I'm in ******* Bulgaria. Nothing I can do will stop Gray from being ****, Stop Prodl from being the Ser Robert Strong version of himself, stop Janmaat from being a pussy or stop Silva from being an arrogant, talentless terd. Not. My. Fault.
Some good observations here. My take on the Gray miss, was he didn't lose us the game, but he should have won it for sure. All players miss. I saw Morata miss two very good chances for Chelsea, and Salah missed chances for Liverpool yesterday. The difference is, when the next one comes along they score. Gray does not. Gray is not a striker because he does not have the composure, ability or technique. The club has to accept they've signed a turkey and do their best to move him on for as much as they can get to cut their losses. Yesterday's team performance was a disgrace for the reasons you've highlighted. Where was the running off the ball. There were several occasions in the first half when we broke forward but we just did not flood the box with players. We had no one in there. We did get lucky for the goal, as the ball fell to the only Watford player in the box. Three of the last four performances have been abysmal. The only decent performance was against Leicester, but even that needed two great last minute saves to protect the win. Before Palace we had a run of 5 winnable games. I thought we should win the lot, but we only picked up 3 points. Lose at City on Tuesday then that's 10 defeats from 14 games. Only 10 points attained. We'll have 15 games remaining. If that form is replicated, we are relegated. You're right to highlight Janmaat. He's been appalling in this run and is one of the main culprits in the goals we are conceding. He was beaten too easily by Arfield for the Burnley winner, both Palace goals came from his side, the Leicester goal again he was beaten too easily and yesterday's display. Their first goal was offside, but it was Janmaat who did not hold the line and it gave the linesman the chance to make the mistake. Misplaced passes, slicing off for a corner, bad positioning it really had the lot. I think too many players are coasting and almost playing to get the coach the sack. That's what 3 of the last 4 games tell me. Had we lost the Leicester game, I think Silva would be gone this morning. We will lose to Man City, I would consider it a shock if we beat Bristol City, then it's Southampton. Lose that, then I don't see how Silva can stay. Something has to change and we cannot be in this state of flux season after season. I think the time Silva did not commit to the club is the moment when players switched off. They are nowhere near as committed to the team as they were and I think it's there for all to see.
As much of a **** as I am on here, I'm usually one of the loudest and most vocally supportive in the family stand. Admittedly a low bar, but you can only beat the six year olds that are put in front of you. And I don't swear at the games neither.
Janmaat is a total liability. I'm going to Holland in February, might bind and gag him and put him in the boot. Drop him off somewhere in Rotterdam wearing an Ajax shirt. That slice at the corner was shocking.
Wrong. It might lead to a few more unable to handle their drink being a bit more lairy (see my comment in the Brighton thread) but nothing more than that. Since GT's days we have been a family club and if you look around even the Rookery there are still plenty of families around, as well as plenty of others who wouldn't care less if alcohol was allowed to be consumed at their seats. Most fans don't drink alcohol around match day anyway.
Most of the fans at aways are pissed as a fart. The atmosphere at aways is 1000% better than at home.
I was thinking just this and I've often thought along similar lines when I see teams get relegated from whatever division seemingly without a fight after long losing runs. So many of those defeats could have been turned into draws simply by parking the bus in turn keeping the teams up and that doesn't require any real extra skill, simply more effort, application and togetherness. Far too often it seems it's a win or bust mentality with us, apart from games when we have nothing to lose (West Brom and Arsenal) but more than it, it seems now that the team spirit from earlier in the season inexplicably has vanished. If we'd played the reverse fixture yesterday we would have definitely lost after being pegged back even with Deeney and Pereyra coming on.
I did think there was a case for tiredness,not just for us but all the teams. We are more affected because of the injury problems. However with all the training and recovery data available Silva and his team must have known this. It says very little for Capoue that he still isn't trusted against a team devoid of confidence. The same goes for Gray,I was amazed Okaka stayed on for 75 minutes,given his lack of matchplay. What Silva says post match are at odds with his selections,albeit limited by player availability.
