Walter Mazzarri - Ex Manager

Good strikers are often more alive in the box to rebounds than defenders. It's why they get so many cheap goals. Gabbiadini followed in a shot and our defenders thought Gomes would deal with comfortably, so switched off for a second, which is all it takes.

But it leads me to a point. I don't necessarily blame our defenders for not getting to the rebound first, but I do blame our players for not getting tight to the Southampton player free on the edge of our box. This gave him the encouragement to fire one in. Had we been alive and closed that down he would not have taken a shot in the first place.

This is what's going on all over the pitch far too often and it becomes a big problem when we do not close down players when they get near to our penalty area.

Redmond was jockeyed by Prodl, but he just didn't close down the angle. It gave Redmond the confidence to shoot as he had the whole goal to aim at. Gomes should have done better, but the shot shouldn't have happened in the first place. Prodl should have forced him wide, so he would have either crossed or cut back instead.

It's all these little attention to details, the lack of awareness and naivety we continually show which is a big concern.

Southampton are decent, but they are not that good. We allowed them to shoot 20 times at our goal, 11 being on target. That's just ridiculous.

We've been getting away with it through good luck and wonder saves in the past, but as soon as our keeper makes a couple of mistakes, the paper over the cracks is peeled away rapidly.

Too many of our defenders are below par, but the shape is all wrong in the first place. Players are drawn to the ball instead of the man they are supposed to be marking.

Basically a lot of our problems can be rectified at a stroke by good coaching. Anyone in the game will tell you defensive problems are the easiest problem to solve. With the players we have, all highly experienced professionals, we should not be making the same basic mistakes time after time.

 

No way!

 

Don't worry, Monday is Britos-bashing Day. It's a tradition, irrespective of what actually happened on the Saturday.

 

I totally agree 100%.

 

Can't see our problems being rectified anytime soon then.

 

I know it's easy in hindsight and I obviously understand the being at home element but for the life of me I would expect a manager/coach at this level to be able to see when their team are second best and grab an olive leaf at 2-2 by at least trying to shut up shop by shoring up the defence/midfield even before the restart. Go 1 up front and defend what we had.
Yes hindsight but not rocket science either.

 

If you keep giving the opposition the ball and inviting them to play eventually they will hurt you with it


And they are

 

We have lots of problems. Sacking Mazzarri won't fix everything in one hit but it would take care of one of those problems.

 

I had very little good coaching when I played but I always made sure my definsive line was tight so i'd put that aspect of our game totally down to the individuals on the pitch.

 

On current form going back to the Everton if not Leicester game we are on course to get 40-41 points. Should still be enough to stay up based on most previous PL seasons' showings, especially as Hull and Sunderland look goners, and Boro have lost form at a critical time and don't seem to have the firepower to overhaul any of the four immediately above them. But that's a clear regression on last season as even the less than full strength team that we've had to field for much of the season is still for the most part of superior quality to what we put out most of 2015/16.

I'm pretty sure there was a Mazzarri in/out poll not long ago (started just after the Millwall game IIRC) - maybe it's got merged with this one? My position on this has been as shaky as the level of our performances this season - I thought he was brilliant at the start, and just the man to improve our attacking game and make the vital match-winning substitutions that we severely lacked under Flores. But now, while I'm still in the Mazzarri stay camp, the jury is now very much out and frankly like many I wouldn't shed that too many tears if he left.

It's true we've been unlucky with injuries to key flair players, but even with Pereyra, Zarate, Cathcart, Janmaat and Amrabat (who I don't rate as highly as others anyway) missing we should have been doing better, both results and performance wise. We still have/had Deeney, last season's top scorer in Ighalo, Okaka, Success (who inexplicably never starts), Holebas (who may be erratic offensively, but can deliver a decent cross/set piece, has better end product than Amrabat and has played a part in a fair few of our goals this season), Niang, Cleverley and Capoue (when he can be bothered). However Niang has seriously gone off the boil of late, Cleverley has disappointed since the Burnley game (IMO Pereyra made a much bigger initial impact over a similar period), Deeney has been in poor form up until 2017, and Ighalo reverted to 2016 type after a bright start (and Walter was the manager who was supposed to be good at improving strikers!).

