Gomes drops clangers, but he makes up for them with world class saves he shouldn't get. It's why he plays for us and not a more high profile team.
To be honest I didn't have a problem with the subs based on your comments, though Okaka had stopped moving about the 60 minute mark so could have come off earlier. I don't think the substitutions were behind our defeat, nor on the face of it were Gray's miss and perhaps not even Gomes's week save that gifted Swansea their winner though of course these all add to the rich tapestry of defeat. I think our defeat was down to our attitude of not actually trying to secure a win. The manager and players, for whatever reason, collectively decided as a team to settle for a one nil win, Swansea are rubbish and will never score, we have our goal so let's just play out the game at walking pace and conserve our energy. Well Swansea were dreadful, but they didn't follow the script, created two late and incidentally very easy chances, (far easier than anything we created apart from our goal)and scored them both. We wave goodbye to three points and our slump continues, one lucky win against Leicester is just papering over the cracks.
Without any doubt, we are in a crisis. This happens regularly in professional sport and, sadly, all too frequently with WFC. This is a time for clear heads and calculated decisions. In one way, the timing is somewhat fortunate. As well as needing to get players back from injury and suspension, we need reinforcements, particularly up front. We also need clear the air meetings between the board and management and between management and players. As well as the club’s survival in this division, professional reputations are at stake. The last thing we need now is an irreversible sense of negativity. As difficult as it is for fans (following on from a dismal run of form and results) the team will benefit from encouragement, even if some would argue is undeserved. Today’s collapse is one of the most disappointing that we have ever experienced, yet bizarrely predictable. I had planned to travel over to see today’s game, but there was a last minute change. I would, if it was possible, have been even more angry if I had made the trip. Marco needs to get this back on track as soon as ever possible. He should admit to those is charge that he badly mishandled the Everton debacle and is determined to get back to winning ways (at least every third game would do). From afar, there is clearly an issue. It looks as I if the manager has lost focus, and the players may have lost some respect for or trust in him. I would say to all, tough ****. Professionalism means you overcome this and play with the pride and passion that your status and wages demand. I don’t think Silva should be sacked, but he must start doing his job again, as do the board and the players. Very disappointing day to be a Watford fan. But we are still in good shape to survive.
I believe in life when things are going well it’s never usually down to just one thing but a combination of factors coming together, and equally so when things are going badly you can’t just blame one thing, although it’s usually easier and more convenient to do so. Silva isn’t a bad coach. His CV says that. Our recruitment team aren’t duds. Some of their signings prove that. We’re not a totally hopeless team, because we have 25 points and we are actually getting into winning positions before embarrassingly letting them slip. So we can’t just sit here tonight and yell Silva out and the world will be a better place, or get new players or get new fitness staff etc. It’s not that’s simple. Truth is our head coach is having a bad time ever since Everton turned his head, some players are not performing to the standards of earlier in the season, we can’t seem to get consistency of selection due to injury and suspensions (today was Silva’s 20th different starting line up in his 21 matches in charge) and yes maybe we are not getting the rub of the green with decisions, although clubs on bad runs are wont to say that. I still blame the lack of good recruitment in the forward line for a lot of our problems. With better firepower I think we’d have won several more points this season in matches we’ve dominated but failed to win. We went into the campaign with an attack spearheaded by an expensive new recruit who barely scored outfield goals in his only other PL season, a huge gamble from Brazil, an injury prone Okaka and our club captain whose prowess seemed on the wane. We were too reliant on goals from elsewhere. If we had a 10 goal striker by now in our side I believed we’d be in a much better place. We aren’t killing off matches that are there for the taking.
He is one of the few adults in the squad. All their substitutions improved their team all ours made us weaker. Ho we should have been two or three up by the 86 minute. At this rate we will be able to concentrate on avoiding relegation after 6 January. Unless Silva can prove he has real tactical, management and organisational talent to arrest this decline in results we are probably just going to avoid relegation.
The best chance of Gray has of scoring is if his first chance richochets so hard in the direction of the goal that it looks like a 30 yard volley.
I think Gray missed because of what happened at Newcastle. Imagine if he’d tried a cute finish and it has ending up looking like an easy save for Fabianski like the tame finishes against Newcastle? I think he didn’t want to risk it so just leathered it.
Accept your point about the Ayew thing but I think Doucoure's biggest problem today was having to partner an elderly Championship player in the centre of midfield. Watson offered basically nothing and for large periods Douc was trying to do the job of both of them.
You are either cool in the heat of the moment, keeping your composure or you’re not. I’ve seen enough from Gray to know he’s never going to be the striker the club needs.
