I was there. We were too passive and failed to match Rotherham’s intensity throughout. They shaded the first half and certainly got out of their half enough to fashion a couple of decent chances in the second half too - especially from their long throws and other set pieces we gifted them. Other than a couple of spells that were far too short-lived we didn’t maintain any pressure on their defence and Asprilla’s shot early in the second half was the only time their keeper had to make a save. Of course part of the reason we never built up a head of steam was because of the constant interruptions for their fake injuries, but even that arguably came about because we ceded control of the game to Rotherham after 5 minutes and ultimately weren’t strong enough / had no clear idea how to wrestle it back.
I'm not going to judge a player purely on two performances, when I've already clearly set out my stall having never watched him. Let's see what our opinions are at the end of the season on 5m Bayo.
Whilst I agree with much of what you say. Especially the bit about them stopping the flow of the game, whether through fouls on us or faked injuries. It is not realistic to expect to go to a ground where they are unbeaten, play against a team that plays a ****, stop you from playing and score a setpiece, type of football. And dominate and stroll away three points better off. It wasnt ideal and we all felt on the way home it was the first time this season where we had some control of a game so dropped 2 points. But no doubt there will be a lot more of those types of games and as long as we dont roll over because we have been bullied we'll continue to get points. Most of the reports from their point whether it is club or supporter seems to think we were a very good side and we were a big physical side. My gripe was with the original post was his view that If we matched Rotherham for intensity, bravery and tactics somehow we'd be a better side. Their tactics were poor version of Dyche's Burnley, where the objective is too negate the opponents and look to score from setpieces you win, rather than play yourself. Intensity I can concede but bravery and tactics what a load of bollox.
Tremendous volley by Bayo and unlucky with the header. He is starting to settle in, and will be a good backup to Davis
When are we going to get a player who can take a corner? Absolute waste of time when we get one, nothing ever comes of it apart from gifting the other side the ball. FK aren't much better either. Every team generally has one competent set piece taker, we don't.
It’s highly realistic and probable for either of the teams that eventually finish in the top two. This is a team that have been a league one side two of the previous three seasons.
Says Captain Hindsight. I'm talking about an event that happened yesterday not guessing about something that will be clear in May.
Ehh? What has hindsight got to do with it? The teams that go up automatically will expect to and will probably win away at a team that has been in League one more than the championship recently. It’s utterly bizarre to say it’s not realistic to get three points there. We’re a team that were in the PL least season and they were in league one, and the gap between league one and championship is arguably bigger than the PL if you look at how clubs yo-yo between them. Out of interest if not Rotherham, can you tell me where it is realistic to get three points? Teams win games off football away from home know, it does actually happen.
Was it Rotherham who went down 2 years ago but had to play something like 7 games in 13 days because of COVID cancellations? I thought they were unlucky with that. So they got promoted last year, are doing OK this year and will be full of the confidence that comes from winning, despite it being league 1. Was a good test of our team to play against a typical gritty workmanlike championship lower half team. Regards the defence, not only was Hause making his debut, they had switched positions in the back 3, so it isn't fully suprising we were a bit skewed in the first 10 minutes. I saw some improvement in the performance from say WBA and Birmingham. Davis and Pedro look useful together and Sarr to come in I think we'll start winning these sort of games soon.
To say it’s not realistic to get three points there is very strange when we were two divisions apart last season, and presumably most agree we have a much, much stronger squad.
Sure, on paper you'd expect us to beat Rotherham, but the problem we have at the moment is that we are leaking silly goals, and we don't really look like scoring, only twice have we scored more than 1 this season. Did anyone expect us to win once we went 1-0 down?
