The most damning thing last night was that Millwall didn't play particularly amazing. It wasn't as if they were carving us open or anything like that. They were just well organised, pressed us hard, and put balls into our box. Our defence seemed to soil themselves whenever the ball went near our goal, and our attack didn't have enough incisiveness or urgency to cut through their defence until right at the end of the game. In the second half, lots of possession and passing between centre backs and out to the wing, but no real idea how to actually get through Millwall and create a decent chance. I think if we lose on Sunday the atmosphere will be toxic, especially if the manner of defeat is anything like yesterday.
I'd really like to know who this 'Watford fan pundit' is - the one who "named Yaser Asprilla and Samuel Kalu as two names who performed okay, he also added that they only ‘slightly less average than the rest." He wasn't watching the same match as me. “Slightly less average” - Watford fan pundit speaks out over player credibility after Millwall defeat | Football League World
The football commentary starts the game on the neutral premise that both sides are equal in every situation. Then ,when one side apparently outplays the other, if only in one aspect of the game i.e. lofted balls into the box with a massive player to instigate chances, and the other side then loses its most creative player, it suddenly becomes 'how poor ' the losing side are. No mention of the injury list -in WFC's case 6 ( 5 injured , one not risked) , and midfielders as well. Yes we weren't very good, didn't defend well against such an obvious threat and didn't score , but that is it really. We were knocked out of our stride, had a young defender on debut and lost the only irreplaceable (in terms of influence) player in the team. We can all debate the recruitment, but how many people knew we would be in this situation in the summer ? The performance of the team at Blackpool was better then several of the supporters there. Last night wasn't great, but it's not a disaster. It is true that we struggle against gritty (scruffy even) teams , and we do look to slow the game down at periods ( leftover from EPL ?) . Once we have a fit (fitter ?) squad , we'll win 2 or 3 consecutively , and then we'll see what is possible.
What we need are two big competitive centre backs who will not let themselves be beaten and two midfielders who can perform at a consistent level for 3 games a week That would give the skilful players their freedom to cause mayhem in the opposition box The stats show we matched or outperformed Millwall in every aspect apart from shots on target, we gave them 3 goals because we did not have the four players mentioned above to prevent the build up and chances created Once we were 2 or 3 goals down the attackers are too nervous to do what they are capable of because the know if we give the ball away we are in trouble If we had scored first it would have been a different story because then Millwall would have been under pressure and worried about giving the ball away If we had defended as well in the first half as we did in the second would probably been 0 - 0
