Something HB1 said earlier sort of bothers me a bit. It is true we are not safe, and ending the season like last year may really plunge us into the relegation scrap which I do not and most of you don’t either. I said we need four more points to be sure of virtual safety but what if Gracia cannot motivate the players after a hammering? Let’s be honest nobody expected us to get anything at Anfiekd but the manor of the loss and mental focus of the players regardless of who we put out, bar Hughes and Peyera was shocking. Passing sideways and backwards with no desire to go for jt, or even try to. We all think Bournemouth should be a winnable game but they still need points as we do so they won’t come and lay down.If the desire from the players and fight is fading then we could be in real trouble. Am I over thinking this, or do we have absolute faith we will see the season out?
If we cannot get 4 points from the 4 home games we have left we do not deserve to stay in the Premier League.
Yes, because of injuries, our defence has been a bit dodgy in the second half of the season - 14 goals conceded in last 12 with only one clean sheet, compared with only 12 goals conceded in first 18 matches (9 clean sheets).
There’s more trapped and trying to get out of that shoutbox than we first thought, hope they keep away from that dog.
Win the winnable games, lose the unwinnable games Show me a premier league team who can go away to Liverpool and win starting britos and I'll eat my pants. Two new cbs, a lb and a striker in the summer and the squad looks good. Cbs are relatively easy to get as well. Mariappa, kabasele, prodl and two new cbs and all is well. The important thing is winning the games against teams around us, not beating the top teams away from home with an ancient, snail - paced defensive line But... We need to finish as high as possible to maximise the money available in the summer and carry some momentum over.
Right, if anyone wants to watch that again, as I have just done, just focus on Holebas. Just watch what he does in the lead up to their goals and chances. I wont say anymore than that, and I let you make your own minds up. If Gracia picks Holebas in our next game, then I seriously question him as well. Holebas is just hiding on the pitch and he's the reason why we're shipping in so many goals. I cannot understand why he's not been found out. Why don't players sort him out, why doesn't the management. Seriously can no one see it?
For us to stand any chance of being relegated it would require Stoke and Southampton (given that WBA are gone) to win at least 4 of their remaining 7 (Stoke) and 8 (Southampton) matches and for us to completely fold. Neither is going to happen, so just relax and enjoy watching HB1 combust between now and the end of the season.
I don't think we'll go down. I believe we will be saved because of the failings of the other sides below us. We do have enough in the team to pick up at least 3 or 4 more points from now until the end of the season. But no one can get away from the fact there are serious failings in this current side. We seem to have enough to just get over the line, but we always have to be on the edge in order to focus the players into performing, or so it seems. Once they get a sniff of safety the majority down tools. Why we offered extended contracts to players like Holebas, Capoue, Prodl is very strange. To me, they seem to be part of the problem. Sure Capoue was good for us in his first season, but has struggled ever since. Prodl was great last season, but has been a shadow of that this and appears to be on a downward slide, and Holebas has been massively overused. He couldn't even get into the side in the first season, as Ake kept him out. These players should have moved on by now, just as the club naturally progresses. At times, we look like the worst team in this league, and those performances occur far too often. Other times we seem to be able to grind out a good result. We are obviously inconsistent, but it's more than that. We have too many players that hide on the pitch and do not pull together as a team,. It's a big problem.
Transfer fees for our centre halves : Britos (Free), Prodl (Free), Mariappa (Free), Cathcart (Free), Kaboul (£4m), Wague (Loan) and Kabasele (£5m) Dahlberg represents the largest (and only) fee we've paid for a goalkeeper in 6 years. At full back, Janmaat at £6m is the most expensive defender in our history. Personally I think the defence represent six transfer windows of consistently bringing in the cheaper option when we couldn't get our first choice. As a result, we're left with: seven centre halves that are barely premiership standard, an elderly left back, a imitation of a left back, the slowest right back in the English league and one decent right back. I'd like to think this will change, but I'm expecting Britos to get his bumper 4 year deal very soon
Exactly this. Maybe it's the fact that I had Salas as my fpl captain and scored a gazillion points; maybe it's that I had money on us to lose -2, -3 and -4 (because the betting gods hate me and I usually lose so Watford should have done ok) so actually won some money. But last nights game hasn't particularly bothered me. We know their attack is probably the best in the country. We know Salah is on fire. We know our defense isn't the best. It was always a "free hit" and a loss was more probably than not. We didn't adapt to the conditions as well as they did so a lot of our forward play was broken up by overhit passes. But we did have spells of really good clear passing and there were a few attacks. People panicking about us losing our last 2 games - I know it's nice to hope but these were 2 good teams and both hitting form. GD aside I didn't expect much more from these games. We are an ok mid table side that, sometimes if these 2 teams have an off day, we can maybe pinch something off. But neither of them did - they both pressed us hard and had the skill and ability to beat us. Going into the next 4 games there is no doubt in my mind that we will get points because we are better than most of these teams and Gracia has us organised and playing well. We wont be anywhere near the relegation zone so I am not worried in the slightest.* *N.B. Next season is another matter though as the teams coming up look much stronger than those going down so some good business is needed over the summer to strengthen some of our weaker areas.
