Watford FC 0- AFC Bournemouth - 06/10/2018

Bizarre that Foster resorted to kicking long. In first few games he seemed to distribute more to our defenders and we work ball through midfield. Lumping balls up to Deeney didn't work at all.

 

Good, thoughtful stuff.
BTW: Garcia is not our coach; Gracia is.

 

Just watched the extended highlights......yes I'm that masochistic.

It confirmed my initial impression. We were the better side and were in control until their first goal. Pererya missed a really easy chance and we got done on the break, after a Hughes shot was blocked on the edge of the box by an arm. The referee could have given a freekick on the edge of the box, or ignore it. He did that latter. Kiko was badly out of position and Bournemouth took advantage. King and especially Wilson were superb and caused our defence no end of problems with their movement.

Their first goal was a good one for counter-attacking fans. It was their first attack of note and ended with their first shot on goal. Foster made a brilliant save from Wilson, but Brooks scored from the follow up.

We should have equalised when Cathcart missed with a free header from a corner. So early on, we should have scored a couple of goals, but that's where the good stuff ends.

After a good start to the season, Kabasele is now making some very poor decisions. Three matches running he's made a lunging tackle in the penalty area, and has got two red cards for it and given away two penalties. It's really costing us. The way King just danced around and outmuscled him. Then he tried to retrieve the situation with a risky tackle. He may or may not have touched the ball, but a striker is always going to fall when under that type of challenge, plus King wasn't in a position where you thought he would have scored. It was poor judgement in his third consecutive match. Add to that the first yellow card for the for the leading arm challenge on Begovic, then he's not thinking of consequences to his actions right now. He's not learning from previous mistakes, and this is a concern.

What Kabasele did, certainly had a major impact in costing us the match yesterday.

What Gracia did after this, was poor management in my opinion. He should have immediately sent on Mapps and taken off someone like Gray. You can't play with two up front, when you're down to 10 men, unless the two up front are exceptional and are a real goal threat. Neither of our strikers fall into that category, so that switch would have been the most logical to me.

The next two goals were as soft as you'll ever see in the Premier League. It reminded me of when we were on the slide with QSF, Mazzarri and Silva. We were conceding goals like that all the time and we looked like a pathetically easy team to score against. I thought those days were gone with our new look team this season, but sadly this element of Watford's character is still there.

After it became 4-0, then Gracia finally took off Hughes for Mapps, and from there on, Bournemouth's threat was reduced to virtually nothing.

Very few players come out with any credit, Kabs was probably the biggest let down. Kiko was continually out of position, and this is the second black mark against Gracia. He handled the situation poorly. The only other time where I thought he got it totally wrong was at Liverpool away last season. But then, it is Liverpool.

I hope it's a one off, and players don't start losing belief. Bournemouth played a great game, and we were crap. For me, Bournemouth do have certain players, in certain positions that are better than ours. Drop King, Wilson, Ake and Lerma into our squad and it would improve us no end. All those players were out there before Bournemouth signed them. We even had Ake before them and were looking at Lerma. I think they are ahead of us now, in terms of where they are as a team, as much as we probably don't want to hear that.

 

The Championes song is just old now.it was about 10 years ago.

 

I think this is worth a go at wolves. Doubt Gracia has the stones to drop both Deeney and Gray though. Success hasn’t had a sniff despite excellent cameo appearances.

 

They can’t help themselves it is so ingrained by the management. 4-0 up. Keeper taking an age over goal kicks. The nonsense from Smith and Lerna. A few challenges in the area which they knew weren’t pens but they did the 2 arm swan dive “just in case”. You’re 4-0 up. You’ve won ffs. They fully deserved the win yesterday but they are systematic cheats.

 

How often have we seen this this season. Arsenal away and against a woeful Fulham side who had to change their whole defence at HT. by then we should have been out of sight. Our finishing is so laboured and yesterday a prime example of trying to walk it into the net. If the Pozzos don’t address that it January, they are blind.

 

I’d like t know where their fans were actually recruited from. They certainly dont sing at home and there were too many of them compared to their home games.

