Watford (H) 25 Nov - Post-Match Thread

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, oxtonfox said:

We’re playing like a seasoned heavyweight boxer who doesn’t necessarily want to knock out his opponent with an early flurry of hammer blows. We prefer to keep them moving around the ring, until they tire then hit them late to win on points. 

That’s basically us this season summed up.

[oxtonfox]

12 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

I thought Nacho's performance was bordering on disgraceful today. Barely looked interested and his first touch was atrocious on the rare occasions he stayed onside

Probably why Rodgers never really trusted him. He’s very inconsistent and has a character that looks like he doesn’t care which probably betrays him. I thought he’d do better at this level. Time for Cannon and Daka I think. 

[baldeagle]

Thought we were so slow and ponderous the first half  and was getting so frustrated with Hamza just standing still constantly and passing backwards. Second half was much better more movement slightly quicker passing . Also Hamza who I don’t really rate was much much better and had a good second half so hats off to him . 

[Jaspa]

Flashbacks of Dean Windass in goal for Oldham at the end there with that penalty, somehow found myself sitting in near enough the exact same seat...

 

luckily enough we have Jamie Vardy to (eventually)bang 'um in

[Guest glasgowfox]

Maybe not in the right place so apologies if thats the case.....but I found getting a reliable stream an absolute nightmare today.  Ended up watching sky sports news.

[Langston]

I wish we were more direct like Leeds 

[whoareyaaa]

https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/13016095/leicester-city-2-0-watford-championship-highlights

[Eskay]

First half was hard to watch. Didn't really give value to a set of fans who have the most ££ day in the football league. Second was better and lead by Vardy. I thought stephy was great all game and KDH was tidy. 

 

Really don't understand JJ at the minute. Looks a totally different player and pretty I effective at that. Didn't see him attempt an overlap even once. 

 

 

Final point - first time I've been in the stadium for a Tifo. It's unreal. Well done to UFS. You can see a hell of a lot of effort goes in and you can see the coordination they have to put in to pull it off. It's free of any arrogance what so ever. Like it or not ....we are lucky as fans to have a group doing this within the club. Thank you. 

[MPH]

2 minutes ago, glasgowfox said:

Maybe not in the right place so apologies if thats the case.....but I found getting a reliable stream an absolute nightmare today.  Ended up watching sky sports news.

 Sports-10 was decent second half but glitchy first half..

[whoareyaaa]

2 minutes ago, Langston said:

I wish we were more direct like Leeds 

but they are 3rd ?

[StriderHiryu]

Some thoughts here from me on Beyond the 90:

 

 

 

This isn't my channel, so I don't feel bad blatantly upselling it on here .

 

TL:DR

 

• Watford went man for man, but noticeably stood off us and were happy for us to have the ball until we passed a certain point on the pitch.
• The first half was very slow and patient. IMO way too slow and way too patient.
  • There was a point in the game where Kasey McAteer made a superb challenge to win the ball and the break was on, but after he passed it the ball went backwards when we had superiority in transition.
  • However, in the last 5-10 minutes we turned up the pressure massively. McAteer header, KDH chance, Mavididi causing chaos, etc. Half-time came at a good time for Watford who were hanging on.
• Second half was much better:
  • Making subs at 55 instead of 60 I liked. Gave us more time to find the "solution" as Enzo likes to say.
  • Our bench was absolutely frightening today. No one in the division can come close to the options we can bring on.
  • We missed tons of chances, KDH off the post, Mavididi's shot almost snuck in, Vardy missing sitters. But even when all of these happened, I looked at the clock, and it read"65:00." Even though we hadn't scored in 4 hours of play, I felt like there was no way we weren't scoring today.
• After we scored, we didn't manage the game too well, a pattern that we've surprisingly seen quite a bit. Watford should have scored, and we get away with things like this in this division.
  • The frustrating thing is these chances aren't coming from great play, but falling asleep. This wasn't like the wonderful freekick Boro scored, this was just not keeping care of the ball.
• Many supporters, myself included, would like us to play a bit more aggressively earlier in games, when we clearly wait until later on.
  • When it gets chaotic in the opposition box, this is what usually results in us scoring.
  • So instead of trying to walk it into the back of the net like we try in the first half, perhaps we should go for more 50/50s, as with our quality we will win a lot of these.
  • Controlling the game makes a lot of sense, but I feel like this same performance in the Premier League would see us go a goal down and then be desperate to score. Look at Burnley who lost again today.
• Overall we controlled the game, thoroughly deserved to win and this was much like we've seen all season. Tire out the opposition in the first 60 and then kill them in the final 30 of the game.

 

 

 

 

Edited 25 November 2023 by StriderHiryu

[Bert]

2 minutes ago, Langston said:

I wish we were more direct like Leeds 

I’m sure Leeds wish they were 10 points behind us as well 

[Guest glasgowfox]

4 minutes ago, Langston said:

I wish we were more direct like Leeds 

I never ever in my life want to be anything like Leeds.

