Tottenham FC Vs Watford FC - 30/04/2018

I actually remarked in the first half just how well Holebas was playing. But sadly the usual Holebas came out after H/T more and more.

 

Can we stop this rumour that Deeney headed it down to Richarlison please? Deeney headed it at goal, it hit number 33 (Davies?) in the back and rebounded out to Richarlison. It wasn't great vision by Troy, it was a lucky rebound which fell perfectly. But at least he was able to win the header.

 

I agree he faded in the second half but the whole team did in fairness, including forum favourite will hughes.

 

Good spot, happy to scotch that rumour! Just watched it back and can only see it on one replay but you're quite right.

 

Trippier has has the freedom of the pitch every time he's played against us in the last few years. No idea if he does it against other opponents but against Watford he just stands on the far touchline whenever play is on the other side. I've seen him do it at our place and theirs, and it produces results time and time again. 1 goal and 5 assists now just from him against us. How successive coaches don't pick him out as a massive threat I've no idea.

 

If you judge Gracia on his results with us he would definitely be out the door this summer. Even by his own standards his win percentage of 23% is the lowest of his career to date and lower than any Watford manager since Colin Lee and Dave Bassett.
However there are a few reasons not to let him go. First he inherited this squad in the middle of a terrible run and with politics flying around due to Evertongate. Second the injury problem he inherited and we all thought would have improved by now simply hasn't. Third we have a few players who are simply not up to it. Fourth there is the suspicion that the dressing room is swayed by one or two players who are "above themselves".
In his favour the results do not do him justice. In a number of games we have been dire it is true - but in quite a few recently he has set the side up well and it has been mistakes that have cost us. If we had three or four more points at this stage I doubt his position would be under such scrutiny.
Personally I would like him to be given the summer to get hold of the squad and mould them into what he wants. He also needs to hammer home players must have 100% concentration - I believe we have lost more points this year to stupid mistakes than due to weaknesses in the players. Even so, we should get rid of at least two or three (most of us would agree on at least one or two of those) plus we might lose a couple of players we would love to keep. Use the money to strengthen attack and defence.
I honestly think we are not far away from being able to compete in the best of the rest league.
Finally we have to running out of managers who would be expected to come here and make a difference.

 

Deulofeu and Deeney came on at the same time so I think people are under the impression we looked more threatening with Troy on, when in fact Deulofeu was the one running in behind, getting on the ball and chasing defenders down.

 

Being a bit repetitive, I'm afraid; but, in his ten-minute cameo, Carillo showed what silky skills he has taking the ball forewards, several times he beat Spurs defenders with the dribble. In the modern Premiership this is a rare and difficult skill. So, why should I say he should be one of the first out the door at the end of the season? Attitude. I understand that, from the start, he made it clear he had no intention of staying here and it shows: His challenges for the ball are outright cowardly: Jumping with your back turned and landing five feet short of the ball is not good enough in Sunday League. He has no intention of putting himself about for the general cause. This is just hopeless at this level.
Pity.

 

Yes, you are right, (although I'm not sure Trippier has played against us all that many times). But Watford seem to have this giving-freedom-to-the-wingers as a tactical policy and have done so for a number of years. Not at all sure why, unless it is some sort of coaching ploy to try to protect inadequate full-backs. Your can hear the disquiet in the crowd every time it happens.

 

He would have seen him, but he was distracted by someone with a fresh hotdog in the terraces.

 

He saw him but thought he looked a bit under-cooked and with not enough meat on the bone.

 

I don't like his personality. But most of all, I despise his severe lack of top-level attributes.

I would love it if we signed him.

We've been weak to crosses for years. I've always assumed it's a combination of wingers at full back who don't close the cross down and having a mix of centre-backs who aren't used to each other and can only play in particular systems.

 

He’s going straight in my FF team next year when we play them. He has a ‘field day’ against us

 

I thought he ignored fans?

 

Not when they look like this

 

One is often at the expense of the other. QSF allowed his players to take zero chances, so they'd get to the edge of the opponents' box and unless there was a clear chance to pass the ball into Ighalo's feet, they would be instructed to cut back and start again.

Also, fielding fullbacks all across midfield made us more robust, but less likely to create goals.

 

Can't play 4 attacking players like that at Spuds - it would be a cricket score !

 

Didn't we spend the whole season playing four centre midfielders across a 4-4-2? I think the only tactical innovations Quique had were playing 4-6-0 at Man City, putting Abdi at right back and not playing Berghuis no matter how rubbish the rest of the squad was doing.

 

Capoue left wing....

 

I definitely remember one game, lining up with 3 orthodox right backs in the starting 11.

 

Yet we took 21 points out of the opening 39 available with this current squad, minus Deulofeu of course.