And results speak for themselves - one point out of the last 9 available, including a tame defeat at a pretty ordinary Man Utd team that a ten-man Muff side in far worse form than us battled to a draw against, and 1 point in two winnable home games against fellow mid-table sides who like us have nothing to play for (even in 2006/07, with the worst home record, we'd have done better than that if handed such a pair of fixtures on a plate, and we did), after leading in both. We've dropped 12 points from winning positions, which while not the worst record (Muff already beat us to that some months ago) is already more than the 8 points we dropped under Flores all of last season. We are allowing average teams at home 60-70% of the ball, and while we may have been boring at times under QSF, we were a lot more balanced possession wise, resulting in a much more solid defence. We seem unable if not unwilling to build any sustained constructive attacks, more often than not hoping for a piece of magic via a pinpoint cross or marauding solo run, or two or three quick-fire passes to goal, rather than a more patient possession-based approach (which on most of the occasions it's been employed results in us losing the ball anyway after much tentative sideways and backwards passing in defence and midfield) - witness by contrast the way Southampton were able to waltz the ball through us at will.

I'd still be OK in letting Mazzarri see out the rest of the season and stay on for 2017/18 with his first full season of English top flight football under his belt to see what he can do with an augmented and hopefully less injury-inflicted squad with vital reinforcements in key positions, but needless to say if there's no clear improvement by January, results stay the same or worse, it'll be hard to construct a solid case for his still being here, regardless of our recent high manager turnover.

 

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We have far more positives than problems.

 

Do you mean as a club in general, or just on the pitch? If it's the latter, please enlighten me as to what these are. I quite frankly think our manager and our players are a collective shambles at the moment.

 

This would be the same Bournemouth that sit one place and 4 points below us?

Not exactly the example to use if you really want to win this argument is it?

 

Fake news.

 

Maybe not, but it's a Muff side that we haven't beaten for a few years and pipped us to the title.

 

That depends if points or entertainment is more important to you, obviously with you it's all about points

I still miss the way we played under Zola first season so obviously with me it's all about entertainment

 

The coaching staff look like something out of cheech&chong.I think I would rather have them in charge than this bunch of clowns,I wanted to pull him through the screen watching him on match of the day and grab him and just keep shaking him and say what the **** are you playing at you useless piece of dog poo I ****ing hate him as much as I do Luton.If we don't sack him we will be lucky to stay up.

 

I think at this exact point in our progression points are definitely more important than entertainment. I've said for ages that two years at this level would change the club forever due to the money and I'm very happy it's on the verge of happening. So many teams burn brightly for one season, suffer second season syndrome and go pop.

 

We will go pop if this **** stays any longer and we will suffer the syndrome you talk of.

 

As much as I have disliked this season, and as much as I find Mazzarri incredibly irritating, yet another change of manager this summer will leave me even more disillusioned and detached from the club than I feel right now. I can't be arsed with another summer of complete upheaval and all the false optimism that it generates. I can't be arsed with all the talk of new formations and new systems, leaving players we signed to suit old systems completely redundant. I can't be arsed for the endless links with random players who've never heard of Watford before and will probably end up rejecting us anyway.

On the condition of us staying up comfortably, I would like us to give Mazzarri a chance next season. For all his faults, and his generally annoying personality, he's been incredibly unlucky with injuries and I think the season would have panned out very differently were it not for Pereyra's injury, who would have been such an important player for us, and if we were able to play with a stable defence. The focus needs to be on considered and targeted recruitment rather than the scattergun approach we've become accustomed to, and giving Mazzarri no excuses (unlikely, I know) at the start of next season. Sign some full backs, a younger, fitter version of Behrami, and a proper striker to compete with Deeney and we'll see an improvement.

 

This is the most sensible and agreeable thing I've seen written on this forum in a long, long time.

 

You've clearly missed Nath's and HB1's posts.

