Just how bad we were at Bournemouth was shown by Middlesboro's 2-0 win over them today compared to our 6-1 loss. Bournemouth had a 57/43 possession advantage and played the same team as against us but that was a SEVEN goal swing!! I'm increasingly of the opinion that Phelan doesn't have a clue about tactics or team selection, an amazing statement to make about someone who spent many years as assistant to Ferguson, but his decisions in recent weeks have been IMO incomprehensible. Unless there's a change in January under new owners, we are heading back into the Championship and what remains of our quality players will leave and a deeper slide is probably inevitable.
the problem was despite the ridiculous first 2 minutes watford had no clear opportunities. tymon should have started.. clucas has no instinct or experience in that position so they had amrabat constantly down that flank attacking clucas we had a few chances and in the second half it was very even.. hernandez taking the ball on and taking the shot.. is EXACTLY what we want. he excells at that and we were no world shakers but it was looking like we might force a winner then comes phelan takes keane off .. who not offering any goal threat helped pressure the back line of watford.. so he pops off and meyler comes on and we are suddenly extremely defensive and any chance we may have had to get a win vanished and within a few minutes watford are getting closer and closer, we get deeper and deeper and as an eventual result of this pressure, dawson puts the ball in our net THEN he decides to give a premier league debut to a player who has not been part of any of the first team in a desperate pathetic bid to try and get a point from the game this just speaks absolutely true to how inept our manager really ****ing is i mean watford hadn't had a ****ing single shot ON target at the point of substitute so it's not like he HAD to make the change to try and hold onto a point when i heard the sub i posted on here with a emote because i was baffled he has absolutely no ****ing clue what he is doing we either accept relegation or ****ing try and get someone else in. nothing to lose there is absolutely no chance that this club is staying in the premier league with phelan in charge
Compound it even further by the fact that this kid was introduced in the 90th minute (8 minutes after they scored) giving him 4 minutes, when you have even Maloney!!!! sat on the bench... but then, he does like people to feel involved remember..
So Keane is **** and shouldn't start. And Phelan is **** for subbing off Keane, on a day when he has no fit or experienced strikers on the bench. Priceless pant wetting.
Match Of The Day @BBCMOTD Watford are the first team to win a Premier League game for 10 years without having a single shot on target... #MOTD @BBCOne
Shearer said "Watford thoroughly deserved their victory" Ho can a team who doesn't have a shot at goal at home thoroughly deserve their victory ?
Yeah that's what I was getting at, "thoroughly" makes it sound like they battered our goal. When in reality they didn't manage a shot on target at home against a team that hasn't won in 5 (I think)
Even though we still have important players out we are still our own worst enemy at the moment as time after time yesterday we tried to break out on the counter attack but never had the quality in our passing and movement to make it count. Our defenders lumped it simply to get a break at times as our midfield were closed down or squeezed. As you would expect,they did thier homework and attacked Clucas who I felt sorry for,why Phelan prefers to move players out of position rather than slot a recognised left back in is his Achilles heal at the moment. When we did get it out wide we either miss hit the cross or dident get the crosses in quick enough. Easy to criticise after the event of course but at this level you either compete or get turned over and right now a single goall is enough to spoil our chances of even a point. Credit to our travelling fans,they sung loud and proud and deserved a better showing,something that's becoming increasingly familier and it's not pretty right now.
Never mind the Phelan factor- the main reason we are struggling is the shambles of a summer we had. We've not got enough up front or in any of the wide positions, most of the players we brought in at the last minute have just padded out a threadbare Championship quality squad rather than markedly improved the team, and injuries to Odubajo, Mbokani, Dawson and Robertson have left us playing out of form players, players out of position, or simply players not up to the job. Add to that losing fans by the 1000's and those left being that disengaged with the club they can barely get off their arses to get behind the team, and it becomes clear we are deep in the **** and well on our way to wasting another go in the Premier League. In fact, the only surprise should be that there are still teams below us. Bruce saw the writing on the wall, and he also knew where the blame lies...he wasn't naive enough to get shackled with this mess on his CV. On the other hand, I would love to see how Allam massages his CV after this shambles. At least Shearer has it right on one thing- the Allams are to blame for this mess; not Phelan nor the players.
Hard to argue,the bigger picture at last. Just boils my pizz when the same players who used to keep the ball,now give the ball away so cheaply and heads are definitely dropping. Would you agree other than a complete takeover and makeover player wise,were down already,or has the ship sailed already?
The truth is all their players looked bigger,stronger and faster than ours.we need mybikini back upfront and some big aggressive ****er in midfield who's prepared to mix it a la Ashlee