Holy crap. My mum came into my room to bring me a plate of chicken nuggets and I literally screamed at her and hit the plate of chicken nuggets out of her hand. She started yelling and swearing at me and I slammed the door on her. I'm so distressed right now I don't know what to do. I didn't mean to do that to my mom but I'm literally in shock from the score yesterday. I feel like I'm going to explode. Why the friggin frick are we drawing gor? This can't be happening. I'm having a ******* breakdown. I don't want to believe the world is so corrupt. I want a future to believe in. I want Watford to be a premier league club and compete in the top flight. I cannot frickin deal with this right now. It wasn't supposed to be like this, I thought we were playing well in New York stadium???? This is so frigged.
Except "in this day and age" £5mil is far from guaranteeing you'll get a player who'll absolutely "tear the league to shreds" - Swansea wanted £10mil for Obafemi, and Blackburn wanted £15mil for Brereton for instance. Who knows what's really going on with the money we send to Mogi anyway? Plus even though there's a chance it could have been put to better use, Bayo has already earned us a few important points. We also should have been able to sign a decent RWB as well as signing Bayo, if we'd have just gone for someone like Christie or Laird instead of Gaspar.
Last September, Fulham played Blackpool away. The same Blackpool had finished third in League 1 (that was 5 months before, dunno if thats recent enough), and a Fulham who had been in the Premiership the year before, any similarities ? the result was Blackpool 1 Fulham 0. How Bizarre. Whatever happened to Fulham in May ? Last August and September, Bournemouth played Hull and Peterboro away. Thats the same two who finished first and second in league 1 the season before. Guess how many Bournemouth won? I'll help you, none, they drew them both. Remind me what happened to Bournemouth come May. So in the most recent season. In August and September the teams promoted from League 1 have played at home to the two who will be promoted automatically in May three times. And the prospective top two didn't win any of them. Who are more realistic? Well using your formula, that would be Sunderland because they finished below Rotherham last season, (though they beat them 3 nil midweek dunno how that happened afer finishing below them last season). You should get a grip, your sense of entitlement is unbelievable. Football isn't played on forums (though it might be for a majority on here) and League positions in whatever League the year before. No one has ever got three points because they were in the League above someone the year before. We were relegated for a reason they were promoted for a reason. But believe it or not we all start again come August and last season is forgotten. It's probably the same reason the team didnt start playing for 20 mins as like you they probably thought they just had to turn up against little old Rotherham who'd just been promoted and stroll around, and come home with 3 points.
Indeed. For instance @NathWFC posted in his transfer thread when he signed: "That's this season's Perica sorted. Great stuff."
I would honestly love to understand why people are suddenly going on like he's some sort of proven success and/or worth the £5m because he's scored two goals. He's absolutely nowhere near justifying the fee or his signing yet after two goals. Hilarious.
He's already shown that he's clearly got more about him than a complete flop like Perica though (which also seemed clear to those who'd actually watched highlights of him and looked at his stats when he first signed).
£10m+ is the going rate for players who have done well in the Championship, but how many incoming transfers were bigger than Bayo's?
Do you think Fulham thought beating Blackpool was unrealistic though? Also imagine Edwards walking into the changing room at full time yesterday and saying to the players “well done on a great draw, any of you who thought we could get a win are just entitled and need to get a grip”. You still didn’t say who you believe we can realistically believe we can beat away???
I thought when we signed him he'd get double figures, he might still get that (he won't be the main striker as perhaps we expected when we signed him), but honestly, for £5m, you kind of need to be getting 15-20 goals, especially for a player who will offer little else
You are correct. He hasn't justified his worth because he has scored two goals. But on the otherhand he hasn't (need help don't know the opposite to justified so going with) contradicted his worth because it is the first week in September and not the first week of May. Rather than following the narrative that fashionable, I'll give him time to prove he's the nutz or a ****., by watching him play for a season.
As it stand he's scored one more than Perica did and has he? Other than the couple of goals he's missed a number of good chances and often looked clunky and awkward with the ball. If he gets to 10 goals then you can start gloating that people like me were wrong about him. Even then I'm not sure that return justifies paying £5m. He needs 15+ in this league to warrant that amount of money. Trying to act like he's now proven people wrong having scored twice is ridiculous.
