That role would need Deeney to work far more defensively than he's willing/capable of doing. The idea of him covering anyone at the moment is frankly laughable.
Different circumstances, in the same team you could’ve had Abdi (who I believe scored our last free kick back in 2016) and FF step up and at least trouble the opposition. Chalobah has only ended up taking free kicks because we’re so pathetically bad at them it’s either that or ask the ref to have a go.
Was about to say the same, and also a week since the last game. Anybody appearing to look tired in fact just doesn’t give a ****, which sadly is most of our team.
Yeah but I think that he, like Deeney for example, didn't come back superfit after the break and played in every game since the restart. Almost every manager rotates his players, especially aging ones.
The free kick thing is appalling. Even if we don’t have a free kick specialist, surely someone should be designated to at least practise taking them every day in training so they are fairly competent. At the moment whoever takes them looks like it’s the first time they’ve ever tried it.
I have to agree. We cant even hit the defensive wall. They are always ballooned high over the bar. The only guy we have who gets even close is currently recovering from an ACL, but even he is pretty poor at free kicks. I think Pussetto maybe quit decent, but he doesn't play. No one else has the technical craft to get the ball up and over the wall. They just go for power and hope. That will rarely produce a goal.
It’s baffling though. I mean bobby is a lazy ******* but he’s got the ability to curl a shot into the corner, but he can’t at least get the ball even vaguely near one of the corners of the goal from a dead ball situation?
I know some Wfc fans struggle to remember anything positive, and are the first to be negative, but this squad is almost the same that was comfortably in 7th/8th after 2/3rds of last season, and got us through to the FA Cup Final. And we weren't lucky, continuously scraping luck results, we were well worth that position. Our league form after reaching the Final was just awful yet we still managed to finish 11th, which is mid-table, last season. Since then there have been no major losses to the squad but we have the additional Sarr - so we are more than capable of a mid-table position, even if you find that notion as "bizarre". It is not our footballing ability that let's us down, it is our mindset, and if the team leadership can't instil the right mindset into a squad, it doesn't matter how good they may be technically, it just doesn't work.
Our team has quite clearly lost its legs since their FA Cup Semi-Final exerts - we already had the oldest team in the Prem last season, and have been basically joint oldest in the league again this season. Deeney is another year older and less fit, with no one able to adequately fill in for him up front. Cathcart is a year older and less alert. Capoue has looked dead since the restart. Holebas doesn't play any more and Masina isn't as good as he was. Foster is a year older and more error-prone. Dawson, our "new" signing, is no spring chicken and was never blessed with pace. Janmaat has been a complete crock this whole season. Mariappa is 33 and wasn't even good enough in his prime. Gray used to at least be able to chip in with a few goals, but has been even more dreadful and cumbersome this season. A few decent midfielders can't make up for a defence and strike-force that was mediocre and has been declining rapidly.
Deeney this year is just a one year older version of a poor Deeney of last year - a waste of a shirt. Who did Dawson replace? Prodl, who played for us once last season! Or Britos, who played three times. Players don't just lose their ability when they get a year older, they actually gain experience, composure and improve their decision making. But none of these seem to have happened to our squad this year, that can only be down to their attitude and mindset. We aren't criticising their lack of pace that players lose with time, we are criticising their inability to do the basics that they have all been doing for years. They seem scared on the ball, they panic and can't make simple passes of a few yards and show little enterprise in getting forward. That is not a lack of ability, it is because their heads are just ****ed. And, as you have concentrated on criticising the defensive players above, I go back to a stat I posted last week, we have had more clean sheets this season than most of the Premier League.
Yes, he is a loss, but we were fighting relegation even when he was in the team. His loss against Liverpool was not been the reason why the previous 12 months had been totally ****.
'Natural ability' is vastly overrated in elite sport. Hard work, discipline,more hard work,game intelligence and humility are much better qualities to have. Plenty of hugely gifted tennis players stacking shelves, cleaning offices or coaching at a Lloyd centre, mobile phone in one hand, racket in the other. Everyone has some talent at that level or they wouldn't have made it that far. Lots of our players may reflect on their careers and think 'if only'. Then again they may look at the Aston Martin,the mansion in Hampstead and the huge wodges of cash and think 'who cares!'
