I vowed not to follow another Watford game if WTE starts and I'm sticking to it. To start with a goal deficit before kick off is impossible in the PL and I'm sick of it. Burnley will score atleast 1 off their own back so that's 2 goals for them. I don't think we will score 3 so win is off the table
Interesting tactical conundrum for Ranieri. We've looked at our best when we aggressively press teams but they've all been sides that like to actually play football and build from the back. How do you press a team that treat the ball like a hot potato anyway and spend the 20 minutes they actually allow the ball to be in play hoofing it over your heads?
Burnley will score a goal in the first 30 minutes (obviously from a set-piece) and we won't be able to break them down. Standard one goal defeat to them.
3-5-2 anyone? Or is the only thing worse than having two Championship quality centre backs in the team having three of them?
It is at times like this that I curse my brother who indoctrinated me aged 6 into all things Watford. Why couldn't he have let me play with dolls and teddies like any small girl in the late sixties? More torment,more suffering and waiting for the impending doom and that's just for the team to be announced! It's the stuff of nightmares isn't it, Burnley away in mid winter? Half of me thinks I'll compose a sarcastic email to the LTA finance team as to the whereabouts of my consultancy fee,only six months overdue. In reality I shall be sitting in the translating/football chair waiting for the inevitable whilst Mr IBB contemplates growing his hair and wearing an Alice band,like Gallagher and Lyle. Enjoy every sandwich.
I actually have a grudging respect for Burnley's style of play, it's the only way they can compete and Dyche's refusal to move away from it is understandable given what happened to Pulis' Stoke when they tried to play a bit of football. I obviously wouldn't want to watch it but think fair enough. What I can't stand though is their gamesmanship and Dyche's incessant moaning about referees and victim complex. The high point of this was when they started time wasting at Vicarage Road after six minutes with the score at 0-0 a few seasons ago.
I want to have hope, given that we're playing one of the few teams currently below us in the table, but I'm not sure that's an intelligent position at this point. For one reason or another we've had a couple of games where it looked like we've gone into it with little chance and somehow managed a famous victory - we're pure shyte at taking advantage or capitalising on a result, but under Claudio we've never really gone on a multiple-game run of bad performances and the same mistakes made, so I'm going to cross every finger and toe and trust in him to have sorted out pretty much everything that brought us crashing back down to earth on Friday night (except for the abysmal recruitment and personnel problems, obviously). The prospect of playing the Burnley Worm-Eaters still fills me with dread with any version of this defence, though. Kabasele must start, and even if he did get a 'knock' in training last week, it's time to play through the pain. It feels like every week WTE does something insanely, inexplicably, embarrassingly amateurish and stupid, and we come on here and say 'it's not possible he starts the next game, because even aside from his historically poor talent/form, he will be fully aware of how bad he is and it will be psychologically affecting him far too much to concentrate properly' then come 2.59pm or 7.59pm or whatever, there he is, trundling out like he's been sent over the top at the Somme. Something has to change.
The teams playing 3-5-2 well at the moment are those who can take enough possession to let their wing backs get forward. Unfortunately, our inability to string two passes together means it would be a 5-3-2 with us under relentless pressure. Probably rather have that extra bod in the middle.
Dyche will be telling his players "lets keep it tight at the back lads and strangle their midfield and we'll be alright, they always let at least 1 goal in".
A Star Trek/Doctor Who fan obv.. Very astute observation said with mild surprise from someone who clearly hasn’t watched us much this season.. If he had, he wouldn’t have been surprised, and he wouldn’t have left out the word ‘again’ ..
Very predictable game this one, Dennis will be marshalled very well all game by Mee and Tarkowski, before in the 78th minute WTE slices a clearance of a Dwight McNeil cross, falling to Ashley Barnes to bundle it in at the back post. Burnley 1-0 Watford
"Shaun, Shaun, we cannot score and it's getting late in the game!" ... "Lads, give it to the frightened sheep at the back or charge at him..." ... EKONG - "NOOOO..... GET THAT BALL AWAY FROM ME...." ... Woods - Three points in the bag - cheers gaffer.
Very rare we go into a game against a team of the calibre of Burnley where I think we are just nailed on to lose. Dyche and Burnley will know all about our current weaknesses and will attack them all evening long. Whoever we play in the backline will be bombarded and we just know they haven’t got it in them to be resolute against that for 90 mins.
I'm not sure why the consensus is Burnley will only scrape to a win. They're better than us and we're the ideal home tie for them on a cold December midweek night when they want to kick start their season. If they don't score 3 I'll be surprised.
We did throw up a Everton 2 Watford 5 result. Watford had never won at Goodison in any competition before that match. Football results can sometimes surprise us. That's about the only optimistic angle I can think of for this one.
You could tell Brentford had done their homework on us (which would take about 5 minutes max) and amongst other things, they were sending long balls over WTE’s head whenever they could to try and cause chaos. There is no way Dyche won’t have done his homework on us, and if WTE starts they’ll deliberately be targeting both him, and Bachmann’s erratic behaviour when dealing with any ball into the box. In a weird way that’s why we probably did ok against Chelsea and City as they just play their game (which was still enough to beat us) whereas a team like Burnley will actively target our very obvious weaknesses, which just happens to more or less be their game anyway.
No, they've done us 3 or 4 nil before fairly recently, haven't they? My head says a 4-0 is extremely possible, but obviously if that's the case we're running out of options, so I can only hope it's heart-time.
This game goes one of two ways. Burnley score early form a set piece or a defensive howler and shut up shop for the rest of the game 1-0 (Wood) We play with flair upfront and get the lead, Burnley then undo our defence with a set piece or through a defensive howler twice 2-1 (Dennis, Wood, Vydra)
Masina is back in full training already - I wonder if they are rushing him back. Really wouldn't surprise me if we finally see him given a run-out at CB. I have long been abjectly opposed to ever trying it out - but anything is better than WTE right now.
