martyn

2-1 Ipswich, completely undeserved

Nice one. Am going to Gdansk in May with some friends as we're all turning 40 around the same time, and we wanted somewhere a bit different.

Morsy and Luongo both gone is bad news for Ipswich.

I'm a West stand prawn sandwicher, but even I was taken aback by the sheer volume of people leaving today. It's not an exaggeration to say half the ground had emptied before the final whistle. If be half tempted to call it out if I were Maresca.

I'd be sorely tempted to hook Faes at half time. Absolute bombscare all half

Middlesbrough down to 10

We aren't creating enough at the moment, that's true and the handbrake seems on when we have the chance to spring, which is frustrating, but the thing we've got is a really solid base, which will always give us a chance. I don't think anyone has carved us open in open play since about the first 3 or 4 games of the season. All of our defensive wounds are self inflicted. It's what will see us over the line imo.

Vards was on top pointing form this evening. Sure sign he's having a stinker.

Excellent player, but comfortably his worst 90 minutes tonight for us.

I'm not really sure what his attributes are. He isn't technical, he hasn't got the speed of thought to know what's around him, takes too long to sort his feet out, isn't particularly mobile, and isn't getting in the box enough or breaking past our front players. He's a big lad for a midfielder but isn't particularly physical either. Aside from a couple of decent runs against Sunderland, I can't think of any other real positive contributions to a game, or left a game thinking that there are areas where he has at least shown some potential to grow into the role. You wonder how he was so dominant at u20 level.

Fair play to Wednesday, they'll start picking some points up playing with that intensity. It's becoming clear the blueprint against us isn't the low block, but press us high and block the passing lanes into Winks/Ricardo. We were garbage. Never won a 50/50 all night, didn't move the ball quickly enough and were just generally not sharp enough all over the field. I've not felt it much this season when leading as we've managed those situations well but tonight it felt like Wednesday were going to equalise, such was the encouragement we gave them. The goal we conceded was probably the worst all season as well, we've been pretty solid defending our box all season but that was an appalling goal to concede.

Wednesday clearly instructed to press onto Winks and Ricardo when Hermansen has it. Might need to go wide.

Ricardo at 5.9 (as of posting) is crazy. He was decent.

Was very good today, though i doubt have an easier game all season against a side who didn't press and against an absolute donkey of a striker in Rajovic. Vestergaard even beat him in a foot race over 30 yards in the first half.

Winks is first name on the team sheet but I don't think we missed him today. Watford didn't press Choudhury with any intensity and made it easy for him on the ball to just keep it ticking over. Second half Choudhury was pivotal. One of the main reasons we got up the head of steam second half was our press and counter press was really aggressive and he was a big factor in that, and not something we necessarily get from Winks.

The only way he'd score was with a chip. By the time he'd broken free of the tussle with the defender he was quite wide and their keeper had narrowed down the angle significantly. So no issue with missing that chance, but a big issue with every other facet of his performance.

Interesting to see that still. The free kick was taken at least 3 yards ahead of where the foul was committed.

To be fair, that performance was no different to many this season. Thought we shaded the game but on this occasion, we've been punished by quality we've not seen from opponents in other games, and fluffed all of the presentable openings we made for ourselves. Not overly concerned just yet.

We were fine in general play for 35 mins. The issue was not exploiting the occasions we managed to break the lines because our decision making was too safe. Last 10 was poor and we needed the goalkeeper to bail us out. We desperately need more from Nacho, he's a total dead weight playing like this.

We need to be a bit braver once we've made the space. We've played some pretty high risk stuff at the back quite successfully, but then when we get it to the man in space we've not exploited it well enough.

Nacho totally half hearted

Vestergaard getting exposed

Only question there is does Ricardo or Hamza play the 8

Whilst the letter of the law says it's a red, I feel sorry for Rashford there. He's clearly trying to get his body between himself and the ball to shield it with no intention of hurting the opponent whatsoever.

Still trying to comprehend why JJ was taking that set piece in the last minute.