In my view it really depends on how Dyche tries to kick on for the next few games. In my opinion, he hasn't done too badly with a team that lost it's two best attacking players in Graham and Cowie over the summer. It seems Dyche's main plan was to pair Iwelumo and Sordell, and injury and lack of fitness has stopped that, but now Iwelumo is fit, lets see if his main plan will continue to bear fruit. I do think there should have been some sort of plan B, but then he is in his first job, with limited resources trying to replace a 24-goal striker and talisman, along with the main chance creator of the team. We were always going to lack some creativity in midfield without Cowie, McGinn and to some extent, Buckley, and it was always going to take some time for new players to settle together and gel. Also, Dyche explained himself on the youth front, that he thought that last season they had been thrust in too soon and too regularly. There is the risk that more of them could turn out to be McNamee than Ashley Young. And for much of our good run in last season, the only young academy player in the team was Sordell, and very occasionally Whichelow. Many good young prospects came through at the end of last year, but the team did falter at that stage, well-documented by Hornette, and in what will be a considerably tougher season we will need some more experience, as we won't have anywhere near the gap to the bottom we had last year, with Graham and Cowie. In summary, I think we need to give him a few games to see if things do come together, and even then I only think we should sack him if things have gone horrifically wrong, and we stop looking at all effective in our play. There have been several seasons where we have had outstanding loan players or talismanic players, and it should prove useful to have experienced players if Sordell, as our main talisman at the minute, a 20-year old in his second full season but undeniably talented, deosn't fire on all cylinders all the time. That is the main problem with young players. Sordell is probably the most talented player in the squad, but hadn't scored in 8 games before sunday. That is the frustrating inconsistency of young players that you cannot always afford in these situations. I apologise for the essay, but you'd all made some good points and I felt I could comment on some of them.
Lloyd - you are right about the title - it was written in a hurry and every time I now see it I wish I had called it something else - I could change it and in fact I will As for never criticise the manager I cannot agree. If you believed that SD was bad for the club should you not call for his removal - it is the club we support not the manager. I supported Aidy for a long while but then got so sick of watching hoofball that I turned against him - and it was the fright thing to do - both Brendan and Malky had better spells than Aidy's last 12 months. I think in fact the jury is still out on SD but there comes a point when you have to do the horrible thin - let's face it the average life of a football manager is only 13 months in the job
As I said before it is not instant results good or bad that made me advocate sacking him - it was the people who have been watching Watford and saying we are playing hoofball and are one dimensional and lacking tactical awareness and use of the youngsters. Until we moved to Wales a couple of years ago I had watched the hornets myself for about 40 years so could judge on my own view whereas now I am reliant on what others tell us here. If SD uses a passing game and youngsters and responds to chanigning events on the field better then I would love to see him stay. The two wins hopefully have bought him time to prove he can do more than he had been doing
Watford have been using a bit of hoofball so Big Chris can knock them down and a bit of decent passing. Mark Yeates is an unsung hero.
