You are wasting your time, the same half a dozen blowing smoke up each others ar-ses. It is the norm for here. I tend to only hang around till the transfer window closes because come 15 games in, the brotherhood become unbearable regardless of how the team is playing or where they are at. Seem to think Watford is all about this forum and their comments rather than the watching the team and taking out of it, whatever you feel fit personally.
If we are to go up (I'll leave you all on here to decide whether that's realistic), we will eventually have to improve on the away record, we were good at getting results at home all season 2 years ago, but it was only when the away results picked up that top two started to look realistic. Even so, we ended that season on 32 points from 23 games away from home, which was enough while our home record was historically good, but we can't bank on us picking up 2.5 points per game at home again!
Aside from Muric and perhaps Cullen, most of Burnley's signings look like similarly hopeful punts, not least because many of them also came from Belgium. In fact it was even rumored that supposedly Kompany had also wanted to sign Bayo. Forss and Hoppe at Boro might also not end up being more effective than Bayo. On the subject of Boro, their striker Muniz who scored against us, is someone who Fulham paid €8mil for last season but have now loaned out once promoted. He looks a decent player to be fair, and is still young, but he's also not tearing this league up just yet. None of the significant fee signings really are doing so yet except for Ahmedhodzic and maybe Muric (Cullen and Nunez have also made okay starts). Bayo isn't doing too badly in comparison to the above list of players so far. The point is also clearly that a few mil does only get you punts and not a 100% guarantee of "tearing it up" at this level. To be sure if getting a player who'll tear it up you have to spend at least double what we paid for Bayo.
For balance, I do think Louza (and Davis and Sarr of course) is the type of player who would make a difference in games like this where we need to pick locks, but a) he won't be rushed back, and b) we can't bank on him being available all season
If you are only an occasional poster you might not be familiar, but there is a brilliant irony in terms of the poster you are replying to in this comment!
I believe we are a top 6 club and that gives us a chance at the automatics. But I'm as optimistic about beating Coventry, Swansea or Huddersfield as I would be Rotherham as optimism is a lot different from expecting. I'm also optimistic of beating Norwich, Burnley or Sheff Utd as well, doesnt mean I expect too.
Please please keep me in the dark. You were replying to me posting about half a dozen posters blowing smoke up each others ar-ses. You do understand the definition of Irony ?
Ive said it once and will say it again.....our defence is what will ultimately cost us this season. That said we are not scoring many goals either. Every game there has been no more than one goal in it. I mostly blame DB for yesterdays goal even though neither defender covered themselves in glory. Keepers are there to dominate the area and that is something Bachmann is terrible at doing.
Whilst I absolutely agree with you, he's played about 5 games. Pretty sure he scored as many goals as Gray did in our last promotion season......
Bayo has played 6 games in the league (a grand total of 376 minutes), Gray hit 5 in 30 (1272 minutes) 2 seasons ago, I think you're confusing it with Gray in the relegation season
Hmm, I guess. But the point is those also aren't players who will all end up "tearing this league apart" as you claimed should be the case - to get a guarantee of that you need to spend a lot more. Also, a reminder that the two top scorers in the Championship last season (Mitrovic and Solanke) both cost about £24 million!
My mistake, I looked up on Transfermarkt and saw they only had him down for 1 goal in 5 so assumed they hadn't put down the Rotherham game yet
You can add Bachmann to that list of shame also....he had absolutely ages to charge out and catch the ball....oh hang on, of course, it was more than 2 yards off the line.
Think there's definitely comments that purely have judged him as a poor player (not signing) based on a couple of 3/10 cameos, and even a poor performance in a pre season game! I'd be pleasantly surprised if he justifies his fee this season, and would probably only do so if he gets 15+ G/A in a promotion campaign. Agree with your later comment though that if he was picked up from, say, Peterborough for £1m and had the same performances, the reviews would be largely positive.
I wonder if defenders have too much coaching on zonal defending these days, and their natural instincts diminish. As a defender it should be instinctive to challenge for any ariel ball coming in, same with the keeper. Get back to good old fashioned defending and take responsibility even if you head the ball away out of Yr keepers hands.! Having said that their player must have shouted something to create that opportunity, I've never seen anything like that before..!