All stimulated by Mogi angle. Doubt any of us had seen him play except Lower Rous who spent an evening watching clips of him on WyScout before the golden month of his free trial ran out? Unfortunate for the player, but when priority one is Mogi Bayat for our owner it will obviously get extra scrutiny in these circumstances and I'm not sure why that should confuse anybody. Don't think the case is closed yet that he is a good signing for the price in any case. Acuna scored a belter against Norwich after all. Hopefully he keeps building on the last 2 key contributions and puts the doubts to bed.
You are a tiresome chap, do you find that rooms empty when you walk in? Quite simply your s-h-it argument has been shown to be s-hite. As neither Fulham or Bournemouth managed to win away at promoted sides in August and September last season. It's irrelevant what Fulham thought before hand, they lost. I would of thought RE did say the last part, but in more industrious language, some did appear to think they only needed to turn up and did need to get a grip. Which to be fair they did. I did say who we could realistically beat, I used your formula, Sunderland, they were League 1 last year, we were Prem so realistically and obviously be another stroll in the park.
To be fair to Perica, he should have been credited with a goal against Brentford, so in my book Bayo is still level with him
Why would the bit in bold be in any way a good thing, if the money going to Mogi isn't for fair remuneration and fees for players at fair market values and market level agent fees?
Forum delivers: If you don't think the squad is top 2 material and that it is unbalanced, the forum police will call you entitled. If you think a promotion contender should be targeting beating Rotherham away, the forum police will call you entitled. And then someone makes a weird post about eating chicken nuggets in front of his mum.
I'm not saying it as if it's necessarily a good thing, but more that the fee could potentially be a bit misleading and so an unfair stick with which to beat Bayo with. I don't know for sure, just pointing out it's not out of the question. Imagine the meltdown on here if we were trying to judge Kamara as being a supposed €16mil player.
Just had a look on Transfermarkt (so perhaps take the figures with a pinch of salt), it says that the only fee bigger than Bayo's £5m was Norwich's ~£9m deal for Gabriel Sara. There were plenty of deals in the £3-4m range (Ahmedhodzic at Sheffield United, Nuñez at Norwich, Forss and Hoppe at Boro, Sayyadmanesh, Sinik and Tufan at Hull and Twine, Muric, Cullen, Churlinov, Benson and Zaroury at Burnley), how many of those would be less of a hopeful punt than Bayo?
Way to create a mispresentative strawman. The point that Joe Blob was clearly making is that although the likes of ourselves and Fulham will clearly want and try to beat Rotherham away, such results are not guaranteed - nor are they ultimately make-or-break for the season, given that Fulham and Bournemouth both got automatic promotion despite similar or worse comparable results early last season.
I'm the one who called Divvy "entitled". I'm not the forum police, just some fella who follows his club home and Away, regardless of whether we are League 2 or the Premiership. And though I much prefer winning to not, I enjoy going regardless. I never travelled up the M1 yesterday expecting to win because we are a bigger club than Rotherham and didn't travel back crying because we became the 7th out of 8 teams this year who didn't beat them. If you did, great for you, but that is "entitlement" whichever way you look at it. I can imagine the Man City and Liverpool forums will have the same type of fools posting this morning.
Fair enough I agree with that. It’s not Bayo’s fault on fee or circumstances, but unfortunately he is going to get less benefit of the doubt because of the repeated actions of the owner with regards to his close business associate. If Bayo has arrived for £1-£2m in a non Bayat transfer I’m sure the general sentiment would be he’s had an encouraging start.
Of course a draw isn’t the end of the world but the point remains a team targeting top 2 would be looking at this as a game to be won. We drew. Not an issue in the great scheme of things, but if don’t win enough of these types of games top 2 is unlikely, so a mild air of disappointment is reasonable imo. Especially with Norwich, Burnley, Sheff Utd beginning to hit their straps. I don’t see how any of that view is entitled. It’s just a factor of considering our squad top 2 material (if that is what you consider us) and the relative resource of Rotherham.
