Just watched the highlights and that was a real shocker from us. I didn't realise we were quite that bad. We are so vulnerable to these angled free kicks. We just do not win the ball in the air. Virtually every time the ball was crossed in, a Brighton player was on the end of it. This has been Watford's achilles heel for many years, but Saturday was particularly bad. We are well drilled, and not all over the place like we were under Silva and Mazzarri, but put the ball in the air and we've got no one who can judge the flight of the ball to get into the right position to head it away. Even with the fantastic performance from Foster, we massively rode our luck. If we play like that for the rest of the season, we probably wont pick up another point. Happily we do have a couple of players that will return, but we really do need a major upgrade to the defence in the summer. I really hope that gets done, as we cannot go on another season like this. https://www.watfordfc.com/matches/highlights/highlights-brighton-hove-albion-0-0-watford
Football & philosophy have long be entwined. N’Golo Kant is but the latest of a long line of those in pursuit of truth & a pig’s bladder.
I don't believe we are a top seven side but I don't believe we are on the decline either. We are a mid table team playing like a mid table team. We could have been a top seven side had we remedied the same old issues that we have had since we were promoted.
In the midst of all the ennui being exhibited on here, I think many may be missing a vital element as to why we have not been able to sign a "proven, dominant" CB that will be the required upgrade on what we have already. Any such player has salary expectations we cannot afford to pay. In the close season we saw the names of Dawson, Evans etc bandied about....but I doubt we could get near their demands. Most of our successful "more mature" signings have been proven players who had fallen down the pecking order at their previous clubs so were willing to come here at our salary level to kick-start their careers (Capoue, Peyreyra, Cleverley), those who did not want to play in the Championship so were willing to accept our wage levels (Janmaat, Foster), or hopeful punts that have turned out well (Doucoure, Femenia). We have been unlucky that Kaboul, who at the start of last season looked the part, fell apart at the seams, whilst Prodl seems to have done the same thing since then. This is the market we are going to have to shop in because I doubt any proven, ready-to-go, dominant CB of the calibre people seem to think we should attract would even consider coming here. Even big-money buys (eg Mina by Everton---a star in the WC don't you know) has had little positive impact on their "defence". So we'll be left hoping one of a couple of £6-10 million CBs will make the grade, or that a buy like Wilmot comes good quicker than expected. Having got into the Prem & then stabilised via clever & prudent means, the challenge for the club now is to succeed in managing the same feats in a salary climate that has changed dramatically even since we got promoted. If, for example, the club decided to increase ST prices next year by £100 per person, that would still not generate enough money to pay the salary expectation of a single CB of the type we all pine for. It is obvious that the money being splashed out on CBs recently shows they are viewed every bit as importantly as more "exciting" players. Where will the money come from? TV rights are all well & good, but every PL club gets that money & most owners are significantly richer than Pozzo...as are numerous owners in the level below us. The impact this has had on salaries is going to hurt clubs such as ourselves & Burnley in a very negative way in the immediate future & I'm afraid we may have to accept the current policy of attempting to keep up by buying such as Kabasele & hoping they develop quickly enough whilst backed up by such as Mariappa & Britos. Even that level of "bargain-basement" defender can't be that bad as we currently sit 8th with a GD of -1. If we could have scored almost open goals at Fulham & Newcastle (being the most obviously one-sided) we would be 7th with a positive GD. Call me old-fashioned (or just old!), but I think we are currently well above par for a club like ours, even allowing for the particular benefits accruing from the Pozzos' singular business model.
Agree completely. My worry is that we would find these similar posts at the back end of last season. Yet the recruitment team have let two transfer windows pass with inaction. They either don’t agree with the need for new centre back(s), are unwilling to invest in this area or have a scouting weakness that can’t indentify suitable candidates. I’m not sure why this will change in the summer.
Pretty sure you can find upgrades on Mariappa for 40/50k per week? We waste 90k per week on Prodl, Okaka and Zeegelaar. We pay Gray 70k per week and don’t use him. That said I agree with the sentiment that we are well above par.
We'll see what they do in the summer, but I'm convinced they tried to sign a centre back in this window only for the player to turn us down. It's all about value for money though and no matter how boring it is, Watford have to look for under valued players. Young promising players, older players who are just past their peak or a player who is difficult to sign because of the country they live in, such as S. America, Asia etc, where the risk is a little higher. We do need to invest in two areas, and we all know it. We would clearly have to replace Doucoure/Pererya/Deulofeu is they moved in the summer also.
