I think it’s obvious we wouldn’t have seen much of him even if he’d stayed. He is literally the anti-thesis of what Gracia likes in players. Penaranda only has a future at Watford if we hire a coach who embraces flair players. Given Gino’s appointments thus far, I’d say it’s unlikely.
I wouldn't expect you to go down under Gracia, or any other vaguely competent coach. I appreciate the run which stretches back into last season is a poor one, and I haven't seen all of your games during that period, but you played well enough to have got a point at Goodison and your squad, on paper, is stronger than a number of others. If it's avoiding the drop which is the goal, I wouldn't be making a change just yet. If the ambition is a bit higher than that, I'd guess the conversation is a different one
Interesting, do you think the club would have granted this loan request if Gracia will be on his marching orders soon. Would it not make more sense that the club genuinely feel the player needs more development time &/or better putting him in the shop window with a view to selling him on? Unfortunately it says quite a lot as to where he's gone, a backwater league. Does not sound like many clubs were chomping at the bit to sign him? Looks like it's ended up as a Jerome Sinclair Mk2 situation unfortunately, almost sickening to think he must be on 30-40k odd a week!
As I say, even if that were the case, they haven’t really hired a PL manager yet who embraces flair players. If he’s on his ‘marching orders’ soon, it’s likely they already know who they want and he follows a similar path. But I concede what you have said is just, if not more likely. I’m just throwing out a contrasting reason.
The owners have said that the aim is to be the best of the rest. But the apologists say they were lying and we should be content how we are. They also say we should trust those liars, which include the coach over player fitness, to sort out the mess we are in. It's wild at the moment in the fanbase. Wild.
Does it? Doucoure was out the door a few years ago after not being played. I think there's evidence to suggest that they might not know exactly what they are doing down there.
Dare I say its beginning to look like we let Richarlison go too cheaply as well. Another one Gracia couldn’t really find a place for. Replaced by Sema...
Genuinely am a bit worried what City might do to us. Aguero is on fire, Sterling will get his customary hat trick and De Bruyne is so desperate to make up for lost time that he's come out firing. Also slightly worried what Laca, Auba & Pepe might do to our defence. But at least we'll have a chance of scoring there.
Nothing to worry about. On a good day it will be 0-4 on a bad day it could be 0-10. I expect it to be around the 0-7 mark. As long as you prepare yourself for that, you'll not be too deflated.
The Man City result is irrelevant so long as we wave our flags for 10 minutes at the end. And hopefully give the legend Gomes a well deserved runout.
Can we get Gomes on the flags? We could arrange for the multitude of goalkeepers who are having their careers held up by him to wave them.
Take the afternoon off and do something productive with your Saturday - it'll be much better than watching us lose 8-0. You can then come on here and laugh at middle aged men get angry and throw insults at one another over football and whether Gracia should stay or go.
Here's a worrying stat. I've just worked out how many points we've picked up from our last 38 matches (an entire season). I think many would be surprised to see we've only picked up 39 points!!. With Arsenal, City, Wolves, Sheff Utd and Spurs coming up next, I can't see too many points being added to that total. Clearly Sheff Utd is a must win match, but you cannot see too many, if any points, being added to the total. It could be only 42 points from 43 games, even if we beat Sheff Utd. It's not good enough and the run is extensive now. I think our squad is better than a point a game, even with the handicap of a Championship defence. Looking at it from Gino's point-of-view, how long will he give Javi? With only 1 point from 4 games where we'd have expected to gain around 5-7 points from, with a much harder run to follow. The next 5 are Arsenal (h ), City (a ), Wolves (a ), Sheff Utd (h ) and Spurs (a ). I think now he's got a really tough run of games, where I just can't see how he would be able to turn it around. Unless something dramatic occurs and we pick up some unexpected points over the next three games, I think he'll be sacked after the Wolves game, which will be an international break.
Check your damn privilege! Until the Arab civilisation we didn't even have their number system to measure our points progress!
I'm quite pleased with myself that I've timed a week's holiday in Spain with Mrs Willis to coincide with the Man City game. I will quickly be able to get over the result with continued consumption of food and wine in the sun. The downside is I will be arriving there frustrated at throwing away a point or three against Arsenal and will return in time to witness our Cup exit on penalties to the Welsh plucky no-hopers.
If that happens against Arsenal, you may well be on the same flight to Spain as Gracia I’d imagine...
It was more the Hindu's number system, albeit it entered Europe via Arabs (who made only a few slight developments along the way, e.g fractions).
We are ten points behind where we were last season despite playing no top six sides. That means we are currently heading for 40 instead of 50 points. How much longer would you wait to stop the rot? As for expectations I suspect most of us would today accept 17th place.
Trying to put a different spin on things, but if you take the results from corresponding fixtures last season, we are only 3 points down. The Brighton match is the one that has really dented us, all other results were largely the same as last season. We actually improved our result against West Ham, got a narrow defeat a Newcastle and a point at Everton. This time around that was reversed. Next few games are Arsenal (h ) which we lost last season, City (a ) again we lost, then Wolves where we actually won. So right now if we beat Arsenal, for example, we'd have exactly the same points return from corresponding fixtures of last season!!
On that basis then, I hope everyone has kept their flags for a good pasting in the cup final come May...
Christ. Time don't half fly. Seems like just the other week he was scoring a goal against Cov. Bloody good goal it was too.
Very good points. Yours is the glass is half full argument - mine the glass is half empty. Prefer yours. However in a league like the Premiership the sequence of games is also very important. It affects not only your own players' confidence but also the expectation of teams playing against you. Once you are seen as relegation candidates I think your games become harder.
Quite right. Watching a forum meltdown from the sun, with a pina colada is so much less intense than standing, waving your flag in misery as Aguero and Sterling fight to be the first to score 10 in a game against us.