Well I won't be with you on Saturday and we may be the first team to beat Man City for a while, such is our erratic form. happy new year all!
I don’t even know what to say. Watching that sort of thing from afar is bad enough (Everton, Palace) but for it to happen in front of you...just awful.
Well I didn't foresee that smash and grab to be honest had you boys down for winning, but I'm pleased for our new manager, who gave our lads a right drumming at half time, and it paid off, it was a very needed 3 points for us, as you can imagine, anyway wish you all the very best for the rest of the season, your a good and honest club, happy new year lads!.............
Repeat of the Palace game! Our sub misses a great chance - theirs score. We cannot defend so why sit back and try to?
What he said. No application, no tactical nous, no shift in gears when needed. Just utterly shocking. If I didn't have a principle of never backing against my team I'd be looking at the 33s on offer for us to go down. On that performance we won't get another point. Still, am on the train home so may feel differently after a good meal and a few drinks!
ZZ cannot defend to save his life as warned by a Sporting fan when we signed him - same with Janmaat - must be a Dutch thing. Richarlison still looks like the only real threat alongside Doucoure and the only ones who seem able to complete a whole game. Okaka did well for 20 minutes but was totally out of it 2nd half - and we had Cleverley playing 2nd striker! Prodl seems a different defender since coming back from injury... I presume Hughes isn't near fitness as suggested a week or so ago. Even Silva on 3CR pretty much blamed Gray by saying he should have "killed the game"
These things happen Dan. No manager worth his salt should blame a player before taking the weight on his own head. The fact is that at 1-0 we slowed the game down to the urgency of a pre season friendly. It is possible to close a game out at 1-0 - other teams manage it, but they normally have defenders who have been playing together for some time and who actually understand each other. The only way we are going to hold onto 1-0 is to keep the ball in the other half.
And tbf it was a decent save by a goalie who has kept Swansea in a lot of games. Actually their goals against record isn't bad apart from the odd game like against Liverpool - just the usually don't score! But even the most out of form or least confident side has a chance at 1-0 - even more so if your sitting back and give away silly free kicks.
I agree - and for parts of the first half they did manage possession ok (much to the disgust of some experts behind me) but it just fell apart. But we're looking at at least three games where an open goal was missed shortly before the opposition scored at least two. You can get why he is frustrated.
I can understand the frustration Dan, but our problems are not just the result of missed chances. The cohesion is not there, the body language is not there, the tactical nous is not there, in short we are a disjointed rabble.....easily the worst team in the Premiership at the moment. If we are handing out blame then it should be handed out liberally, not just at the odd striker for missing. Maybe the manager, maybe a so called team captain who grabs people by the throat (smiles whilst doing it) and consequently later gets a 4 match ban over Christmas. Maybe the general discipline of a team which regularly amasses more yellow cards than shots on goal. Maybe the Pozzos's.....the philosophy of one manager per season, with a stock of players drawn from everywhere for that one season is just not working. I would have thought it logical to assume that any foreign manager brought into the Premiership would be better in his second year.....infinitely preferable to bringing in another rookie. Continuity is everything for a football club, and we don't have it......and what we are seeing now is the accumulated result. Can we blame individual players such as Richarlison, who is spending his first winter away from Brazil and had never seen snow until quite recently. The Pozzo's need to learn, and learn quickly, that their method has a flaw in it. Maybe the training methods - why so many injuries ? Maybe the medical staff. Maybe also the fans for not being the 12th man often enough, or loudly enough at critical points in matches....surely they should be raising the roof for the last 10 mins. Where would we be now if the Pozzo's had kept a good manager in place for several years with economic security in the background and the chance to keep what he wants and otherwise build his own team ?
I agree with a lot of this. However... Richarlison, I’m sorry to say, could not really be arsed to put any sort of effort into his crosses/passes, I’m sorry, he was awful. Maybe he is our only pace, but Tom C was one of the few putting a shift in. Richarlison came across as a petulant teenager (?) who is feeding off the bad dressing room atmosphere. Okaka impressed first half but wasn’t fit enough for 90m. Gray should’ve scored but, OK, it happens. But his petulance when someone didn’t pass to him disappointed. Zeegelar could not be arsed to run back when grossly out of position and they were breaking, a gentle jog was good enough for him. Gomes excellent as always, from what I could see (I was the other end of the ground for their goals). Swansea were poor, but they played for 90 minutes so good luck to them (we’ve a lot of shared history), glad they got the three points. We sure as hell didn’t deserve them. Everton unsettled our manager and he wasn’t professional enough IMHO to keep his fat gob shut at that time and created unrest in the dressing room. Deeney expects the manager to be 100% behind the team rather than looking over shoulders for external interest in him. We all expect that 100%. Mr Silva has a lot of work to do to repair our fractured club. 7 (?) points clear of the drop at the mo’. I expect that to be fewer soon. We could implode without a doubt particularly if others rally.
I think Everton not only unsettled him but gave him a false idea of his own value. For them everything turned out ok. they got fat Sam instead which was the far better choice.
I thought Ricky did ok but agree he does get frustrated and almost tries too much on his own - maybe doesn't trust the others. Gomes cannot do a lot if those in front of him aren't moving to react to any saves sadly. Cleverley certainly worked hard again in an unnatural forward role.. Worry was Okaka getting tired so easily and as i say Zeegelar seems to be a rash tackler.
Certainly not today, but I have seen some of the most entertaining football from a Watford team this season since the days of GFZ and GT. I said a few matches ago that I thought we looked like a genuine Premier League side. To watch the high tempo, high pressing game takes a huge amount of energy, but due to injuries we are being forced into playing the same basic team match after match. Yes when I was a teenager I could play every other day if required, but that was not at this level. Players have been found who have shown just what they can do, but some are starting to look a bit over played, yet there is no obvious replacement for them. I could talk about players who have been brought in, yet despite the hope that they will be the one we want, for whatever reason do not settle in. I suspect every PL club goes through the same thing, players who just don't produce what they have been brought in to do. I sometimes think about Barry Endean who had one glorious season with Watford, yet throughout the rest of his playing days produced nothing. How can this happen? Look at Vydra. He has done better lately, but has hardly set the world alight since he left Watford. What makes a player who has talent produce it for just one season? I think that there are multiple reasons for players, managers and owners to do as they do, and despite us wanting to find a scapegoat for a truly horrid display as today, a football club is a very complex place, that we as fans see very little of.
I think he is a good manager, but he clearly doesn’t understand the importance of keeping the players together as a unit. If he doesn’t see the psychological effect his actions had on players, he surely has to question his own relevance to the team, doesn’t he?
