Match Day Thread Watford v Southampton 13th January 2018

I am simply stating there are many unfair decisions in a season and Doucoure did the right thing by playing to the whistle. I also pointed out the potential serious consequences of one isolated outbreak of superior morals. Nobody likes cheating or unfair decisions but it is unfortunately part of most sports.

 

By pointing out the potential consequences you are essentially saying that there is a time and place for sportsmanship. Presumably if we had been 5-0 up at the time then such sportsmanship would have been ok. Although it is, I agree, unusual there are many instances of sportsmanship going on. Players deliberately missing penalties which were wrongly given - I have seen this. Most notably when the entire Yeovil team stood still from the kick off allowing Plymouth to score in a League Cup tie - thus equalizing an unfair goal which they had just scored. Regardless of the scoreline I think everyone in the stadium understood the Yeovil gesture. As regards Maradona (probably the most famous incident), a great career was tarnished in the eyes of many people by this one act. The truly great players never did things like this - Johann Cruyff would rather have died than have a goal credited to him in this way.

 

Yes

 

Doucoure's career at WFC could have been ruined had he taken your suggested option. Quite easy for you to make that decision whilst being completely unaffected by the consequences.

 

I am as much affected by the consequences as any other Watford fan. I would further suggest that I would find it hard to retain loyalty to a club which punished a player for honesty of this sort. It is partly to do with different cultures at different clubs, and different managers. My guess is that Mourinho would fume at such honesty whereas Jürgen Klopp or Guardiola would condone it.

 

It wouldn't be just the directors who would express their disappointment in Doucoure but his fellow players, staff, and thousands of fans. Your expectation is unreasonable and illogical. Your guess at the behaviour of certain managers is just a guess. A manager's employment is precarious at the best of times, I very much doubt they would welcome an opportunity to welcome further pressure.

 

Had the two Southampton players who clearly handled the ball inside the penalty area run over to the referee to plead with him to award the penalties, or the player who elbowed Okaka in the face had run over to the referee and pleaded for a red card and a penalty to Watford then the "Doucoure" would not have occurred
Southampton deserved to lose the game, their cheating only earned them a point because in the end some justice prevailed

 

This continual depiction of Klopp as some sort of saintly character is as incorrect as it is laughable. I have never heard him criticise a referee for giving Liverpool a soft penalty or any other questionable decision. On the other hand he berated the ref for giving Everton one in December. And that's fine by me - everyone does it.

 

I cannot say for certain how Klopp or Guardiola would react to a player who did this. I am not a mind reader. However I am not a follower of the philosophy 'win at all costs', if football itself is the loser - I am a football fan first and a Watford fan second. There are some managers who go in for the 'win at all costs' mentality more than others and it is clear that eg. Mourinho would use anything to gain an advantage over an opponent (he makes this clear with the mind games he tries to play with other managers). If you will forgive me Dan, I have been watching Klopp for a lot longer than you have - manager at BVB and at Mainz - it is well known that he would rather draw a thriller 4-4 than win 1-0 by any means (of course 5-4 would be even better), and I think Liverpool this season are proof of that. The same is true of Guardiola who owes everything he has to having studied under Johann Cruyff, and has instilled this at Man. City - where football is becoming an art form. As I said earlier Cruyff would rather have died than score a goal in that way (and know it would be replayed time, and time again on video).

 

None of us want cheating and/or bad decisions affecting games but your approach seems extremely naive to say the least. It is quite easy to quote two managers who are currently on top of their game without the pressure most managers are under. I still think they would not instruct their players to interfere with the officials decisions at the detriment to their own team.

 

Well we'll agree to differ on this - but we can agree on one thing. We would both like a Watford manager to be 'at the top of their game' and not have the constant pressure most managers are under. We would hope to be 5-0 up at the time such things happen, and then we can afford to be generous. Fact is we never should have been chasing the game anyway.

 

I think we would all prefer that sport was played without cheating and where it occurs some sort of sanction is applied by a neutral - ie the ref or umpire. His decision should be final, even if it is wrong or cannot be reviewed in some means.
Only Decoure will know whether he handled the ball deliberately, the limited videos we have seen are not conclusive on this although it appears the ball has handled, it all happened very quickly, he was off balance and falling. If it was not deliberate then the conclusion is it is not a foul.
It thus remains up to Decoure to fess up if what he did was deliberate. With football being a big business today, I doubt (m)any players would fess up. Decoure would have to have a very stong moral compass to fess up and take the consequences (if any) of his actions from fans, team-mates, manager and owners to own up.
This all boils down to whether as individuals we are realists like SH or Idealists like Cologne. I think we would all like to be idealists.
I hope at the end of the season that Soton are not relegated by losing 2 points and we are not relegated by missing 1 point.

 

Nobody would have a problem with Doucoure doing the honourable thing if both Watford and Southampton were mid table at the end of the season with no chance of relegation. If you are being completely idealistic then this should not matter but we are talking about potentially lots of people's livelihoods with serious consequences. It is much easier all round to accept sometimes these things happen and normally even themselves out over a period of time.

 

Nonsense .

 

I don't think either of us deserved to win the game Duggie. We didn't deserve it because Silva got it tactically wrong in the first half (and blamed the players for that), and Southampton didn't deserve to win because they went on the back foot for the entire second half. The game proved that both managers are as bad as each other !

 

The point I was trying to make was that Southampton were very fortunate not to concede a penalty or two so the end result was fair
Their tactics in the last 30 minutes were timewasting and stopping Watford players by any means hence the number of booking with a couple of players lucky to avoid a second yellow, very reminiscent of Stoke at their worst
I was at the ground so I am not going by here say
Doucoure was attempting to head the ball so the handball was accidental, maybe the ref thought all the handballs including Southampton's were accidental so no penalty or disallowed goal
Overall Southampton cannot in any way claim they were robbed

 

Quite remarkable Mr Superhorns that ability of yours to speak for everyone else (directors,players,staff,supporters mentioned earlier) and why not throw in Fred the Steward and the Box Office Guard Dog.
Now I know where the 'Super' in your title comes from.

 

But surely tactics are the name of the game? Both WM and QSF were pilloried for being unable to change tactics during a game - in this instance Silva switched to 4-4-2 for the second half and, with Deeney and Gray up front, the transformation was a near miracle. My main beef with him is that he so obviously favours a different system - one that doesn't particularly suit our players - and has persevered with it even though it's not working. Now that he's seen what playing two up front can produce, I hope he carries on with it - and then turns his attention to the crazy zonal defence which should have been ditched before it started imo...

 

Precisely - I can think of three incidents in their penalty area that I'm damned sure would have produced penalties had they happened at the other end - particularly against certain other teams.

 

After so many recent Watford defeats it is not too difficult to imagine the reaction if Doucoure turned a draw into a defeat. I'm sure they would all say the good of the game is more important than Watford's well being. Duh!!