Because we had QSF mate, doesn't mean much. We kept a clean sheet and didn't look like scoring in a million years so what's the point? Sheff Utd at home 0-0 Bournemouth at home 0-0 Norwich away 0-2 Palace at home 0-0 United at home 2-0 Villa at home 3-0 Bournemouth away 0-3 Spurs at home 0-0 Liverpool at home 3-0 Three 0-0 draws at home under QSF where we were shockingly boring. Palace were the second lowest scoring team in the league at the point too. Us being first. Four clean sheets against the only three teams possibly worse than us in the league. The amazing and slightly freak results against United & Liverpool. And the anomaly against Spurs. Four nil nil's at home isn't a Win in my opinion though.
I'm pretty sure they're thicker than whale omelettes with very few exceptions. Very unhealthy kicking a plastic ball around for all of your formative years with over zealous parents living vicariously through your talent and possible career. Very few are going to be Socrates,apart from err Socrates!
That's a mental thing, and it functions to a degree, but physically players can starting falling off a cliff once they hit a certain point, just look at what happened to Prodl and Holebas, and it has now started happening to Capoue, Deeney, Cathcart and Janmaat who are all the wrong side of 30. When they're a year older in body then a lot of the basics start becoming more difficult because it takes you a bit longer to do everything, you can't play with the same intensity, you seem to have less time on the ball, and opposition players are suddenly that extra yard quicker than you. The idea that players don't generally start losing effectiveness in their 30s and any physical decline is more than compensated for by improved decision making is absolute nonsense - if what you were saying was true then Rooney would still be playing for Man Utd and not Derby County for example. As a club we've not been effective enough in replacing players on the downward slope of their peak performance years.
Agree with all of that. Gary Neville is a great example of a player falling off cliff talent wise at a certain age. He did it spectacularly in just one game (I think from memory against Stoke, perhaps) and even admitted it afterwards. I’d also add to that motivation. Theses are all extremely wealthy people that know they’re getting close to the end of their career. They don’t really have anything to play for, they won’t get a deal from a top flight club once their existing contract ends so they’ve got nobody to impress.
The squads horrendous. but I think that's probably going to be the best of what's available. Or we go balls to the wall and change it up entirely to something like a 4-3-3, where we have a midfield 3 of Doucoure, Capoue, Hughes and a top 3 of something like Welbeck, Pedro and Sarr.... could actually be more interesting.
Indeed, also when one considers that reaching the FA Cup Final was probably the peak of many of their careers.
How can can you discount the clean sheets against the top teams as being freaks or an anomoly and then imply we only get clean sheets against the lower clubs? Talk about being negative. As I said, we kept more clean sheets than most of the Premier League, if you think that is not worth anything, that is up to you. But in my experience a clean sheet is what about 80% of the teams want when they set foot on the pitch.
Blimey, you are just making up what I said. The difference between the first 2/3rds of last season and the last 1/3rd, and then this season is not just down to a slight loss in athleticism as our older players have "just fallen of a cliff". The male physical peak is around 19 yrs old, and it doesn't just fall off a cliff over a few months, it happens gradually, whilst the benefits of experience increase gradually. I didn't say one completely counteracts the other. But if you look at the average ages of the teams, the three teams below us are amongst the youngest, and the best teams are nearer our end of scale. And, heavens above, if you think Deeney has just "fallen off a cliff"in the last year you havn't been watching the same games as everybody else over the past 3/4 years. But, yes maybe the players fitness (as a group) is not as it should be, but that will be more down to the their attitude to training, not because they have suddenly become frail old men.
I did acknowledge above to a19tgg that motivation might also be a factor given that reaching a FA Cup Final will probably be the highlight of many of our players' careers. Weigh up the factors all you want, but if you watched much football at all you'd know that for whichever combination of reasons footballers tend to be at their peak between the ages of around 25-28. All the studies and analysis backs this up, have a look at these: https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-sports-analytics/jsa0021 https://www.espn.com/soccer/blog/ta...goalkeepers-and-central-defenders-peak-latest https://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com/2013/12/9/5191634/the-football-aging-curve Once you start getting as many players passed their best as we have it can quickly become an issue, especially in the super-competitive Premier League where margins are tight. Most of our teams this season have had an average age of over 29; only one team, Crystal Palace, have had any older starting lineups (and they play very deep and conservative football). Surely you know that I've been one of the most vocal ones from here wanting Deeney out for the last 3 seasons (though funnily enough that's been since he was about 29). It does seem that his fitness issues and recovery times have become even more pronounced than they already were this season though. You can't demonstrate that it "will be more down to the their attitude to training" than general fitness issues - consider our central midfielders since the restart, Hughes has probably been our best, Doucoure has been a bit sloppy but his stamina hasn't been a problem, while Capoue has been trash; their ages? 25, 27, 31. I don't believe it's just because Hughes and Doucoure were training any differently to Capoue, in general Capoue has been an excellent professional in the last few seasons and had almost superhuman stamina at times, but it does appear that he's now struggling to maintain the same level of intensity he used to. The same happened to Holebas last season (though he impressively managed until 33), as well as Prodl at about 31, as well as Britos at about 31/32. Behrami also declined and lost his place at 31. etc. etc. At their peaks, Prodl and Britos were head-and-shoulders better than any of our CBs now, but funnily enough as they got to a certain age they became not good enough anymore and were moved on and replaced. The club have been too complacent and cheapskate in not recognising this issue in the current squad and rectifying it sooner.
