In fairness, it was such an egregious offside that it felt like about 10 at once. He's one of the worst offenders for sauntering back offsides, which aggravates the crowd no end
We are actually odds against to make the playoffs. 6/4. A small part of this price is the chance of us finishing top 2 but there are currently 4 teams more favoured than us currently. I was surprised by this. Might put a chunky bet today.
How crap was the linesman?! I was sitting in the LGT and the lino was about 5 yards behind play almost all of the time and when he did manage to keep up with play he seemed to be blind.
WBA/Norwich/Boro all a smidgeon below evens. Interestingly so are Millwall. Maybe it's a compliment that they see us as the only team with a non zero chance of making top 2. Or maybe they just saw Bayo playing
Should have won it, had enough chances. No more injuries as far as I know though so thats nice. Not looking forward to Boro' they are on a very good run. Just six points between 3rd and 13th place in the Champo, crazy league.
He was incredibly wasteful with the ball yesterday so to see he lost us possession 22 times is no surprise. He gave it away three times in the first ten minutes yesterday which set the tone for his game.
Cathcart was playing through an injury for the last 20 minutes. Kone also requested to come off, but that looked more like he was knackered than anything else.
A large number of players of both sides were hands on knees or flat on their backs the moment the final whistle went.
Definitely struggling to adapt at the moment. It's not an easy position to play in if you're used to a league where there isn't somebody constantly closing you down
Sarr is an utter enigma: He is supposed to have all this talent and yet we don't see it (or, at least, not often enough) and he seems to be trying to do all the wrong things, even although these things patently don't work. I've said repeatedly over a long time it looks like a coaching issue to a large extent. And yet multiple coaches have failed to get him to change, (if, of course, they've tried). For quite a lot of this time, however, he is being served the right passes almost never; the standard of passing in this side is generally poor. At the moment this is largely explicable by the number of injuries we have and the consequent number of very young or new players we are playing, disrupting any coherent teamwork.
I was struck by how so many of our players seemed completely caught out by the fact that the Rotherham players would simply go straight through them in the tackle. Largely legally. We looked like a technically better but physically lightweight team, compared to them. Not just this match, either.
From the very first minute Rotherham were taking an age over every throw-in but they did a surprising amount of attacking after our equaliser. I think they, along with many other opponents assumed Watford are a good team with all these star players, but then realise during the game we’re not all that.
I have noticed a fair bit of criticism for both Choudhury and Morris. Choudhury can't pass; this is scarcely news, and is why he is playing for us and not in the Leicester first team. His tackling and challenging is first class - he made a positive difference to the team the moment he returned from injury. Morris I thought had a good game - but as a full back, not a wing back. He will never make wing back, he is just too slow. But I've been impressed with his levels of improvement in the brief time he has been in the first team: He put in an impressive amount of tackling in that first half and showed plenty of good skills.
The game was suited for Kamara to be a more dynamic option where we needed attacking impetus more than defensive balance. I can live with Morris' lack of athleticism and weaknesses beating a man more than Kamara's defensive abandon on balance though if I could have only one.
I thought that Rotherham seemed to have a good attacking outfit and plenty of intent. Their defence looked much shakier. Considering their proximity in the league Blackpool looked good for relegation, but Rotherham do not. Pity about their timewasting, though.
It's a horses for courses thing, isn't it? I can see why Kamara was brought on in the second half; but I just thought a lot of the earlier posters were dismissing Morris most unfairly.
Which doesn't excuse certain refs effectively making up their own rules as they go along. Yesterday's ref would've given the second one in a heartbeat at the other end & may well have given the earlier one. Whilst there is clearly no 'organised campaign' against us, I think it's likely refs speak to each other and come to an implicit decision that Sarr needs to be chopped down above the knee before a penalty will ensue.
I’d see Rotherham attack and I’d see Choudhury trying to press or block the space in behind, against three or four Rotherham central options. We’d have all of our attacking players wide or high up, a huge vacant space where Kone should have been and Kone would just be in random spots around the pitch, five seconds behind the play, trying to get back into position. I can’t tell if it was poor tactics, or naive play by Kone, but that position was clearly a massive weakness in our team that our pretty rubbish opponents exploited regularly.
I mentioned at half time, he was given absolutely no options by our forwards who insisted on staying with their marker and providing no option He is a better passer of the ball than Kamara, but the benefit of Kamara's pace was immediately obvious
I was sat in my car driving out of Fishers. As soon as that mug went down injured in the last minute of injury time with what actually looked like a genuine injury that was enough for me! Atmosphere was dreadful again overall. Feels like the squad lethargy has gone into the stands too.
A player putting the ball under his shirt during play, or lying on top of it. A player, when not in playable distance of the ball, clearly impeding the progress of an opponent by stepping across them, causing the opponent to adjust or stop their movement, but without making contact with them.
I am confused by the last statement, doesn't this happen many times during every game by a defending player? Why are there not constant free kicks for it?
It does, yes. Especially from corners. I suppose it would become a bit of a farce if the law was followed to the letter, and it's been allowed to be open to interpretation by referees. Here's the exact wording from IFAB, if you're interested: "An indirect free kick is awarded if a player: impedes the progress of an opponent without any contact being made"
