Worrying if true. While Man City usually splatter us and probably will once again, we have actually given them a few close games at Vicarage Road. A 1-2 in 2016 where we were leading and conceded two gut wrenching late goals and another 1-2 in 2019 where as I recall we were throwing the kitchen sink at them at the end in search of equaliser. So there is 'some' hope. But not a lot.
I think every Watford fan to a man would take a 2-1 defeat and a swift kick in the b0llocks over whatever the actual result ends up being.
Certainly the flip side of it, agreed. My hope is that because Pep is generally pretty intimidating, and when they rest players they still play the likes of Foden, Silva, Gundogan etc I can't imagine they'll do anything but sweep Bournemouth who'll be after a win and likely play pretty open. It will an utter battering or a sketchy 1 nil win either way I think, I'll definitely be watching - it's on Pick at 6pm which is free to air for those interested.
I agree IRB. Succinctly put. And going one slight step further..... if Villa don't win at Everton, Bournemouth don't beat Saints and we get a point from either West Ham or Arsenal = we very likely stay up. Less certain but even more plausible. I will of course settle for your sequence coming true over mine.
I don’t see what the fuss is about, we just need to select the 11 largest players and balance them on top of one another and fit them together like a jigsaw to block the goal
Funny that you say that, because I was thinking the other day about something similar. Straight from kick off knock it back and all 10 outfield players lay on top of the ball and around each other thus preventing them from ever getting the ball. Just not sure if there is any rule about the ball having to be played and if it’s stuck, does the ref then blow for a drop ball? Anyway, second half, as soon as we get the ball back, providing man city don’t score with their first shot, do exactly the same. Thus the game finishes 0-0 or at worse 1-0. Vice versa if we kick off second half. A point at best and GD still in tact, at worse, a -1 GD going into the last game.
And the other two where we got battered, the more recent one was against a truly awesome English club side the quality of which we'll probably never see again, as so often under Silva we were naive and thought we could beat them by attacking throughout, and the margin of defeat was largely referee-influenced. The one in 2016/17 was when the players had basically given up, and we fielded the weakest and most bizarre line-up of our Pozzo Prem years - just three defenders, two of them kids (Andrew Eleftheriou replacing Janmaat on 39), and Niang, a long since fading Amrabat and one-game wonder Okaka up front. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39912032#tab-0 The other strange thing was that Man City would have failed to even qualify for the Champions League had we beaten them, depending on our winning margin and Arsenal's result against Everton, and having a nice colleague who was an Arsenal fan, I was considering going to this game and I hoped we'd see us do our bit to help his team, but after recent results I decided against it. A wise choice!
Interesting Scott Duxbury quote from that article:- "We have aspiration and ambition. There have been some pundits lately saying we should just be happy with just surviving and the crumbs of the Premier League table," he told BBC Radio 5 live earlier on Sunday. "I'm sorry but we want more than to survive." Maybe he should have told some of our fan base, as they are content with that main aim and won't have it any other way. Also made me realise that he's been very quiet this season other than the coach sacking comments.
It would be obstruction. The referee would blow for a freekick. It's the same when a defender shields the ball when it's rolling out for a goal kick. The referee is quite within his rights to blow for a freekick, but they rarely do, as that is now an accepted practice. It's like a skillful player doing a ball trick, where he flicks the ball up and catches it on his back. Then runs full pelt and throws himself with the ball on his back into the goal. The referee would blow for a foul. I think it's travelling illegally with the ball or something along those lines. Same as placing the ball between your knees and jumping around the pitch. You could get the ball, and surround you own player, so no opponent could tackle him. He could get very close the the goal then he could blast it in the net from close range. None of these things are allowed.
I remember on the old fifa games if you get the ball and simply stop, no opposition players would approach you. A bit like the T-Rex on Jurassic Park. If their players are triggered only by movement it may have legs?
Wasn’t there a Mexican chap a few years ago who did something similar as his ‘trademark’ bit of skill, like a very very poor mans cruyf turn.
Solanke is a terrible footballer isn’t he. £20 million for him might be worse than the £18mill we spent on Gray. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