So, in your mind, because we score from a corner and free kick against Leicester we don't have a problem with them in general. Do you also think that because we didn't concede from a corner or set play against Leicester that problem is sorted as well? Dependent on what stats we read, we have a really bad disciplinary record. My point about tactics/formations is that he has done nothing unusual - anyone can pick them out of a coaching manual. So my general points still stand. You don't think he has anything to do with our defending, you don't think he has anything to do with our attacking, you admit that we are near the bottom of the disciplinary tables, and you dont think he has anything to do with the teams attitude. So WTF do we actually employ him for, then?
He missed because he tried to take the net out. It just hit the keeper. All he has to do is pass it in to the net. Sorry but he's worse than hopeless.
The thing that other clubs must realise about Gomes is that he has always had a tendency to parry shots straight back out in front of him inviting strikers to run in for the follow up. On the commentary they were amazed he didn't parry it out for a corner. But as has been said by HB1 he is always called upon to save us in the final 10 mins of games as we seem to tire/panic/fall apart at the back and he has saved us on many occasions. Today, the game should have been put to bed long before Gomes was called upon but we couldn't be bothered.
We were in total control but just lacked the final finish as usual. The reaction from the stream watchers is a little hysterical i think. We seemed to need pereyra linking the midfield to okaka, but the team we put out should have been more than good enough to win. I'm not particularly mad because with a decent striker we win that game comfortably. Everything hinges on us getting one in January. But even if we don't sign a single player I still think we'll stay up. *sips turps*
To be fair, it's great movement from Gray. Shame about the finish. Unfortunately he's not looking good enough but he'll have to do for the rest of the season as I can't see the club bringing in two strikers next month.
Yep it was s good move and wellying it in that situation is not necessarily the worst thing to do. Decent save I'd say. Just to be clear though, he IS crap.
Well said, Travis. I’ve been saying since the start of the season that we don’t have a striker to play Silva’s preferred formation. We should have gone to a pair long ago. And anyone who thought Okaka was the solution will have seen today why he isn’t. His hold up play was decent early on, but he was rarely in tune with the quick passing from the other players and by 70 minutes he was just lumbering about. Silva was right to substitute him but unfortunately our sub striker is Gray.
I've reflected. Anyone can beat anyone else in this league outside top 6. Discipline, injuries and confidence are crucial.
I'm not going to class that as a sitter because the goalie reacted well and it's not like he was facing an open goal (as others have said, Rich, Troy, Carrillo and I think one or two others have missed easier chances) but it's still a bad miss because he still had a plethora of options and he chose possibly the worst one. Basically he could have either (a) aimed for goal either side of the keeper, there was a fair bit of room (b) be calm and rounded the keeper (I think the right side was the better way and again he had time and space). To be clear I'm not a Gray hater but with just 2 goals against relegation-threatened teams in now countless starts, especially given the number of times he's been obliged to deputize for Troy's absence/loss of form, I have to concede he is just not justifying his £18m price tag (and I was one who felt the criticism of him to be unduly harsh after Newcastle away).
Okaka was exactly what we all knew he was. Mediocre but much better than the alternatives. Him getting 70mins then being subbed for Gray is our best tactic. We'd have 6-10 more points if we'd done that all season i reckon
Mentally this team is so fragile, easily the weakest in the league. We arnt a savvy team despite the wealth of experience it contains. We are naive, we lack killer instinct, concentration and once the official makes a bad decision or the opposition get their tails up in the match we collapse. We seem totally incapable of managing a game when in front.
Agreed and said the same. Cleverley bless his heart isn't a CAM, yeah he makes the team press higher but what's the point because when we get the turnover, we give the ball straight back to them as nobody in the team can pass. Doccoure isn't bad but he's not a playmaker.
Its astonishing really, that we've lost 9 of the last 13 yet still find ourselfs in the top half of the table. Just highlights how poor this league is this season. Having said that the 7 point gap between us and 17th is looking quite fragile tonight. The disappointing thing of course is that if we hadnt dropped those 16 points from winning positions we would be comfortably 5th now. All things we have had issues with this season. Suspensions and injuries have really hurt us so far this season and exposed just how poor our quality in depth is.
I’ve put a tenner on the last two games at home against them at 16/1 and 18/1 respectively - I may as well flush another on Tuesday
You genuinely could have posted this a year ago today and it would still be relevant word for word. It’s almost eerie
It's time the bad decisions evened themselves out. We were crap, but we don't need the officials to make things more difficult for us.
I am so negative tonight but that is my one positive. We could be 5th if we hadn't dropped points. If we'd won we'd be 10 points clear. How different would we all have felt if Gray had scored, I'd have been overjoyed tonight. Agree with you as it is 7 points feels fragile
Yes, it was a nasty one by Naughton. No surprise Atkinson missed it. So that was a goal disallowed for a soft/tedious reason. A goal conceded that was offside and Swansea should have been down to 10 men. Three more controversial decisions to have gone against us.
We are far better coming from behind than sitting in a 1-0 lead. In the early part of the season we managed to score at least two goals a game, now if we score the first goal we will almost certainly lose. The plan from now on should be to never score first.
