Watford boss Marco Silva: "We know it will be a tough day to compete at this level but City are strong enough to create problems for us. "The first and third goals are offside, it is not a normal game. We had a clear penalty for Chalobah. Everything is difficult for us this afternoon. "City deserved the three points, we learn as a team. We can't make mistakes. But it's really difficult with these decisions."
Baffled by some of the responses above, City are good but this is a team that just about beat Bournemouth and played away midweek. Worst defeat at home since when? Silva got it all wrong today. Never mind, we'll beat both Swansea and West Brom and learn from today's mistakes.
I can take the defeat as citeh were very good, the officials however is another story... But what irritates me is their classless fans with their comedy northern accents on the way back to town. Have to admit I told one of them a shortcut to the junction was to head up Hempstead Rd.
Feels weird to not be that disappointed after a 6-0 tonking. I think city were in a different stratosphere but even So, required a combination of lax officiating, flat footed 2nd string defending and the rub of the green to get all 6. Carillo and Richarlison did not look out of place on that pitch. I've tried to not jump on his back already as I know I'm one for having a boo boy, but Gray is proper **** isn't He? We've absolutely bought a lemon there for 18m. No attack is going anywhere with him on the end of it.
Already getting fed up of seeing him standing there with his hands on his head in faux disappointment as another peach of a through ball bounces off him like a bumper in a pinball game. You'd think the ability to control a football would be an essential requirement for a professional footballer. He looked like a non-league striker today, that's for sure. I was surprised when he came out again after HT.
We were outplayed but they got just about everything from the officials. How can a lino miss the first offside direct from a free kick.? All he had to do was run forward with the line, look along it and stick his flag up! It cant be that difficult. Yet he was several key yards behind Aguerro and that is just not good enough. Then their third was also offside, and although they scored four more, those two goals were most crucial in their timing and effectively started the goal rush, and then killed off the game. The officials just gave them everything with a bit of controversy in it, and quite a bit more. Who knows what may of happened if we had got through to half time 0-0 and a bit of frustration and tiredness had started to affect City. But overall, we just looked scared stiff and didn't really deserve anything other than a closer result. Our forward pressing displayed in our last games, just did not happen, whereas they just didnt give us any time on the ball at all in the first half, whatsoever. Very disappointing performance in my view and, just because they were better than us, it doesn't excuse a poor performance. Even my fave Doucoure was not his best today. I though Carrillo was the only positive today. I thought he was really good and it bodes well for the rest of the season.
I hope they never put flags in the family stand again. I almost lost an eye to my son waving it and got repeatedly smacked on the head by the kid behind with one. Despite being 6-0 it was miles more positive that under Mazzarri. A mix of brilliance from City and abysmal refereeing from the star struck tool in black.
First on MOTD and we'll still hardly get a mention. Pity we weren't playing them in November as they were also ripping up the league and being handed the title in the first 10 games last season. It's a long season and things can still go t[ts up for Citeh. I just hope we keep our heads up after this as noone would live with them in this mood.
Errrrrrrrrrr.. The heaviest home Premiership loss.. actually heaviest top tier defeat home or away. In fact it it equals our heaviest home defeat of all time.. since before records began! A few dubious officiating decisions but sometime you've just got to put your hands up.. sit back.. and enjoy the opposition play. Today was one such occasion.
The team are guilty of not giving him supply. They were at Southampton and they were again today. Time and time again they chose the wrong pass. P.s. his touch is better than Troy's.
Depressing viewing. As a ST holder I preferred the Championship years. A genuinely competitive league. Why doesn't Will Hughes make the bench? Is he injured?
The good news is next up for Citeh is ........Palarse - so (odds on) no goals or points for them after 6 games. Shame.
Cleverley played a lovely ball to him in the first half to give him a chance of going one on one with the defender and his touch was poor and he lost the ball. His first touch is disgusting for a professional footballer there is definitely a reason so many people have picked up on it and it was one of the negative things Burnley fans were saying about him when he signed for us.
I think we should be proud we are even in the position to be stuffed by City twice a year. In 1880, we didn't even have a club to get ****ed by teams.
Who would he make the bench ahead of? He's not injured, just not as good as our other options yet. Although saying that, Capoue gave us all a reminder of exactly why he won't be starting for us anytime soon.
They were just too good. Not much else to say as far as I'm concerned. They've assembled a bloody good squad at a significant cost and they gave us the run around. Can't get a David and Goliath story every time.
City are an absolute joke of a side. Will be a huge shock if they don't win the league at a canter this season. We were always going to struggle today against a team like that, even without the poor decisions from the officials and Agent Gray up front.
