Match Day Thread Watford v Hull City

Yes

 

Stating the bleeding obvious, I know, but we've got to tighten up in defence, big time. 2 against every game, is not sustainable in the long term. It obviously means we have to score 2 to get a point, 3 for three points. Whilst I don't think an all out relegation battle is on the cards, with those stats, any advance on the upper half of the table is not achievable.

 

What was worrying for me was the clumsiness and lack of basic football skills of some of the substitutes. Maybe it was nervousness but Gyabi almost fell over the ball in a really good shooting position, allowing Watford to break away, Akintola continues to oscillate between dangerous and downright comical and Palmer seems to have forgotten how to pass a football.

And from having a squad full of wingers we're suddenly short, with Belloumi and Ndala out, Akintola not delivering and Miller being wrapped in cotton wool. I'm not gonna mention the defence. Sergei suddenly has his work cut out to get us back on track.

 

In general, Gyabi looks more assured playing further up the pitch, which is exactly what many Plymouth fans were saying about him. Not that he got many opportunities to play in that position for them. I'd stick him on from the start in Gelhardt's role and move Gelhardt to RW. He's more than capable there.
It's hard to argue that he shouldn't have done that for the Watford game, it just makes more sense in terms of threat, but he was more concerned about Watford's abilities.

 

I know what you mean about Gyabi but when he came on for Belloumi it seemed to take him 10 mins or so to settle in and for the rest of the game he looked handy. His other appearances have all been cameos late in the game.

 

I think it’s tough criticising Pandur for either goal, the first, the Watford player was choosing where to put it, I think Pandur thought our player was blocking the area where it went so was expecting it to go across the goal so was wrong footed. The second, McBurnie is out jumped by their player. Pandur is in the middle of the goal & helpless.
The initial long ball bypasses the entire midfield.
I think overall Watford just had more pace & more tricks. It was weird because the fans were obviously unhappy at halftime & then completely changed their tune after going 2-1 up.
Like I said before, they were there for the taking, we just didn’t, we sat back trying to catch them on the break. Once they equalised, we tried to go at them again, instead of trying to keep the ball & tire them out.

 

i'd imagine we will see millar briefly on tuesday, no more than 10 minutes though

and its not just about the goals, but due to pandur having a poor game, he got a big whack to the nose, since he spilt the ball like that, maybe thatll get him playing better

i remember crooks seemed a minor issue at the time but he's been out for well over a month now
will he be in the squad on tues or is that again too soon?

 

We need alternative attacking methods , can’t rely on Giles being given room to cross the ball . PNE will be organised and functional as usual .

 

It may be worse because we're trying to play more attacking football, but Jones was a very reliable centre back, which is why he's playing for a team top of the table. I don't dislike Egan but I'm not convinced he is any better than Jones. And Mcloughlin was very good as a defensive left back, if less dangerous going forward than Giles. On top of that Pandur and Hughes don't seem to be quite at their best. So, plenty of reasons!

 

Yeah, probably not much between Egan and Jones.
Macca, decent in the air but he got subbed early twice as tricky wingers with any pace had him on toast. Decent back up but never a LB.