 

Good post and well said.

I would give him until the end of the season though and review his position then. Regardless of injuries to key players and not having a fully fit squad, the least I expect from a Watford team is desire, energy, togetherness and a sense of clearly being able to see that the players know what they are doing. We can lose and blame injuries, I don't mind that, but when I look at games such as Burnley away, Stoke away, Stoke at home, Millwall away, Palace at home, Middlesbrough at home, Southampton at home etc. I found myself criticising the desire, energy, tactics, togetherness etc of the team. When things are going against you, you should show these traits. The fact we haven't at various times this season is infuriating and has to be partially down to the manager.

He's been unlucky, yes, but if over the next 2-3 months I don't see us attacking teams, showing desire, and seeing that our players know what the feck they are doing then he can go. Losing is one thing, but the manner of it has been disgusting this season. There needs to be a change before the end of this season and if there isn't, then I have absolutely no faith that he can turn it around in the Summer.

People will say that he will have a fully fit squad, and new signings, but looking out how Niang's creativity and attacking ability has been completely nullified by Mazzari's negative tactics over the last couple of games indicates that he wouldn't get the best out of the new signings over the Summer, unless, like I said, things improve drastically in the remainder of the season.

 

Fantastic post, agree with it all.

 

Exactly right.

Replace some of our aging, hoofing defenders. Get our flair players back from injuries. Sign an ace striker. Get success to full fitness.

It's pretty obvious what needs to be done to improve us, and it's clear mazzarri knows what needs to be done as every single one of his signings so far have been precisely what was needed at the time.

 

why am I not surprised you dont go to the match and only watch match of the day.

Pathetic.

 

Exactly this. At some point the club must settle down a little and try and build rather than the chop and change we see every summer. As you say it leaves me a little disconnected and disillusioned each time. Maybe that's the price we pay for Premier League football.

 

I appreciate that we need to stick with a manager and build over a number of years, however, you can't just do that if the guy isn't the right guy in the first place.

Continuity is called for, but not if it's continuity for continuity's sake. Whether Mazzari is the right or wrong man is a matter of opinion, but I wouldn't want to see us stick by the wrong man and have more work to unpick in 2 years' time, though I agree, that being linked with 100 players who, as far as I know only exist on Wikipedia, Football Manager and Youtube is pretty tiresome, but I expect that will happen in either case.

 

Yes I wasn't advocating we must stick with Mazarri, maybe this year we need the upheaval again but at some point it must stop.

 

Agree with that. I want us to find someone to build something over 4-5 years and I promise I won't boo them for at least 5 games, I promise.

 

You are in the 80% bunch of ***** who go to a few home games a year and the odd away and sit there All game in silence and come on here giving your pathetic thoughts of the game you are completely blind and love the football we are playing and our **** of a manager.

 

You just admitted you get your opinions from the highlights on MATCH OF THE DAY!

From this day on your opinion counts for precisely **** all.

I suspect you look like a smack head version of danny murphy too.

 

When people turn on one of our most loyal supporters, you know that we are a club in crisis

 

You do make me laugh, fair play.

 

I do think Mazzarri’s job is under threat. Put yourself in Gino’s position. On one hand Mazzarri is a guy they wanted for quite some time clearly, as the 3 year contract and large backroom staff would indicate. On the other, Gino does not suffer fools lightly. If it’s not working he will change it.

The pro’s for Mazzarri will probably keep him in a job longer than any of his predecessors, but there comes a point when that all goes out of the window.

Gino cannot be pleased at what he’s seeing from the team right now. He will have understanding of the issues caused by injury, but I think the last 3 games plus the second half against Burnley would be causing him concern, especially the performance against Southampton.

Put it this way, if we lose the next two, Palace away and Sunderland at home, does anyone think Mazzarri’s job will still be safe? We have the unusual luxury of 2 weeks to prepare for each fixture, so there can be no excuses this time.

Hopefully we can pick up at least 4 points and put all this to bed, but lose both or only pick up 1 point and alarm bells will be ringing very loudly.