Not sure about him. He works hard but isn't as good as he thinks he is (or Rich actually is) when he tries to dribble through a cluster of opponents in his own half. Overall, a decent performance against a superb team (and horrible club). Can't remember ever seeing a better 90 minutes from any side as we saw today. Not painful like last season's tonkings - an entertaining match with a disappointing scoreline
Yes, and I hesitate to blame them. It was a realistic response to what they were facing. Their game fell apart because they simply couldn't impose it on City. City gave a master-class of one-touch football combined with brilliant off-the-ball running and sheer outright pace. OUCH. BUT: officials have to be better than that. You could see the respective confidence-levels change when the dodgy goals were allowed.
Can't really comment on the match as we left after Jesus slotted their third, but does anyone really think Gray is anything other than the most expensive, catastrophic failure in the history of our club? If so, I wish I was as loopy as you, life must be so simple.
Slightly harsh on someone who is held in high regard. Andre Gray surely would be better placed not centrally, maybe I'm mixing him up with Demarai.
Heads went at 1-0, and Holebas' booking, players started surrounding the referee as if it was last season.
I thought Gray did fine today. Feeding off scraps, chased hard and held it up okay. I dread to think the grief he'd get if he had missed the header Ritchie did!!
The best thing we can do is let him take penalties and hope he scores a handful from the bench, so that a side scouts him purely on goals and buys him for a chunk of the dough we wasted on him in either jan or next summer. He's way out of his depth.
Getting this off my chest now so that I can enjoy the rest of my evening... City are an excellent side, as you'd expect being funded by a country. Therefore, it's hugely disappointing to have to compete against such a poor showing from the officials. Giving them two goals makes a hard task impossible. We'd have lost anyway, but at least it would have been a contest for longer. First call was tight, but it was straight from a dead ball so the lino was right in line and moved with play, piss poor. 2nd one speaks for itself. From what was seemingly a no contest on paper - a poor performance from the officials made absolutely sure it was. 0-1 at half time - still a bit of hope. 0-3 at half time - just a case of how many City wanted, as it proved to be. 2nd goal - I said near the start of this thread about Janmaat's lack of pace and that Kiko would've been a better option for this game (I'm aware he was ruled out). Jesus should never have beaten him to that ball out wide but unfortunately speed is Daryl's weakpoint. And Gomes should have held the low cross. Can we criticise somebody who's just kept 3 clean sheets? Big fan of Heurelho, but maybe these mistakes are starting to become a little more frequent now. Seems as if our success is very reliant on our midfield duo of Chalobah and Doucouré being dominant. They didn't play against Bristol City, and we shipped three goals and were overrun. Today they were a distant second best, and as a result, we could never really get going. But again - doesn't help when every challenge you make is given as a foul, and every challenge received is waved play on. Had it been the other way around - the challenge on Richarlison that lead to Aguero scoring his third I'm sure would have been penalised. That being said, it was still poor defending to let him waltz through so easily. Anybody notice Capoue's poor effort here? And he missed an absolute sitter just after coming on. Another disappointing day for Gray, yet so far every "bad" game seems to have an asterisk by it. Today, he was always going to be feeding off scraps so once again it's harsh to say we didn't score because of him. But the longer the zero goals remains, the more it will become an issue. I'm guessing Okaka has played his last game for us? All the talk about City being faster, fitter, stronger etc I think is nonsense. They're just better players. And once a team that good has momentum, a few goals lead, and the officials clearly on board with them - it's very easy to appear dominant and make it seem like they want it more. A huge, huge maybe - but if we'd have had our first choice defence and officials that applied the rules to both sides - perhaps we'd have lost by 1 or 2 and made a game of it. But these two things going against us made any success for us even more unlikely. I don't care how superior City are - giving them a couple of goals for free totally changes the dynamic of the game, and you could see the enthusiam from our lads disappear. If there's one team you don't want to hand momentum/adavantage to, it's this City team. To be clear - City were excellent, they didn't need a helping hand as their quality would have won through anyway - but they certainly got given one (two). How bad is this result? I think we'll find out next week. If it's business as usual on the road, then we can quickly forget this and move on. If we're swatted aside by Swansea, then I think we'll know that today has killed all the good, early progress we were making and confidence has been severely dented. On paper, this looks worse than last season's game under Wally. But nobody really believes that, do they? And we haven't won at home since April 15th, against Swansea. Are we seeing the reverse Marco Silva - strong away but lacking at home?