For three seasons now we have started well and then tailed away badly (far too early for comfort this season). But we have changed the personnel a lot during that time. This makes it hard to pinpoint where the problem(s) are. Watching Watford yesterday and on MOTD, it seems to me the movement and positioning and anticipation of the players is very poor. It is indeed possible to pick out failings of individuals and apportion blame to them; but let's just take two examples: Gomes to blame for the second goal - well, it was a tricky shot. As has been pointed out, it swerved; and it swerved in towards the diving Gomes. This made it arrive at the keeper deep into his body. He did well to save the shot but dealing with it by knocking it away to the side would have been close to impossible for any goalkeeper. How was it the guy was allowed a clear shot in the first place? How come no Watford players were available to stop the Swansea man running unchallenged onto the rebound? These are the real problems. Doucoure's misplaced passing - For that matter anybody's misplaced passing - For a player to make a good pass he needs to have the ability and the wit to play it. But he also needs his teammates to make themselves available, preferably in a way that has been agreed and practised endlessly during the preceding weeks. I'm not sure I see enough of that. It takes years of practice for a young man to gain sufficient skills to be a professional footballer. The players in the squad have all, to a greater or lesser extent, already done that, or they wouldn't be there in the first place. That leaves us with strategies and tactics: It takes a handful of weeks to begin to build tactical design into a squad (eg Allardyce at Everton, and to some extent Hodgson at Palace). And it is the head coach's responsibility. Silva's tactics worked at the start of the season, but they do not appear to be robust and I wonder if he has a Plan B. Yes, the injuries are excessive - again. Yes, the fitness of some of the players appears to be an issue.
Among the bottom 14 team spirit is, I reckon, the key differentiator. Sadly, the loss of ours is wholly explicable. When the gaffer signals he wants to leave after 12 games that spirit dies.
You have to assume Marco and the boys will have been watching that match to learn tips from how the best team in the league go about things. I'm sure we'll be keen to prove we can emulate them in the injury time penalty conceding stakes.
Why are people all of a sudden laying into Janmaat? He's our best full-back attacking wise and no worse defensively than Holebas, and no more at fault than half a dozen other players for our poor run. IMO, similar to Holebas he is better playing as a wide midfielder (surprise none of our coaches have tried that, given Holebas played on the left wing at the start of his senior career) and we could get the most of all our full-backs playing in a 4-4-2 diamond formation with the best two defensively in the back 4 and other two largely free from defensive duties. My ideal line-up (when Femenia's fit and Prodl is back in form or Britos is ready): ------------Richarlison-----Okaka/Carillo---- ----------------------Pereyra-------------------- Holebas--------------------------------Janmaat ---------------------Doucoure------------------- Zeegelaar-------------------------------Femenia ---------------Prodl/Britos--Kabasele----------
I hope you’re winding up the Levski Spartak contingent whilst you’re at it. Btw, I believe it’s Sir Roy Strong.
De Bruyne and Jesus out injured, and City have just had a 1-0 win and a 0-0 draw against teams in and around the relegation zone. This is probably going to be about the best possible time we could get to play them... so single or double figures then?
Lesser sides have shown you can keep the score respectable against teams like City. We won't though, as we just do not have that in our locker. We are not organised, disciplined or together enough to be able to do that. No Jesus or De Bryne for City though, but I doubt it will make any difference.
Silva has always said our first priority is to avoid Relegation and it looks like that will actually be the case. I do think top half is achievable with our squad as we have a few players who most teams in the league would love to have.
It was a clear dive by Zaha. He was laughing his head off when he got the penalty. Jon Moss wanted to be the big show piece though. He's one of those dangerous officials as it's all about him. He wanted to make that decision.
Fair enough in a court of law, maybe. But in today’s Twitterspheric world Silva’s radio silence, at the very least, risks being seen as an indication of interest.
Back to getting players in the box; just rewatched the Newcastle game, 4-5 WFC players forward in the box with each goal. Except Grays 1-v-1 miss, but that wasn’t a goal though!
Just tried to put €20 at my local PMU on Watford conceding more than 10 goals against City on Tuesday. They will not take the bet. Odds are 1/18 against City winning, 9/5 on City scoring more than 5 goals. €20 on more than 5 goals it is then. As someone has pointed out already, the past few seasons we have seen the same pattern in our play. Get some points in the bag and hang on for the rest of the season, no matter how poor we perform. As for the last 20 minutes of the game, l remember a time under GT when we were just as poor it the final minutes. This season we now just expect teams to score against us. Fitness, ill discipline, unclear tactics or poor players? Where has the confidence gone? What has happened to the togetherness of the players? Is it all down to Silva and his desire to leave? Some have complained on here that the fans are overreacting, but we have lost to Palace, Huddersfield, Brighton and Swansea. That signals a major concern for the remainder of the season. .