[Langston]

Just now, Bert said:

I’m sure Leeds wish they were 10 points behind us as well 

Yeah that was the joke but thank you for *literally* explaining it 

[sm1]

25 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

I thought Nacho's performance was bordering on disgraceful today. Barely looked interested and his first touch was atrocious on the rare occasions he stayed onside

He's playing like a man with one foot out the door, abit like several players did last season. After AFCON, I dont think we'll see much of him.

[whoareyaaa]

1 minute ago, Langston said:

Yeah that was the joke but thank you for *literally* explaining it 

[Simonb]

Got the win, all that matters. 2nd, 3rd and 4th all dropped points.

 

Didn't realise until I was just looking on the bbc, out of the top 15 scorers in the league, Vardys got the 2nd best goals per minute in the league, ain't bad at 100 years old.

 

Yea he isn't premier league standard anymore, but he's doing a job in the championship.. considering he's missed a couple of sitters this season too. Hopefully he will have one of his goal bursts now

[adejo92]

Kind of a repeat of most the season thus far.

 

Controlled the game, lucky to not go behind thanks to abysmal opposition finishing and then grabbed the goals that mattered.

 

Painful watch for the most part but another 3 points on the board.

Edited 25 November 2023 by adejo92

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

I think we have half the points needed for automatic promotion in most years. We are 6 games away from the mid point of the season, so in my mind these next 6 games are like bonus games. Get a good points return and we have 1 foot in the PL. 

[Balj]

Very frustrating today - moving the quickly from defence is a problem as is our lack of goal threat when we get there. Nacho isn’t aggressive or goal hungry enough and Vards doesn’t have the legs. 
 

I think that Mads being so good with the ball is actually a downside for us at times as it’s so easy to pass the ball back rather than create movement forwards. When we transition quickly we’re good but don’t it nearly enough. 
 

Missed Winks today too -,KDH had too much creativity on his shoulders with Hamza basically just sitting in and offering little going forward.

 

Welcome 3 points though.

Edited 25 November 2023 by Balj

[Pliskin]

First half was a slog. 
 

My opinion is we still haven’t quite got those high 8’s right. I thought KDH was excellent today to be fair, but for as good as Wilf has been, he just isn’t an attacking player in the sense of his movement off the ball. There were periods where Mads comes out and he’s looking to punch a pass into those advancing midfielders, and because there’s no interchangeable movement happening he has no options. Kalechi, was dropping deep but standing still, which causes congestions and limits the space for those players to run into. 
 

This causes the play to become slow and laboured and means we have to rely on the width and that makes it easy for the opponent to defend, because Kalechi isn’t moving they can just surround either Mavs or McAteer to slow us down. 
 

Second half we were more aggressive coming forward, KDH was having a superb game and Mavididi came to life also. Bringing Vardy and Fatawu on stretched the game a bit more and we were able to create more chances. Fabulous header from Vesty for Vardy’s goal….  
 

Keep banging the drum, but we’ve got to look at these two AM, we’ve got a bag of shit to play midweek, let’s try Praet with KDH, and N’didi in that inverted fullback role and see how we get on.

[Mickyblueeyes]

Overall I enjoyed that. Took us a bit of time to get going first half. But second half, we were very good. On another day Vardy has 4. KDH also hit the post. I’d add Stephy’s chance to the list as well as a very good opportunity. That’s 6 very good chances in just one half. To me that’s a very good performance. 
 

I think what the side are working on is moving that ball quicker. We look very good when we do but don’t seem to be consistent at doing it just yet. However, Enzo has had them for what 8 months ? Great weekend.

[Ted Maul]

2 hours ago, The Guvnor said:

After being a huge critic, Jannik is beginning to win me over.

Only beginning? I knew he was the best CB in the league 2 months ago.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, UniFox21 said:

But once again concerning we only scored twice. 

We've been taking so many chances . 

Yeah that needs to improve but I wasn't massively impressed with the amount we've created vs QPR, Leeds and Middlesborough so glad we at least created a load today.

[Chelmofox]

17 minutes ago, Balj said:

Very frustrating today - moving the quickly from defence is a problem as is our lack of goal threat when we get there. Nacho isn’t aggressive or goal hungry enough and Vards doesn’t have the legs. 
 

I think that Mads being so good with the ball is actually a downside for us at times as it’s so easy to pass the ball back rather than create movement forwards. When we transition quickly we’re good but don’t it nearly enough. 
 

Missed Winks today too -,KDH had too much creativity on his shoulders with Hamza basically just sitting in and offering little going forward.

 

Welcome 3 points though.

Thought Hamza had a really good game. There was a lot of progressive passing in there and he was a real threat when pressing - possibly more than Winks. I thought Watford were terrible so its hard to gauge if he can do this role more often, but saying he offered little was way off the mark.

 

I thought Mavadidi had an excellent second half. Won a lot of 1 on 1 battles and was a significant threat. One of the best games ive seen him have for us.