As Dave says, KIO, just putting your name on the thread will do fine. The teams above us are all at home so we need the points!
Jackson did play half those games in the top flight though. Either way, I'm hardly moaning at Grabban's goal ratio - it's been pretty good considering he's not always been a regular. The comparison is in terms of ability on the pitch. I really don't quite understand why you have to argue for him all the time. Some of us don't really rate the guy but we're still all delighted he's playing well and I think we look a better side when he starts ahead of Jerome.
Your threads have become a brilliant part of match days especially for us oversea & clearly a lot of time & energy is spent on your behalf to put them together. We are grateful for your expertise & fully understand you have a life outside of these boards. As the others said just a title will do mate .
Obviously I am not happy with the result but I think we only had ourselves to blame. Many of you have said it was not a penalty but our reaction was not great - we had 30 minutes to put it right and did not do so. You were more clever in the key moments and that was the difference. I am glad we have a game on Tuesday as it gives us a chance to put things right. The results yesterday have obviously put you lot in dreamland but they were ok for us as we have not lost any ground and still have matches against Boro, Derbyshire and your friends from Suffolk. Finally, I have to congratulate your travelling support. I have always rated you among the best and it's always nice to see fans properly mixing outside the ground. Maybe it's a yellow thing!
Gracious of you Dan. The match turned on a debatable penalty for sure, but like you I thought there would be more reaction from your players. Best of luck for the rest of the season, especially in the matches against Boro, Derbyshire and our 'friends' from Suffolk.
cheers KIO - yes soft penno, but the Watford defender swung a bit at Wessie which blew him off the ball(!). Jerome's goal was pure instinct and a beaut and Grabs second pure striker.
Just read this - doesn't warrant it's own thread, but to be fair, our penalty for the first goal did look a bit suspect? This is Troy Deeney's take on it. Though whether or not Wessi 'admitted' diving is arbitrary, as none of us were in earshot. But Deeney does make some valid points about officials in general, i.e.who are they accountable to? http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sp...ahan_told_me_he_dived_to_win_Norwich_penalty/
i agree with him to an extent, but it doesnt quite work if you grumble when the refereeing standard is poor and affects you negatively, but then acceptit when it is to your advantage. Even in that game alone, jerome was through and was proffessionally fouled when he had what could be called "an Obvious Goal-Scoring Opportunity" which nothing happened about, and could have been a red card and a penalty. Its easy to be righteous when you lose nothing by doing so. I'll take a footballers calls to justice more seriously when they are seemingly able to see the problem even when it benefits them. Something tells me that they'd sooner take the points, and the ludicrous paycheck they are given to help get those points, than really stand up for something. Cynical, sure, but can you imagine this happening in a big championship/premier league game?
Fantastic I'd forgotten all about that. But conversely, how many slip catches, for example, are claimed these days where the ball has gone into the hands on a lightning quick half-volley? Sadly the prize and the glory is all consuming and filtering into many different sports these days. And I won't mention cycling or track and field events
Troy seems a bit rattled , he did say we were going for autos so it would seem we have got them running scared with our form lately.
Yes, it's all a bit strange how the criticism of Whittaker and Martin playing CB has gone quiet. Both look better with each game as does the partnership of Martin and Bassong. The defence is feeling solid again and that is a huge bonus for the run-in. Even Olsson is looking better, but he's still not back to his best. Encouraging all the same.
It's not strange at all, they are playing better and justifying their places in the team. Why would that attract criticism? I would still see Bassong with a more natural CB and Martin at fullback as a more natural choice, but it's working so naturally we wish to enjoy our current form and hope it continues. As you say we look a good deal more solid at the back so I'm gonna blame Adams to a large extent. Bah!
Is Olsson looking better? I confess I have not seen much of him as haven't been to many live matches, but have seen the highlights where he has clearly made a defensive mistake all to often. I was at the game on Saturday and while I thought he was positionally sound, some of his passing, control, decision-making, etc was really poor and I thought he looked a little absent (though he did improve slightly in the second half. I dread to think what he was like before if this is an improvement!!
It's strange that Lambert, Hughton and Adams all saw Martin as a decent CB, but some on here have refused to do so until Neil came on the scene. Instead we'll rationalise it by saying "I'm gonna blame Adams to a large extent". Why do we need to keep going back to Adams for "blame"? He resigned and Neil came in and is doing well. Adams is still a part of our club and will continue to be, so isn't it time to give him a break from these swipes and move on now that Neil is here and doing very well? As for Olsson, Rob, I moderate my subjective judgments based on Whoscored's player statistics. Olsson has improved there, but he was still our weakest defender by far, as you suggest.
The irony there is, at a higher level last season, he was one of the few who performed consistently at that level. Yet having dropped down a division, players like Russ Martin, Johnson, etc are - as you might expect, acquitting themselves far better, yet it's Olsson who's levels appear to have dropped? For me, nailed on for POTS last year (out of an extremely poor bunch) - this year, he's on course for the 'wooden spoon'