I wish I could see it like you. However, only five teams have conceded more than us. Only Southampton have conceded more and are confirmed safe right now. Our goal difference is also the 4th worst. Clean sheets are good for sure but have not added much to our season really. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It's not just footballers either btw, elite track-and-field athletes have a similar pattern: "Age at peak performance for men ranged from 23.9 ± 2.4 y (10000 m; mean ±SD) to 28.5 ± 2.2 y (discus throw)" https://www.researchgate.net/public...erformance_of_Successful_Track_Field_Athletes
The old prizefighters apparently used to say: 'First you lose your speed, then your stamina, then your strength'.
Most of the research merely backs up what I said that physical performance peaks at up to about 28 or so (overall) and then drops away for a few years quite slowly in a classic bell-shaped distribution curve, and the data doesn't take into consideration the benefits of experience. Going by your strategy, that players performance falls off a cliff, Van Dijk has been past it for a year, Henderson living on borrowed time, and Salah and Mane will be on the scrapheap next year, and Milner should have been buried 5 years ago. And why on earth are the two top goalscorers Vardy at 33 and Aubameyang at 31 still being allowed to play? But of course, WFC should have been replacing players as the squad can only get older, but all I am saying is that the dramatic drop in form over a matter of months is not mainly down to the players being a few months older, there are far more serious and substantial reasons, but reasons that ca be turned round, whereas if you believe that just age is the factor, then we may of just have given up months ago.
Ha, you said nothing about "28" - the only age you gave any reference to was "19" (which you somehow claimed to be a physical peak, even though even track-and-field athletes, sprinters etc. also all tend to peak well into their-20s). The data also obviously does "take into consideration the benefits of experience" - wherever there were any benefits of experience they would be contributing to a lesser or stronger degree to the years which are considered a player's peak. You mention a lot of Liverpool players there and they also as a team really do support the data about players' peak performance; they were the best team in Europe last year and won the PL this year at a canter, and over that period their star players were all at their very peak - Van Dijk 27-28, Salah 27-28, Mane 27-28, Firmino 27-28. None of their first choice XL over this period at the pinnacle of the club game had even reached 30 yet. It's not a coincidence. Everything fell in to place for them. I didn't say that the "cliff" point was at 29 btw, there does seem to be a general downward slope for many players from about 28-29 and then the "cliff" point can be hit at seemingly anywhere from about 30-35 depending on the player. You also mention Vardy there, but it appears as if he has also in fact hit that cliff point earlier in the year, his goals have all but entirely dried up and he doesn't look the same player any more as he did at the start of the season (this was true of him even before the season break). His decline has probably been slightly on the later side given he was late in starting the professional game. Aubameyang is still up there, but let's see for how much longer. I notice you've conveniently completely ignored my pointing out how players do indeed tend to have been done by their early 30s by using examples of whenever Watford first teamers have been typically phased out. Considering Liverpool a bit more, I don't think they will be able to repeat their exploits of the last year next season, they also seem to have already peaked a few months ago as a team in a similar manner to we did after the Cup Semi. They already looked burned out a couple of weeks before we beat them. They'll still be near the top next season, but their energy levels will definitely be down on what they've managed to achieve while they were all playing together at their very best and I doubt they'll retain the title. I also don't envisage it would change again until they next freshen things up. The Cup Semi for us was representative of our team hitting its peak, both in terms of taking the club about as far as it's capable of going at this moment in time, and also in terms of the age level of the squad and having enough players still near enough their best. Football teams are like machines, if you have most of your players performing at a high level and full of energy then they can get in to a good rhythm, build up momentum, and even become more than the sum of its parts, lifting up players so that all can perform at their best. However, as soon as some motivation is lost, and also as soon as there are too many players who due to fitness reasons aren't able to keep up the same intensity as the players still at their peak and become more like passengers, then things can quickly become more fragmented and disjointed and the wheels can fall off. Too many of our players are now passed their best and becoming more passengers than generators of momentum. It's one thing to build a winning team, it's another to rebuild one, and teams tend to have a life-cycle of success. Ours came to an end last year and we failed do enough to start rebuilding it. On that note, I'll come to a conclusion on this post with words from perhaps the greatest football manager