I recently watched a video about the Mackem Miracle when Roy Keane took Sunderland from bottom of the Championship to the title, an interesting thing he said was they had a clear out of a few players in the Jan window as they were still hungover from the relegation season before and were dragging the rest of the groups mentality down with them. I think we still have a few of those players hanging around the squad. Basically we need to ship out the players with the losing mentality that are maybe too comfortable, be ruthless, get in younger, hungrier players that havnt been tainted by losing so regularly.
That's interesting; Kabasele and Cathcart would clearly be the top of the list for that, but they'd need replacing. I can't recall where, but someone posted a graphic on here last week though that showed we'd already had the 2nd (or perhaps 3rd) highest clear-out of players from those who started the previous season out of all Championship clubs, with only about 48% (I think) of our minutes from last season still in the squad. We didn't have many of our PL regulars playing yesterday, that's for sure.
This has been a problem that has dogged us for years. Too many half arsed / mentally weak players dragging the rest down. Pozzos never seem to consider player psychology important.
Either the poster or someone else did also point out at the time, however, that what that effectively means in reality is that we're playing a decent proportion of our backups from last season; the ones who couldn't get a game for one reason or another. So, the lesser quality players, but still affected by the malaise associated with the drudging nightmare of last season, experienced at the heart of our dressing room. It's not that surprising/far-fetched in light of that reading.
Couple of my thoughts on the ongoing debates here. 1) Bayo was criticized not only because of his high fee, but also for his lack of ability. Having said that, I believe the criticism, at the time, was more than deserved. He showed nothing to warrant a 5 million fee. He has scored 2 goals and if he continues chipping in with goals his fee will be justified and I doubt anyone would question his ability either. 2) You can't really compare our draw with Rotherham and their loss against Blackpool. I watched a lot of their games last season because of Mitrovic, and they were completely dominant in 95% of the matches. Results like that against Blackpool was just a freak result. We have been nowhere near as dominant as them. And therefore, draw against Rotherham is more concerning for us, than the loss to Blackpool was to Fulham.
It's an online supermarket food shop. All bar a couple of items have been substituted with Bogi Mayat own brand goods which leave an unsavoury taste in the mouth and leaves you sitting on the bog for weeks.
Extremely harsh criticism at a new signing coming from abroad because their opening 150 minutes was disappointing? I don't agree that is justified at all. Our connections with Bayat and potential criminality are concerning and likely behind the inflated fee but it's not fair to Bayo himself for him to be tarred and judged because of that, when he could be a decent player. He has not played much and already scored 2 goals, the same as Pedro and Sarr on a fraction of the minutes (granted they are better players elsewhere/offer more creatively etc). But it may not be a joke to say he is our biggest goal threat.
Pretty sure Cathcart and Cleverley's contracts run out next summer? Kabasele we're stuck with until 2024, I highly highly doubt anyone would be stupid enough to take those players off our hands
This what I love about Rob. He doesn't hide behind his feelings - says he is angry with the performance and will no doubt expect a reaction on Saturday. Deep down he must be frustrated with the lies from the board though. "You know what's coming when you come to Rotherham and I'm very frustrated and angry with that because we knew what was coming and we didn't stand up to it well enough. "We want to win games, we don't want to go anywhere and draw. We tried to win, we were pushing to win and they were settling for a draw. It's a good result for them but a frustrating afternoon for us."
I said at that moment in time, i.e. before he scored his first goal. Up untill his first goal, it was fair to say he's been poor imo. His finishing was poor, his hold up play was poor, passing was poot, etc.
This really hasn't changed, though as long as he keeps banging in goals and Davis helps out by holding the ball up I'll turn a blind eye. Absolutely nothing about him suggests he'd prosper in the PL however.
Tbf, I don't think that was exactly a secret, but he did have a decent scoring record, which he's starting to show here, of course we'd like someone who can hold the ball up and bring others into play, can get into good areas and finish well, but that player would be worth far more than £5m! I think now it's just nice to have 4 (if you count JP) different options up front who offer different things
That's true. My point is that the situation at the start of the season with him was the things I mentioned + no goals. And, in my opionion, he was deservedly criticized. If he keeps scoring goals with reasonable frequency, no one will criticize him, as I said in my original post.
