Excellent dominating performance - Parades seems to have more pace than Anya/Dyer! Two assists for Angella and a solid display at the back. 3 well taken goals. The perfect start (well Luton won..) but next week will be much tougher.
Excellent performance. Bit surprised to see no Anya and Batty on the bench and no place in the starting line up for Dyer, but the team looked really well balanced with Parades the stand out player for me. Lost focus for a bit in the second half, but FF settled the nerves. Early days, but many more performances like that and I'll be looking for a recipe for humble pie.
Heard Anya has a few personal family issues which of course come first. Dyer is a bit unlucky but then Leicester fans did suggest he wouldn't be as useful playing wing-back which is a position Pudli does well. I feat Battocchio is going which is a shame.
Paredes was great - out in a couple of lovely little dinked cross in the first half, hit the bar in the second and ran his socks off. Nice comdy moment when he went down and Toszer decided he must have cramp so pulled his leg in the air and started rubbing it Excellent performance and the clean sheet is a real plus
Great visit to the vic for me, always looked comfortable and we're already in auto promotion spot lol.....
After watching Troy Deeney and Matej Vydra play a key role in Watford’s 3-0 defeat against Bolton Wanderers this afternoon, Trotters boss Dougie Freedman admitted the Hornets have the best two strikers in the Championship.
Couldn't follow the game when it was on so caught up just now. Cheers OFH. Great result and sounds like some good performances to kick the season off. Great to see Deeney/Vydra doing the business and the comments about Paredes seem excellent too.
Even better comedy moment when Forestieri fell over when through on goal, and was so embarrassed he spent the next few minutes with his shirt pulled over his head. And is that typical of Gomes to run out and berate his defenders at the drop of a hat? Well , it is easy to laugh when you are winning.
After yesterday's performance, how many changes will BS make for the game at Stevenage on Tuesday? Bond will be a definite starter and my guess is that the front 2 will be taken from Ranegie, Ighalo and Fessi. I know the priority will be trying to get promotion, but with our squad, we could have decent runs in both cups as long as we don't get drawn away to Man C again!
Brilliant start and thanks all for the updates. Nice first goal prediction Norwich, hope you get off to a goal start but with only a gd of 2 Looking forward BBC highlights and whether it will show show how dominant we were, i expect they will show all Boltons chances as usual
So, off to a good start then, but I'm trying hard not to get carried away. It was interesting to see a back three showing better co-ordination and positioning than last season. Perhaps the presence of Tamas, playing Ekstrand in the middle of the back 3, and some sharp tackling and covering by the likes of Toczer in front of them made a difference. Gomes showed he can make saves but he's lost none of his excitability and I suspect we'll see a few loose clearances and missed crosses along the way. Paredes had a dream debut...looked totally at home from the start. He gets forward quickly, can beat players in a tight space and looks up when there's a pass or cross to be made. A vast improvement on any wing back we've had for a long time...let's hope he keeps it up. I was great to see Abdi and Toczer together in midfield...both of them a real presence. Abdi must be the best passer of the ball in the Championship. McGugan I'm less convinced by, though he's dangerous if he's given space and obviously gives us free kick options. Munari, when he came on, looked a bit of a scrapper but that might be very handy against some of the opposition we're likely to meet. Deeney looked as if he's not quite fully match fit but the first goal was a quality finish. It looks as though there will be more of a mixture of long and short balls this season and his ability to either hold up the ball or flick it on for Vydra's runs will be important. Vydra started a bit slowly but showed exactly what his value is with the second goal. I think he's a player who thrives when the team is playing fluently. He may not make so many good runs if things aren't going well! All in all, an encouraging start. Long may it continue!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28646423 The BBC stats for the game paint a different picture to the one I gleaned from Jon Marks' commentary - I never realised how close a game it actually was.
Are you reading the statistics to get an idea of how close the game was? Lies, damned lies and statistics and all that... I followed the game on Final Score and the BBC text. The reports from FS stated regularly how one sided it really was and that we could have been even further ahead. Possession, in modern football at least, is no longer 9/10s of the law- what we make of it is. We allowed them to make nothing of their 50%. We've won by bigger margins with less possession and fewer shots. It's a good solid start and something to build on. No more, no less.
Well that was fun! I must admit to being convinced we would lose as we often do against Bolton but this is a different team and though there were one or two names I wouldn't have started, we were very impressive in the first half and worryingly sitting back in the second. We won't get away with that next week. Meanwhile, lovely as he is I'd be annoyed if Anya automatically got his place back, he was outclassed yesterday by Peredes who did his little dances when it matters, unlike Anya who does them when there isn't another player in sight! Good goals, as ever not given justice by the FLS... At least some things are consistent!
