FA Cup Final - Manchester City 6-0 Watford FC - 18/05/2019 Match Thread

Especially Holebas!

 

The thought of Thomas Beecham or John Barbirolli snorting coke and trashing a different hotel room every night is difficult to even visualise and this may be connected to their living longer.

 

Nigel Gibbs and Kenny Jacket?

 

It often surprises me that over the last 4 years people have repeatedly forgotten that most of our games against PL teams go to form. We look like world beaters when we thrash Cardiff away and look shyte against man city. We beat Leicester, Wolves and West Ham in the league during or at the beginning of a bad run of results for them and lose to those teams when their form is better than ours. City are a vastly superior side, that doesnt take away what our players achieved this season: 50 points, 11th in the prem, an FA cup final and those 3 epic Andre Gray moments against Snake FC, palace and Leicester. Our players did a great job this season and no one will be hurting more than them after Saturday's humiliation.

 

Your two points couldn't be more unrelated. But hey, another old guy on the forum doesn't like my posts nor knows how the ignore function works.

I'm sure you'll take the thread off topic shortly referencing some people that only a few others have ever heard of in an attempt to be cool.

 

And there we go.

 

Change the (ahem) record or at least get it right.

 

Plus an 11th place finish and a cup final appearance doesn't suggest wholesale changes are needed. Unless should be qualifying for Europe and winning cup finals against the likes of citeh in which case we need about 8 changes.

 

I stayed until the end, but not to celebrate the defeat after the whistle.

 

Definitely, or else it will be curtains for our chances next season. I hope the Pozzos really mull it over in the summer and add a few more highlights to this team.

 

I read that as "It was humbling not just to witness a sea of flops".

 

Depends doesn't it. Football doesn't work like copy and paste each season.

Sooner or later we are going to start a season like we end them and find it difficult to reverse.

I guess it depends what Gino believes is the true capability of this Watford. Is it the side which limped home with just a draw against Southampton and 2 wins against Fulham and Huddersfield in our last 9 league games, or was it the side which won 4 in a row in August?

I guess recent history is fresher and seems more real, because watching our defence look Championship standard and the repeated pattern of creating openings but having no final ball or shot to show for it would suggest to me that we're not that far away from being sucked down.

Also, bear in mind Holebas, Deeney, Mariappa and others are one year older and no faster. They wont be learning new tricks at their ages.

The fact is that for about 5 windows now we've needed 3 key players in our starting 11 - two centre backs and a finisher (a FITB if you will) but have failed to plug those gaps.

Now we arguably need strengthening at full back as well, not to mention that if we lose any of our high value players, they will leave a massive hole in the team too.

I'm sure Gino will do as he always has. We will sign 7 players. 2 will end up in the first team. One will be really good, the other dividing opinions. Of the other 5, 3 will float about in the squad for a bit and the other 2 will baffle everyone as to why we signed them before we send them out on a series of loans until their contracts run out.

 

Makes uncomfortable reading doesn't it.

And it's a record that won't get beaten in our lifetimes. But at least we won the flags.

 

This was us on Saturday.



Even the hacks who wrote that movie, however, never thought to drag the joke out to 6 repetitions.

 

Now this is the dilemma for me. When you see Watford play a top 6 side we usually look completely out of our depth. Occasionally we play well but lose, especially this season. To have lost 12 out of 13 matches to a top 6 side in one season is alarming. In the past two seasons, City have beaten us 5 times, 6-0 twice and 5-0 in amongst those defeats.

Yet, against other Premier League sides we can more than hold our own. We actually have the best "best of the rest" record.

So how come we can't step up, when we play a top 6 side? It's something that has really baffled me. If we are that **** against City, how the hell can we beat other EPL sides? The gulf in class is never that big (or rarely) when City play another Premier League side. Sure, occasionally they do catch a team out, but it's routine for us. I know City and Liverpool are world class, but other teams, that we can beat, often give them a much better game than we are able to give. At Anfield we've lost 5-0, 5-0 and 6-1 in the last 3 meetings.