 

I think it's well noted in the fanbase that we need a quality central defender and a striker.

Gray and Deeney have improved by quite a margin this season, but neither are a goal threat in the Premier League. They are just not at that level, no matter how hard they try.

Someone like Cahill would be a brilliant addition at the back. Up front we seem to be doing well by lining up future talents, but getting that guy in for the here and now will probably not happen in January.

It didn't escape my notice that when we were doing well and scoring, most of these goals were "goal of the month" type contenders. It was unlikely we could continue with this trend, and the easy bread and butter type goals don't seem to occur that often. We do create chances though, but none of our front line have the ability to take chances on a regular basis.

It's a problem and is frustrating to watch.

 

Not had time to read every post so excuse me if this has been said before, but why did so many “supporters” leave so early?

A few people started drifting out after about 65mins, then loads left about 80mins and there were only about half of us left at the end. I know it was the worst we have played this season, but this is ridiculous.

 

If you're going to get stuffed at home, Bournemouth's gloating fans are probably the worst team you would choose. I stuck it out until the end, but do not begrudge anyone leaving during that match. It was a stinker and there was not even a glimmer of hope to keep the home fans interested. It was a game only the hardcore fans would stay for.

 

I stayed for the game but the second half was a complete non-event. Zero entertainment with zero at stake. It was like a training game for both teams. Life is short so I don't blame people for leaving.

 

Thank you Doctor.

 

At 3-0 down I thought we were going to turn it around.

 

Nice to know that I am not the only aching simpleton on this thread, that is assuming of course that Dr Certs uses the same diagnosis upon your good self.

 

I thought that was a fair comment of mine, but if you want to call me names, think of something original. RC has the rights on "simpleton" and "cret1n".

 

I've no idea why people were leaving on 65 minutes or 80 minutes. But then that's cos I was gone before we kicked off after their fourth. As the team couldn't be arsed to apply themselves to even a minimum level, and the coach couldn't be arsed to change things up either after the red card or HT, I decided to follow their lead and cut my losses if we went 4 down. To do it so pathetically made my decision for me. It was nothing to do with losing, or the opposition, or the referee.

 

Isn't that the first time they have beaten us for a few seasons? Certainly since the promotion season.

 

But leaving early you missed the biggest cheer of the afternoon (a Bournemouth player finally getting booked) and the biggest laugh (Lerma leaping like a salmon to emphasise being fouled).

You have to focus on the entertaining bits of the afternoon after such a collective poor display from the team and manager. At least the manager told it the way it was after the game and didn’t hide behind excuses.

 

I can't comment on those times but we watched the penalty by the exit tunnel and left the microsecond after the ball hit the back of the net.

I'd say the fans who leave early are the true fans. Do you enjoy watching our team lose or something? That makes you a pretty flimsy fan in my book.

The only possible reason to stay is to boo your lungs up at the end.

 

A number of people have stated that Watford were well in control of the game before the first goal. In a sense this is correct in that Bournemouth had not got near our goal before scoring, but we were remarking at the time that Watford had not really got going. There was no incisive passing from the defence into midfield and then on to the strikers or wings, which we normally see when the team is playing well. There were a lot of long balls up to the strikers which at best have only a 50/50 chance of coming to anything. This may have been down to Bournemouth filling the spaces in the middle because it was their intention to be compact and play on the break. If so, well done to them but I think at home we should be able to impose our game on the opposition, certainly at the start of the game.

 

You're out of line on this one RC.

Those fans who stayed were drinking in the PREMIER LEAGUE experience as much as possible. We may have been ****ed 4-0 at home with a midfielder in defence for most of the game but at least it was the PREMIER LEAGUE.

You need a dose of realism and understand where we were 10/20/100 years ago.

We should feel proud of being in the PREMIER LEAGUE and enjoy every minute irrespective of the scoreline, opponents, baffling tactics and the complete inevitability of our season falling apart.

We go again.