There's definitely an issue there. Although, given the massive slump in January spending across the board this year, it seems it's increasingly become the window of choice for the panicking club. Which we're clearly not. I don't know if clubs are more resolved not to sell in January, or agents have just inflated things so far they've overplayed their hand, but I'd struggle to be too critical of the club for keeping their powder dry last month. The flip side is I'd expect them to go flat out in the summer to resolve the problem areas.
And £40k/week is 30% more than the revenue generated by the putative £100 increase on each ST, so stretching to £50k/week is +70%....my main point was that the club feels it is more prudent to pay 3 defenders £25-30k/week than to gamble on £50k+ for one player who may not make the grade with us, or who gets a serious injury & we lose them for a season. It is accepted that this "3-for-1" approach will result in as many duds as successes, but there's no guarantee a "marquee" signing will do any better...viz Gray for us, Mina for Everton et al. I would assume we are not paying all of the wages of Zeegelaar & Okaka...and is the £90k fact, rumour or assumption? I'm asking as I'm not sure. Maybe the £70k/week on Gray has made Pozzo more circumspect as to what to pay a new signing in future. And even since we signed Gray, the going rate for CBs (both transfer fees & wages) has increased dramatically, so maybe £60k/week is what it'll take to sign our required calibre CB. Put bluntly, I don't think we have the financial resources to compete in the market at the level many on here seem to think is our right. Their angst at Pozzo's "parsimony" does not take account of this fact.
Did anyone link the recruitment team to these posts? Can't blame them if they didn't know or didn't read the site that day.
I think the problem in January is that there are four types of player to look at. One is the the player not currently playing but unless they are a long way down the pecking order most clubs would not be looking to weaken their squad with a third of the season to go unless they receive an amount which they are unable to turn down. These players would need be at teams in the top leagues across Europe. There isn't a single team without anything to play for currently so this would cost a lot of money. The second player would be somebody already playing regularly but would like to go to a bigger team with bigger ambitions. Once again the selling club would need to receive an amount of money allowing them to replace them and are we any bigger than many teams in this division. The third player is an older player coming to the end of their contract with a lot of top level experience but currently struggling for game time. Cahill for an example has been mentioned but wages for players like these can be astronomical which probably rules us out. The fourth is a player from smaller countries on the football world map like the Korean fella. These players have little or no experience of top leagues and would constitute more of a gamble but may cost less so is probably where we are looking. The biggest issue is the small transfer window in January so unless you can do business very early it is more unlikely that teams get the player they want at the price they want and end up overpaying which is not something that Gino will do and probably quite rightly. The fact we didn't sign anybody in the summer or January I'm sure is not down to the want of trying but we're not cash rich, despite being in the Premier League. Big transfer fees do not guarantee successful players, you only have to look at the money wasted by Southampton or Everton to realise that. We all want a centre back and a forward but actually the defence hasn't been that bad this season and were certainly not to blame for Saturdays poor performance. For a club like us it's a difficult juggling act of making sure we get what we need without overspending on transfers or wages and unfortunately both of these have gone through the roof. In fairness we are still top half and are still in the FA Cup with a decent chance of progressing so it's not as bad as people might think if they read some of the stuff on here
We've hit that time in the season once again where the window is now shut and the existing players know they have a few months to put their feet up. Every ******* season. The performances at Tottenham and Brighton were shocking.
As the team trot out for the game it is probably best they assume it does. Silva might have come close to that approach when we lost 0 - 6 to Man City: He got us playing in a way that indicated he thought we only had to believe we were City for it to come true.
The scouts may well have correctly identified the available players - and realised the candidates weren't good enough.
At home we showed Spurs can be got at, at Wembley I thought we rolled over and let them have it, relied on the break then didn't have a man up top to get the ball to.
Apparently PSG didn't exist* until 1970 so he would have been knocking on a bit by then; but then again maybe mid-week matches it was one and Saturdays it was the other. * There's that word again.
I think you are being a little unfair to both teams - Spurs really went at us hard and they are a good side, albeit short of Kane and Ali, and we very nearly succeeded in keeping them at bay.
That's fair enough but they may have changed how they played against us this time to counteract what happened earlier in the season. We weren't brilliant but I felt taking Delefeou off too early played in to Spurs hands. No argument about Brighton though. I like Brighton away as a fixture but as a match the last two seasons have been dreadful. Have we had a shot on target in either of those away games at Brighton. Where is Malteser when you need her? Actually what has happened to Malteser?
Yeah very possibly, Spurs were much better than I was expecting and Son absolutely ran the show. They're up there with Man City and Liverpool for a reason. I think I'm frustrated because, (apart from Southampton), I think it was the worst I've seen us away this season.
Agree with this. That said, if we don't buy at least one quality CB in the summer, it's pitchfork time.
Maybe next seasons new centre back has just been sent to Udinese to get some practice and I don't mean Okakka!