What I want to know, is why do we turn into Notts County when we play a bigger side? Is it a fear factor, a mental surrender or something else? Do I expect us to go to Anfield and win? No....of course not, but do I expect Watford to go to Anfield and get destroyed every time and play like a struggling League One side....again no.

Why are we such an easy target for the elite, when others are not?

Last season only Fulham and Huddersfield came off worse against the top six than us, and they are now both back in the Championship.

 

Surely the flag-waving was in support of the club in its broadest sense, not specifically the 11 players being given the runaround at that moment

 

I think part of it is we were punching above our weight in the season just gone. We were clearly seen as enough of a threat by the top 6 that they routinely played what seem like full-strength sides against us. Certainly in the league anyway, where we were top half at the end of every round of games and 8th/9th for ages. Our form against the rest sort of made that inevitable - we earned the right not to be worth risking resting players against. And yet we don't really have the individual quality to compete with that calibre of player and so succumbed. In a lot of these games there were few chances for either side in the first half hour, yet the top 6 team would take one and we'd miss.

Admittedly I've done no research into this, but I'd be interested to see how strong the top 6 line ups our midtable rivals routinely faced were.

 

Mental surrender. 100%. You could see the demeanour of the players change at 2-0.

 

Deulofeu packed up and left for his holidays at 1-0.

 

That was Silva D. Hacking down counter attackers has become a significant part of his job description this season. Because he’s a ‘creative’ player, he often avoids getting booked.

 

He inspired our brightest spell, at the start of the second half.

 

I thought it was the third which knocked the stuffing out of them.

The 15 mins after their second was when we attacked most.

 

Flight was delayed, thought he might as well put 10 more minutes graft in while waiting for boarding to open.

 

I don't remember us starting the second half strongly at all? Their second was around 40 mins wasnt it?

Ah who cares.

 

Yep. We kicked off, ball went back to Mariappa who tried to hit a long ball out wide to Deeney but overhit it and it went out for a throw. Reaction towards his best mate? Threw his hands up in the air and made a big thing about how he disgusted he was. No encouragement, no "don't worry about it", no thumbs up for the idea.

Set a terrible tone.

 

I take your point but surely, sooner or later, just staying up isn’t the target, nor should it be.

 

Troys leadership style is one of passive aggression and banter. You can see what he's like in the clips the club posts from the training ground. This style only works with certain players. I suspect our foreign contingent think he's an absolute oaf, and is the epitome of their image of a british player.

 

I think we have to look at udinese for the pozzo's intentions. They finished 3rd then have steadily declined since, with the bare minimum of investment each year. I can see the same happening to us. Only replacing players who leave for a profit out of necessity (eg doucoure, deulofeu), but keeping the rest.

 

It's another chapter in the recent history of Watford bottling it and being spineless. Rabbits in the headlights against any of the top 6 and anyone else who really needs the points and are up for it - Huddersfield doing the double over us last season being a prime example.

Even Foster, who seems to enjoy playing and be very resilient, seems got on board the defeatist train.

The club need to make sure they get some players with "cojones" in over the summer. For all Troy's talk of them, we don't really have many players with them.

 

You’re probably right RC, but I hope you’re wrong.

 

We played the last 5 mins of the first up their end, Got a corner, someone had a shot just wide.

First 10 of the second were promising. Del had a mazey run & Bobby got free down the left only to try to pick out Gomes with his cross.

 

Fair dos, I must admit I didnt get back to my seat until about 50 mins, I was talking bollox to someone by the bar.

 

Pretty much the story of our season in attack.

Have to be honest, don't remember the shot just wide. I remember Capoue shooting about 50 yards high and wide but that was it.

 

Yep. Our equivalent of Harmison's first ball at the Ashes in Aus 2006 or 7.

 

Totally agree with you.
This squad is a bottom 6 squad which over-achieved and finished 11th off the back of the great start.
If we fail to strengthen the first 11 we will eventually be in a relegation scrap and that could be next season. However I'm not sure Gino will see that given the 11th finish and cup final. He may wrongly believe that Gracia can perform a water to wine job each season and that we have enough to comfortably stay in this league.