mistakes, the current set up doesn’t seem to be helping. It’s obvious that the way Sergej has us playing is much better from an attacking perspective and consequently, along with the fact we now have a genuine goalscorer, we are a real threat going forward but we seem to really struggle to deal with the opposition attacking us. As a few have said, the balance in the middle of the park doesn’t seem to be working for us and I suspect that’s down to the set up, which is effectively more of a 4-2-4, which leaves the 2 with too much to do. I don’t think we can continue to play a 10 (Gelhardt recently) along with two wide men in support of McBurnie, without shipping too many goals.

 

No need to apologise. He's lost the edge he first displayed when he came in to replace Allsopp. Maybe knows he's No1. for the duration. Might be time for Sergj to have a word.

ps...Beaten on his near post, in consecutive games....Not good.

 

Their goals were fortunate but in reality I feel like they could’ve had 1 maybe 2 more. The game genuinely could’ve ended 3-3.

Our issue IMO is the midfield. It hasn’t got the legs to recover when we lose the ball and we are playing a weird shape to try highlight Giles’ strengths in attack.

Our games look like basketball games sometimes which often means the midfield shape is all over. I love Joffy and I thought he played well but he needs to be played out wide if he hasn’t got 2 more disciplined midfielders behind him who can make up for his lack of defensive output. Amir is tidy but slow. Lundstram has effort but not for 90 mins (I would rest him against Preston as he’s on a suspension anyway and I can imagine he’s going to be fired up to play Blades).

We are desperately missing a Matazo type in the middle of the park that can hoover up everything. Until we have that I think we have to tweak some things to be a bit more compact in games where we aren’t just going to sit deep like Southampton and Coventry.

 

It's a trade off.
If only we had our 1st choice wingers and CB playing.
Our luck with injuries is shocking and it's making the trade off less effective. Belloumi again, Millar, and now Ndala (that's our top 3 wingers out) and Ajayi at CB. Also Matazo would be a starter in CM.
Hopefully by the end of the year we get to see this set up with all the above playing.

 

we threw that away yesterday we should have been two or three up before half time, the substitutions were way to late

 

I agree with most of that. This front-footed 4-2-4 approach is a bit of a luxury. We got exposed against Blackburn and Bristol quite brutally because of it.

I do think we need to go to a three-man midfield. Hadžiahmetović sitting deep in front of the defence with Lundstram and one of Slater or Gyabi man-marking out of possession.

 

Tottenham want him in January I think.

 

In the absence of a Matazo-like midfielder I wonder if Gyabi could do a holding job in midfield, though at the expense of Joseph or Gelhardt I suppose. I think he could be better than we've seen so far in his few sub appearances.