of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson: "We identified three levels of players: those 30 and older, those roughly 23 to 30, and the younger ones coming in. The idea was that the younger players were developing and would meet the standards that the older ones had set. Although I was always trying to disprove it, I believe that the cycle of a successful team lasts maybe four years, and then some change is needed. So we tried to visualize the team three or four years ahead and make decisions accordingly. Because I was at United for such a long time, I could afford to plan ahead—no one expected me to go anywhere. I was very fortunate in that respect." https://hbr.org/2013/10/fergusons-formula (Notice that he draws the line with older players at 30, the same age at which that other great PL manager Arsene Wenger refused to offer players any more than a 1 year extension) (PS, as I've already mentioned, Van Dijk is 28, so I don't know how you've concluded by any measure that he "has been past it for a year")
So now you finally admit that even though our players average 29, that doesn't mean that they are too old, as it depends on the individual players. And you now agree that the off is more gentle as they pass their peak. As you say, Sir Alex classes players age 29 and 30 in the same group as players age 23. And of course he, you and I are correct in our belief that we need to replace the older players with younger models, but I am sure he would not replace them merely based on their age, but more on how their physical drop off outweighs the benefits of their experience. Thank you, at last. Now hopefully you will agree that dropping from 7th/8th in the League to bottom just a few months later is unlikely due to then being a year older suddenly forcing them to play poorly - which was my initial point, after you said that my opinion that a team quite comfortable in the top half could still be good enough to be a mid-table side just months later was apparently "bizarre". We got there in the end.
It's ok - we battled hard for 20 minutes and the penalty was "soft" Never mind the other 70 minutes and the lack of a shot or attack ! https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/s...city/?action=success#comments-feedback-anchor
Durrr, obviously it depends on the individual players. What did I say which contradicts that idea? Our players' average age has actually been about 29.7 under Pearson btw - so on average past their peak (and was a number of times over 30 under QSF this season). So, in sum, the average age of our team is indeed now just over a year past its peak. In addition, if you want to consider individual players, we do now have too many players in their early 30s who seem to have reached the cliff point where their declines in performances have suddenly rendered them not even passably good enough - Cathcart, Mariappa, Capoue, Deeney have just not been up to the standard of PL players lately. Dawson may also be there already and you can probably also count now perma-crocked Janmaat. They need to be replaced, as was the case with Holebas, Behrami, Prodl, Britos, Watson etc. etc. before them as they reached a certain point in their early 30s. In line with the last couple of paragraphs of my previous post, which you also seem to have conveniently ignored, when you have too many individual players no longer up to it the whole team can stop functioning as efficiently and becomes more disjointed. Only a few of our players are in their peak years - Masina, Doucoure, Hughes (and injured Deulofeu); it is unreasonable to expect them to be able to sufficiently carry a team of other players all passed their best (plus one, Sarr, still very much learning his trade). One of the main reason Liverpool were so effective was because nearly every player was at their peak, there were no passengers. Your tactic of attempting to shut down conversation by claiming falsely that I have agreed with you, when I clearly didn't, is one that wouldn't be out of place amongst the cancel culture-keen, free speech-disagreeing, doublespeak-creating, far left. I thought you considered yourself above that nasty nonsense zz? As I mentioned in my previous post, the squad being a year older (that year being the one taking them past their peak), won't be the only factor, but it will be a significant one. The other main factor will be motivation after reaching the Cup Final. However, the combination of these two factors can also be considered under the heading of the team having reached the end of their successful life cycle (as defined by Ferguson amongst others) and the squad having subsequently needed more of a refresh. That also still fits with my initial point of disagreement with you, which was where you claimed the squad was still good enough.
It isn't nasty nonsense, and Jumbo it isn't a case of winning anything. I am trying to say that there are other factors in our disastrous loss of form than the fact that our players are a a bit older. Our form started the slump in February last year, when we were in the top eight, or so. Since then our form has gone off a cliff-edge. That isn't down to age. I thought you were agreeing with that as you admitted that it is a gradual process. I was not shutting down conversation, as I thought we were in agreement and I wanted to move on to something else. My apologies, if you still think this catastrophic loss of form is down to our players being a bit older, I misread your posts. And if you want to continue the argument, let me know.
