Exactly. It exposes the passing weakness of players like a Doyley, Hall, Hogg who are rushed into making a poor passing decision. I'm absolutely convinced it needs a really influential and capable experienced ball player in the dmf role to captain the ship.
Or perhaps we just played better in those games and had a poor half with tired legs? Can't put a negative spin on things. We played very deep v Brighton and 'Boro, our counter-attacking yesterday just didn't click and that's the only reason we didn't win.
We had more space in those games. If teams give us space we generally play round them, if we're closed down we give the ball away.
I'll be honest and say I enjoyed watching the palace support more than our own team in the 2nd half, it was entertaining. I'd like to know what those flares were that were flashing away right at the top, where do you get those??
I agree-this maybe why GFZ said he was impressed with Millwalls Trotter-maybe once they are out of the cup (albeit don't want that next week !) as safe in league with form dropping off lately
What we lacked yesterday was our slickness on the counter which was down to us, not them pressing brilliantly. Good pressing doesn't prevent counter-attacks, a good counter means they can't press you, because they get caught with 2v2 or similar, hence why we play that way when in front or away.
We've beaten Boro Brighton Leicester forest but we have 1 point from Bristol city. Who would be the better sides. People are reading too much into 45 minutes of football. If we don't win for 8 games then we will have something to worry about but till then we are, as I write this 3rd in a very tough division. Show me Watford fan who wouldn't have taken that 6 months a go and I will show you a prat!
I hate someone commenting from the TV as much as someone that was at the game but from watching on the box , my view is , we are not savvy enough to deal with the best sides in this division , palace `hulled` us , and if the game was 120 minutes long we would have lost heavily , from last night , the glaring weak link is Hogg , he takes to long to distribute and his accuracy is poor (compared to battachio or abdi , not that he`s a bad player) , Pudil had another game where you might think he isnt actually `all that` (in comparison to what we might have thought), and when others have off days , and you come up against a god outfit like palace (when they decided to turn up for the game..) your going to struggle... we after 25 minutes we started getting too cocky , through balls that normally happen without thinking , were m=being missed and we started to slack , 5 minutes into the second half and we had replaced slackness with fear , and we were from then on , in trouble oh well , we are a decent team still there isnt any doubt ,but we dont seem to be able to batle adversity that well , againts the best of the division imo
great for 25 minutes, but then switched off. will take a point after that inept 2nd half display. chalobah was poor after the knock and battochio should have come on at half time. pudil really struggled with zaha but he certainly isnt the only player that has happened to this season. vydra looked tired, but when he went off so did our goal threat. forestieri never got into the game, and gave the ball away far too often however he has a real lack of match practice at the moment.
Read back a bit and I've answered that. These teams let us play our way, and we did, beating them comprehensively. Palace did a Hull, got right in the faces of our back 3 and midfield, gave us no time on the ball, and we rushed passes and made poor decisions. It's a weakness in our team that hasn't been fixed since Hull. I bet I know exactly how Cardiff and Leicester are going to play us.....
Reading way, way too much into 45 minutes. We brought it upon ourselves last night, that was obvious imo. It's no coincidence teams haven't been able to get near us for weeks now.
Against the top teams we've had 1 and a half poor games. That's it, hardly found out, when you play them as often as we do in a long season they will get the better of you for periods.
I hate using the expression but do we have a plan B when plan A fails? Not sure we do as yet. We only seem to play one way and, when it works (which it does most of the time) we are a pure joy to watch. But when it doesn't...Bristol City, 2nd half last night, we don't seem to have a back up plan or enough players on the pitch capable of 'managing' the match situation. If we got promoted to the PL, you could almost guarantee we'd do well against the likes of Swansea but get done over by Stoke!
we were fantastic for 25 minutes, till the moment that Chalobah was taken out and from there it all went down hill. Chalobah was clearly struggling and by trying to let him run it off only gave them time to generate some momentum. The second haf we just couldn't live with them. If ever there was a time to get the ball up front quick and hold it up then it was last night. GFZ showed a real lack of understanding of the championship last night. He needed to shore up the midfielder earlier and needed to bring Geijo on to hold the ball up field. Chalobah still played very well but at 70% pace he and Abdi were just over run, you could see 10 minutes before they scored what was going to happen. The moment Philips came on his runs across the back 3 pulled Doyley and Hoban out wide creating all sorts of space in and around Hall. Really disapointing that after a good start we only scraped a draw
Peterborough equaliser and *cough* a Man Utd loanee has scored it! Wonder how talk sport ******* will respond?
Some interesting posts and observations made today now that people have calmed down a little. Palace worked really hard to get themselves back in the game. I've seen people complain about Almunia going long with the ball, but what other option does he have when the opposition have pushed up so high? Let's face it, if he rolls the ball out to Doyley and he's got a Palace player in his face, 9 times out of 10, Palace have the ball back on the edge of our box - which is much more dangerous. He goes long in the hope that Deeney will win the ball and hold it up, allowing our midfield to push up and hopefully let us keep the ball. This didn't happen last night, Deeney struggled to hold it and we never had any meaningful possession. Unfortunately, people like Doyley and to some extent as well, Hall, they just aren't good enough on the ball to receive it under pressure. We need to get better at playing teams who'll push up and hassle us, especially because the opposition playing high up the field leaves a lot of space for us to counter in once we get the ball. I like Hogg as a player, he's got a lot to offer, but last night he was terrible. He took far too long on the ball and when he did make a pass, invariably it never reached the intended target. As the defensive minded midfielder, he needs to be comfortable on the ball. When teams push up on us, he's not quick enough on the ball to move it around their advanced midfield. Had Battochio played yesterday, I feel as though we'd have done a far better job of keeping the ball under pressure - disappointed that Zola didn't bring on Battochio for Hogg once they started to dominate possession. Layton rightly mentions above that we don't seem to battle adversity very well and I agree with him. There is only so much Zola can do from the sidelines when things are going against us. He's limited in the substitutions he can make etc. This is when you're looking at the experienced players in our team - the likes of Hall, Almunia, Abdi, Doyley and even Deeney need to step up and lead us through the rough patches. For me, they've not shown enough leadership under pressure and we've seemed to crumble. It's up to them to help the younger players through the tough times and keep us organized.
What a weekend of football. That point yesterday suddenly looks VERY good indeed. 9 points clear of 7th, still one behind Leicester. Just need a draw between Hull/ brighton or a brighton win.