I have not got a problem with the loss as they have players with much better skill levels, my issue is with the number of bad passes when the players were under no pressure. This issue would still cost us against the lesser sides.
Gracia knows how to get a result against the big-boys does he? My comment about him pre-match stands - but he was naive with that line-up and tactics today. I hate to say it but given Liverpool’s free-scoring antics this season, I really expected nothing less. But I don’t buy all this ‘just hold our hands up and admit how good they are talk’. There are ways to lost games. For the main part, we were pathetic out there and Gracia has done himself no favours in getting the job long-term. Maybe my praise was too soon for him, as the away form is dawning on me and it is damning at the moment. I am going into every away game fully expecting to get beat. Anyone who kidded themselves in the last two transfer windows that these current defenders were anywhere near good enough - I’ll have whatever they are smoking. Prodl is too slow and just plays long balls every time. Holebas, whilst passionate, gives up on a game when it isn’t going his way. Femenia is decent, but is nowhere near as good going backwards as he is at attacking. Same goes for Janmaat who is worse. Mariappa gets credit because he’s Watford but he’s no consistently good, his great performances stand alone but are littered with average or worse ones. Britos is seemingly happy to get a pay-cheque as I’ve never seen less fight in a defender. And I mean the correct type of fight or desire. We all know he has a brain-fade and gets a red card when he can’t be bothered. Kabesele has had an okay season but he’s guilty by association and the jury is out whether he would look good with a better partner or be shown up. Zeegelaar was never the answer and is the equivalent to a 99p CD you buy at a petrol station just so the car has noise - it isn’t what you want and no one wants it. But it was cheap. The defensive side of midfield doesn’t get away with it either. Doucoure has gone backwards over the last 2 months and it’s increasingly obvious he needs Cleverley or Chalobah next to him to perform to his best. Capoue is a liability and is stealing his wage. Richarlison to his credit gets stuck in for a 20-year old Brazilian new to everything around him. But he is looking like he has been found out and needs to show he has more strings to his bow to get out of this current malaise. Pereyra was ok yesterday. But he has flattered to deceive all season. He is far too lightweight and is so obviously scared of getting injured again. A complete passenger most of the time. Deeney has been awful for the last two weeks and is back to getting in the team on reputation alone. I’ve defended him in the past as our best option but that isn’t true right now. His last performances don’t merit a start in the next game and it’s time to start Gray again I think. Time to try something different. Happy for Okaka as an alternative but I think he is better for a 30 run off the bench. Deeney is not offering enough as captain. Defeats like yesterday’s can happen. Indeed sometimes they will happen. But I cannot happily accept the way we just willingly give up the fight in games. We embarrass ourselves by doing so. We all look forward to football at the weekend. We spend enough of our week talking about it. But for 3 seasons in a row this team has done a bang-on job of making me yearn for it all to stop for a few months. Whether it’s Gracia or not, I hope this team can get a manager that’s gives the side an identity and a collectiveness. At the moment it’s 11 individuals playing for their own cause. And Gino really needs to put his hand in his pocket for some defenders. Good ones. No more stop-gaps. No more cheap alternatives. No more 30-something’s who are happy just to get a game and a wage. Good, progressively talented defenders who want to make a decent career for themselves. And a captain who inspires them to do so week in, week out. I feel lucky to support a team that is finally a mainstay in the PL. God knows it isn’t easy to achieve and there are bigger clubs who have failed. I am grateful for where we are. But for us to progress to the next step, investment is needed in the summer.
