Whilst I admire they optimism, I disagree with a lot of that. The only reason we restricted them to one shot on goal was because they scored off it and knew one was enough. You make your own luck and I really don't feel we were unlucky tonight whatsoever. I don't we've genuinely 'good' either since Blackburn at home, and prior to that, probable the Leeds game. The only element of 'luck' I guess could be argued is injuries. Had Aluko been fit all season I really think we'd have coasted to promotion. Although then you could say maybe we wouldn't have brought in Gedo & Boyd, who've both won games for us, so ...
Can we please just ignore Leicester's Andy and just have a discussion amongst ourselves. I am very disappointed but when did we every do anything the easy way. I thought Koren was awful, Elmo and Brady had a good game and we deserved at least a draw the way we played in the 2nd half. Evans should have been on from the start and Alex Bruce should have not have been played in that position. Just hoping for a win on Saturday and for Cardiff to do us a favour. There is no doubt the players were really up for this but how many saves did their keeper save, we had the shots on goal but as usual couldn't get one in the net. I hate all the blatant time wasting and just wish the Ref would give out a yellow the first time it happened to stop it going on.
Watford had lost the last 3 prior to playing us & their home form particularly is less than impressive.
Don't know why people think this, he's been truly woeful, I'd rather have Mclean as an option off the bench.
It wasn't a particularly negative status, just stating some facts, it's not over i know, but a promotion team can't use 'we were unlucky'
Missing our 2 best midfielders tonight was definitely the difference between winning and losing...a fully fit Watford just took advantage. We need to get past Boro somehow and then get Meyler and Quinn back in pulling the strings
If Watford's form is way better how have we been steadily pulling away from them? Before today everyone was saying how good it is that they keep losing. WLWLWLWL is fine, that will get us promoted if we carry on. Tomorrow you'll admit this was bollocks. I reckon refs must be briefed to only do anything about it in stoppage time when they've wasted as much time as they want and got away with it. Every time a team comes and wastes time it's always the same: a pointless booking in the last minute of added time when the damage is done. Comical how predictable it is.
The ball is still in our court. If Watford lose to Cardiff and we beat 'Boro, the gap is back to four points again and everyone is happy. We're Hull City, we like to make things difficult for ourselves don't we? Let Watford act as though they've won the League by diving, time wasting and being complete Italian arseholes, we're still 2nd and they're 3rd which made their "We are going up" chant rather funny. At the end of the day, Bruce set up for a point and it backfired. Alex Bruce shouldn't start home games, it's justifiable when playing away (Huddersfield for example) but at home it's a definite no-can-do. I'm a big Koren fan, but he had an absolute howler tonight, just couldn't seem to get going at all. Boyd clearly ran out of steam and was ineffective meaning we had Bruce, Koren and a fatigued Boyd in midfield getting run ragged. The defence, Faye, Hobbs and Chester were absolutely brilliant, and a special mention to Brady who was also working solidly at the back when they attempted to get in behind us. Elmohamady isn't skills and flare like Brady, Elmo just relies on pace. He taps the ball around the defender and beats him for pace but tonight, the Watford full back was a lot faster than Elmo and kept him out of the game. Brady was brilliant and if we hadn't have had the ball on the pitch, I doubt we'd have got the ball in the box at all. We definitely missed Meyler to bully Chalobah and we missed Quinn massively. When Quinn was introduced in the 2nd half, his partnership with Brady carved the Watford defence open. Gedo was ineffective because he had no supply and Simpson was the usual story; massive effort, great hold up play but no clinical edge. His first touch sometimes ended up in his face or 10 yards in front of him but he was kept out of the game entirely. Watford disappointed me, they were negative and only really attacked for 15 minutes (which ended up with Deeney scoring) but they were pretty crap. Yes they were well disciplined and pressed high but I thought they were crap. One moment of class meant they time wasted, dived etc We didn't deserve to lose the game at all, I think Watford had two shots all game, one went sailing over the bar and one went in. We weren't clinical enough and paid for it. P.S. Deeney is a top notch **** and I hope he breaks his little toe by stubbing it on his coffee table. The Watford fans after the game were hilarious, they acted as though they'd just won the League or a Cup and crowded outside the North Stand for about 10/15 minutes. I took the liberty of talking to one through the fence and said, "you do realise that there's still 6 games to go, we're still 2nd and you have Cardiff next don't you?". The fan just replied with, "So what". Oh dear...
I'm very very disappointed we couldn't give us ourselves proper breathing space. We all laugh about how we always do things the hard way but mark my words, we need auto's or we won't go up. The playoff winner is almost always the in form team that jumps in it at the last minute (except west ham who were just far superior than any other team in the playoffs, which we aren't). So if we drop to 3rd and miss out on 2nd it will cripple us. Psychologically and physically the team will be absolutely drained.
That first bit, Bruce picked a really attacking side! I don't think for a minute he set up for a draw. I agree with the other bits I've quoted though. Well, they weren't crap I wouldn't say but they hardly carved us open with free-flowing football did they? They got a goal with one shot and sat on their lead. We've got this reputation for being a negative side and it's utter bullshit. We don't do all this time-wasting crap and everyone behind the ball like Watford did tonight. Deeney's a proper ****er. One minute lying on the floor horrifically injured so we had to stop the game for him, seconds later curling in a beauty. There really needs to be something done about this nonsense of stopping the game for 'injured' players all the time. 90% of the time it's some **** cheating. They should have to stay off for 2 minutes or something when they do this.
I don't believe Bruce went for the draw, he wanted us to counter them and nick a 1-0 win, which as soon as they scored left us ****ed. They did exactly what we would've done by taking the pace out of the game and putting 10 men behind the ball.
We went for the game, gedo simpson boyd and koren.. we didn't go for a draw, one Dm in bruce who in the 1st half wasn't too bad, but they out matched us.. they just passed it around for fun, there was nothing more bruce sr could have done, put evans and proschwitz on, but they just defended such a deep line with all their players populating the half.. if we played like them, we would be saying bruce sr was a genius
It is interesting to read some of your comments, but just to put a couple of facts before you where posters have been wrong. Watford did not have a fully fit side to choose from. Our No 1 keeper is out injured and what we had tonight was an 18 year old with very few games under his belt. Two of our central defenders are injured and a third one had to go off in the first half. Our defence had to be reshuffled without a genuine central defender to call on. One of our subs came on for his first game of the season because of injury. Living where I do I could only listen to the commentary. A couple of times I lost that and switched to the Hull one. Your own guys were saying that they were very impressed with the way that Watford played and controlled the game. You would expect any team playing at home and losing by a single goal to mount a furious attack to get the game back, which happened, but it just didn't work this game, and you have to ask how much losing such a big game will affect confidence going into the next matches.
I'm thinking more along the lines of starting Alex Bruce as opposed to Corry Evans or Fathi who both contribute more to attack and can make a successful pass. If you play AB, you lose a player attacking as he stays back. I know we were restricted with Meyler being banned and Quinny not being risked but you can't help but think that if maybe Evans/Fathi had started, we may have made more attacks and neat passing through midfield. Having a very weak and ineffective midfield cost us dearly tonight.