 

This will never happen.

Kaboul is a fugayzi, fugazi. He's a whazy. He's a woozie. He's fairy dust. He doesn't exist. He's never landed. He is no matter. He's not on the elemental chart. He's not ******* real, alright?

 

It's not quite the same squad though, is it? He's only been able to call on a half-fit Cleverley for one game and he had to go off injured again, he's not had Chalobah for even the five games that Silva did, he's only had Kabasele for five games, Hughes has only been fit enough to start five games. The best two players from the first half of the season had both lost their form well before Gracia arrived and were also suffering from the cumulative effect of having to play almost every minute of the first two thirds of the season due to injuries in the squad, Carrillo seems to have downed tools since Silva left, Gray's confidence was shattered by the miss against Swansea whereas he was playing with confidence (if not always competence) at the start of the season.

He hasn't had the same players available, and some of the ones he has had available were in a worse condition/form when he came in. His arrival has coincided with an upturn in form for some players (Capoue, Pereyra spring to mind) and I don't think anyone has got worse under him, they just haven't recaptured their early season form.

I know, "excuses, excuses" and it's a results game and all that but I just don't think it's fair to judge him when he came into a team decimated with injuries and with confidence and form at rock bottom.

 

Deeney missing the pass to Hughes reminded me of the moaning he gives out when someone fails to pass to him. I remember him having a right go at Ighalo failing to pass.

Hughes was excellent and with players like him I really think we can be awesome if we sort out the problem areas. Didn’t look happy to be subbed by Gracia.

 

He's played all 6 games we've played against Spurs since promotion.

 

I think that is true, but I still think Deeney did ok when he came on. And unlike Gray his miscontrol and giving the ball away did not lead to a goal

 

Just reporting back on my first experience of Wembley’s lower tier last night (nothing to do with the game or Watford’s performance).

I felt much more like a participant in the event, rather than a disconnected spectator, and would definitely choose the lower tier again should we ever go back. I was in row 19 and wouldn’t want to be any lower down but the view was pretty good. Bearing in mind it was an end of season game, the crowd atmosphere in the away section was no more than mediocre, although the home fans were dreadful. Wembley has a strange other-worldly ambience which is not conducive to a raucous crowd noise. Even in the relatively condensed away section it was hard to sustain a unified song or chant amongst all the fans, because, I think, there is nothing for the sound to bounce off. It’s rather like being in a huge aircraft hangar with a lot of dead, still air.

As for getting to and around the environs of the stadium, it was all that I hate about the top end of the Premier League: half and half scarves everywhere and people taking selfies. Give me a trip to Huddersfield or Burnley any time.

 

Sure but my post was just intended as a reply to the ‘nobody could get our current squad playing well’ comment.

Patently somebody did as we started the season so well.

That wasn’t meant as a comparison between our two coaches this season or to stick the knife into Gracia, but merely to point out that we got decent points from this squad earlier in the season, so maybe it is possible.

Squad is the key word here too. Not side. Because I think most of us agree Gracia hasn’t been able to select what we would consider to be his strongest side. Over a season in any given squad there will always be players unavailable for selection. Gracia has had injuries to contend with, so did Silva. He’s had Delofeu, he’s got Cathcart back, he’s had two keepers to chose from whereas earlier in the season Karnezis was really seen as a number two back-up who’d not had a game for us. Gracia has never had a situation where he has only had four fit defenders to play, or only one of our three forwards available. He’s never been so short of players that he’s had to name several youngsters on the bench. So although we’ve had bad injuries, he’s still had a decent squad to select from most weeks. Deeney has never been suspended since he arrived. Correct me I’d im wrong but I don’t think we’ve had anybody else suspended either during his reign? He’s had a transfer window that frankly most of us here feel was totally wasted.

 

For me, the one big difference between Silva's Watford and Gracia's Watford is the absence of Chalobah. He was outstanding until his injury and made everything tick. He had so much energy and covered so much ground. Add to that Cleverley, who is equally industrious, it had a dramatic impact on our midfield.

If we put Chalobah, as he was at the beginning of the season, into this Watford team, you'd see a noticeable difference. This is just my opinion, but that little midfield triangle of Doucoure, Cleverley and Chalobah was the reason we started the season so well.

 

But you're not comparing like with like. We had far fewer injuries at the start of the season, and none of the players were exhausted. Yes, Chalobah and Cleverley have technically been "in the squad" but Gracia can't use them! Silva got the squad playing well when he had almost all of the players available. As soon as the injuries started to bite, we stopped playing well and the squad has never recovered - as soon as someone comes back, someone else gets injured and even those who have managed to stay fit are tired. So yes, someone got the squad playing well earlier in the season but surely the current squad is those currently available to go out on the pitch?