Agree with most of this, apart from saying Holebas has passion. Just because he offered out a supporter and is generally moody and sulky, does not mean he has passion. He never tracks back. Yesterday he was literally an observer. Every time Liverpool attacked, he either slowed his tracking run, or just stopped and watched. He did not want to be involved in Liverpool's attacks as he didn't want to be blamed. He just hid out there. He gave zero support to Britos and left him 1 v 1 against Salah. Virtually all Liverpool's attacks came down the left, because they knew that area was a soft touch.
I’ve come to the conclusion Gracia is Pozzo’s puppet, not a head coach. I like the chap but would respect him a whole lot more had he come out after that shambolic performance and said every player bar Pereyra and Hughes were ******* woeful. If Richarlison starts against muff, I’ll take a **** on my season ticket, pop it in an envelope and post it to Gino
I'm not sure what Gracia is supposed to do with a squad full of poor centre backs and poor strikers This is as much Ginos problem to fix, fairly hefty squad rebuild required over the summer
But for us to progress to the next step, investment is needed in the summer. Should read! For us to stay up next season investment is needed in the summer.
Our pathetic January transfer window doesn’t fill me with any confidence that the defence will get revamped. If the owners think they are good enough to keep us up then the same sub standard players will be here next season. Who the manager is is irrelevant.
In between the rants and the just plain daft, there are lots of good comments on here. It's all very well saying this match was only ever going to finish one way, the trouble is the players knew it too; and they played like it. I've never seen it myself, but some country folk report watching rabbits confronted by stoats: Sometimes the rabbit just sits still and makes no attempt to run away: A so-called 'stoated rabbit'. To me Watford played like that; they were terrified of Liverpool. That's not the same as not caring. They'd lost hope before the start of the match. No cojones. Very few of the players came well out of that game; Hughes, I think and to some extent Pereyra. Karnesis was patchy, with some very good saves and some indifferent stuff (I can't make my mind up whether or not he's better than Gomes.). I thought Doucoure was quite good, actually, but was unable to achieve much because of the players around him. Coaches have worked out that if they press Watford high up the pitch their players aren't really collectively good enough to play it out of defence. The result is the ball ends up getting passed back to the keeper and he biffs it up the park (his clearances aren't all that good) and the oppo get it back, not least because Deeney is alone up front. This procedure also slows the game down. I long for Watford to adopt a get-it-forward-fast policy, at least some of the time, instead of so predictably passing the thing sideways and backwards in front of the opposition's defence. I know Deeney is too immobile for this, but Richie and to some extent Gray and Okaka aren't. Watford were beaten by a very powerful attack, but they didn't help themselves, and the coach should take his share of the blame. Football is a team game and players who hide or go AWOL on the pitch just shouldn't be selected.
Foreign players = majority cheap Foreign players = majority couldn't care less British players = majority expensive British players = majority do care A huge generalisation maybe but we are overstocked with players in the first category, Cleverly and Chalobah are in the second category and injured! If it keeps us in the division every season so be it, but we will have performances like yesterday, like last week, every so often! Its very hard to get the right balance, Burnley seem to have done it, cant think of many other clubs who are successful at doing it on our sort of budget year after year! As I said last year it was only a few years ago we were being thrashed at home by Yeovil in a run of losing five home games on the trot!, something we haven't been close to since being back in the Premier League!, its horses for courses, we will muster enough points to be mid table and have another crack next August
Pathetic comment to be honest. West Brom have the least number of foreign players in the league (I think?) just did a quick count and there's only FIVE in their squad of 18 from the game yesterday yet they are deep rooted to the bottom of the table, with no wins in forever.
Stoke yesterday, Charlie Adam sent off, Shawcross yellow card and Butland error on the winner. Oh and let's not forget Paul Lambert & Alan Pardew excellent CARING British coaches. WOO BRITAIN!
Hiya sweetie I don’t think you get my humour. TBH I don’t think you get any sort of humour. Don’t take life too seriously, mate
Friends. Enemies. Troy lovers. Lend your ear. We will stay up and Sherlock told us years ago what to expect under the Pozzo. Good players move on quickly at a big profit. The filler players stick around forever. We will always replace where we can. We will always stick to budget. All this negativity every time we lose is just pointless. We are ok. A little club like us sustaining Prem status again.
The board weren't going to spend loads of money whilst Silva was still with us. They were probably planning for a new coach, who they are is very relevant imo.