 

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To be fair, Capoue did play in central defence for Spurs, and with us needing to get two goals back, having him as a central defender who could come forward into midfield was a reasonable gamble. It didn't come off, but it wasn't stupid

 

We'd be doing exactly the same, if not more!

 

It’s probably just me, but I still don’t think this our worst result this season. The moment we went down 2-0 to a pen plus 10 men, made the result inevitable.

For me the worst result so far has been the 1-1 draw at Fulham. A game we completely dominated and should have been up 3/4-0 by HT. A draw away is always a good result, but when a team is as bad as Fulham have been/still are then maximum points is a must and we blew it.

Yeah getting tonked 4-0 at home sucks but with 10 men and Moss on mission to make wrong his wrong against Spurs, Kabasele had no chance. He could have farted and a Bournemouth player would have gone down, Moss knew this and was just waiting for his moment. Well it came and he took it. We’re never winning a game with him in charge (I haven’t fact check that at all).

However drawing 1-1 away against a team that will be relegated by the end of the season is abysmal, especially with the performance we put in.

I dread the Cardiff game, because as is Watford, we are the gift that always seem to give.

 

Me for one. I like football, and thought the first half was entertaining as well as disappointing and annoying. If you want to watch your team win every week, move to Munich, Madrid or (next year perhaps) Glasgow

 

My take on the match:

Started off well (as has been our game-plan this season) and should've made more of our early chances. We were on top of things in the first 10/15, but I'm going to float this idea. Was Bournemouth's plan to sit back, soak things up and counter. Their first goal was a counter attack that was very nearly fended off, but as soon as you saw how many men they piled forward, it was always gonna be luck that would've stopped the ball going in the back of our net.

Cathcart misses a glorious header (which he normally buries) and that's it for us. We imploded and imploded hard. I hate to pick him out but Kabasele lost it for the second game running. Of course it was another counter (something that Bmuff are known for doing) that led to this (coming from Brook's clear handball), but me making that point detracts from what was still a very good counter. After that, Bmuff looked confused as they needed to change their game-plan back to their usual one of dominating possession and attacking free-flowingly, but they weren't confused for long.

I was disappointed with how easily we gave up. I was disappointed with Gracia in keeping Capoue at centre-back for such a long time. I was also disappointed in John Moss, a slow referee that fails to keep up with the game and missed numerous fouls against Bmuff. However he got the key decisions right (partly because they were so blatantly obvious you'd have to be a clown to miss them). Bmuff will not forget this for a long time (as they see us as rivals) and also because it was a such a clinical, dominating performance. We all go through something like this, after all they got battered at Burnley when we turned them over relatively easily. It happens, you move on.

As for the turning on Gracia and the comments about him not being good tactically- this was a black mark against Gracia, no doubt about that. However, he was quoted as saying he prefers 4-3-3 and now we have Deulofeu and Chalobah back, I reckon we'll be seeing that formation against Wolves. A midfield of Doucoure-Chalobah-Hughes and a front three of Pereyra-Gray/Deeney-Deulofeu (or even 4-3-1-2 if Pereyra starts to wane with Deulofeu in the hole and Deeney and Gray up front) should do us good

 

Just Bournemouth fans?

 

Clive, if you'd been at the game you would have known that it was even worse. Amblimg back after the goal celebrations like they were hangimg on for a draw against Man City, timewasting with fake injuries even in stoppage time.

 

No, it's not just one-sided. I don't remember us doing this when we beat them last season though. There isn't much animosity though between us, it's just hyperbole. Games against QPR have more than this and they're not even our rivals. Ultimately it's what happens when you have one club that doesn't have rivals at all (and therefore their fanbase isn't used to this and wants this) coming up against a club that hasn't played their rivals for 12 years (and therefore the fanbase is partly adjusting but also wants that old rivalry back). Nothing more, nothing less.

 

It was a very fair comment, and of course, I was jokingly referring to the fact that RC diagnosed me as being an aching simpleton for staying to the end.
I do not wish to call you names, seems to me that you have to deal with enough abuse on here, without me joining them.

 

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