VI said we haven’t missed a major target yet. No one we’ve been linked with have looked anything much so far. Isn’t it better to wait rather than splashing cash on substandard players - we’ve done enough of that in recent years. Did you think we’d resolve all the squad issues in one window?
No but we have left an awful lot go without really get much in. And those we have brought seem to be injured or unfit which is either unfortunate or bad recruiting on our part? I do think Ince , GC and Lewis will be useful when ready to play fully and thought Healey would potentially be good but he hasn’t got a chance yet . The issue is we have seen this before and then it’s the manager who gets blamed .
This I totally agree with. Some numpties today booing VI as they went off - why? Do they realise it’s not the manager??
That won't happen unless we are relegated to League One or he gets bought out. Former being more possible than the latter.
Probably the ref for not giving the pen let’s be honest? Only manager I’ve ever heard Watford fans visibly boo from what I can recall is Roy Hodgson.
I drove direct, so only saw the surrounding areas to the ground, in all fairness. But no, it wasn’t really a dump.. I’ve seen a lot more worse places in Hertfordshire and surrounding areas (Bedfordshi*e) than what I saw today. What we saw on the pitch was a big fat terd however.
It sounds bonkers but I don’t think you’re a million miles off: Bachmann; Andrews/Ngakia, Porteous, Hoedt, Lewis; New 6, New 8, Louza; Giorgi/Asprilla/Ken, Martins/Ince & New 9. If those 3 signings were right, we could be right in the mix to be the 4th-6th best team in the division. I have very little faith we’ll get the right deals done though.
All the talk about the new broom sweeping through the place but the two key people that survive everything are Duxbury and Giaretta. Football clubs seem to be as much about preserving the status quo for the executives on big salaries as anything. As much as Pozzo's methods are more worn out than a 1970s Ford Granada, the problem remains that in order for there to be a change he has to want to sell and there has to be an interested buyer. Maybe there are things going on in the background we don't know about. Maybe reducing the debt is all about making us more attractive to a buyer. Maybe keeping the likes of Duxbury and Giaretta is not so much a ringing endorsement of their brilliance but a lack of willingness to make disruptive changes while we transition from a high-cost (relatively) high-risk operation to a steady-as-she-goes, make-the-most-of-what-we-have one. I don't know – that's all speculation – but the recruitment this summer looked like the fading embers of a fire that's going out. The most underwhelming summer since we signed only Steve Talboys in 1996! Ince and Livermore, an English striker who's spent the past year out with an ACL..
We’ve had a few over the recent past or if people thought they were exciting or looked positive didn’t turn out that way !
We have genuinely reset every season as they promised. Unfortunately the “reset” is at a level lower than the season before.
Why do you think Pozzo would sell if we are relegated to League One ? We’d be worth even less so he’d be even less likely to sell.
Just seen the penalty appeal, whilst a foul Chakevedtze has done himself in by chucking his arms up in the air before the foul.
It’s all so frustrating isn’t it. I know we have no divine right to consider ourselves better than anybody else, but I think it’s really hit home this weekend just how much we’ve fallen. Six years out of seven in the PL plus a Cup final appearance and now we aren’t surprised that we look second best to Stoke and can’t beat a newly promoted side at home (no disrespect to either, they’re probably better and more established teams than us right now tbh) The levelling out of expectations may well be necessary in our current circumstances but boy it’s frustrating. We all have our opinions on who is to blame, and sadly nothing seems like changing anytime soon. The mass clear out this window has been generally welcomed (I haven’t had any issues with most of the outgoings) but our lack of success in bringing in players has so far given our window a much more unbalanced look than we’d like. It reinforces that view of ‘how on earth have we fallen this low?’ as the impression seems to be that hardly anybody sees us as a club worth joining. An anxious fortnight lies in wait.. As for the actual football, still way too early to know exactly where the season will go. Any campaign needs at least ten games to establish. Everybody will make their predictions, but it’s never a wise thing to do straight after a result. Certainly our awful away form needs improving, the team needs surgery before the window shuts, and we need to do more work on our finishing. My gut feeling at the time was that the QPR result might be a red herring, just as Villa was two years ago. We got lucky because of the ground switch (our away form suggests we’d not have won at Loftus Road) but only time will show. 3 games is nothing really to assess a team, for good or bad. I do sympathise with those who say it’s hard work supporting us right now. Yes it is, despite the decent start VI has made and the clear improvements in playing style overall. Every day sees to bring another transfer failure (some mere rumours, I know), while each matchday since the opening weekend seems to bring another injury and a lack of goals. Very frustrating. I hate anything in life being done half-heartedly, and that’s where I feel we are right now. Grrr. Come on power- that-be. By all means have a clear out, re-calibrate us, tell Manga to find us a few unearthed gems, have a season of stabilising etc but ffs do it properly, with heart and enthusiasm. Right now, it doesn’t feel as if we are.
Watched the game with Stoke commentary and even they were saying it was a stonewall pen, the ref was pretty poor throughout. Livermore is unfit and way off the pace, as we all expected. Morris is nowhere near good enough to be in the first team but in his defence he's only young so will cut him some slack. Bayo is just a waste of space upfront, offers nothing and then misses sitters when finally given an opportunity, he might aswell have not been on the pitch today. Ince didn't look ready to be playing, gave the ball away every time he touched the ball and like Livermore seemed off the pace. I'm not sure what our fitness team does? Lewis will make us better but how long will we have to wait? Kone is terrible. Louza has quality we all know that but he can't last longer than 60 minutes? Bachmann is still terrifying. Hoedt & Porteous were the standouts for me, played well at the back and dealt with pretty much everything Stoke threw at us. I've seen worse and I can certainly see what VI is trying to do, unfortunately you can only do so much with limited quality and a wafer thin squad.
No real surprises from the data that we couldn't see from watching the game. Both sides didn't create much at all, although Stoke had the slightly better chances although a draw also had a statistically high probability of happening. Strikers from both teams completely isolated. Sema and Martins provided the most quality on the ball in the 2nd half and were the most likely to make something happen whilst Chak didn't make much of an impact. Our best chance (xG wise) was Asprillas header on the 6-yard line (0.13 xG) with his other good chance registering 0.11 xG - meaning those 2 shots alone accounted for more than 50% of our xG total - not ideal!
Crap game, crap performance. Who would’ve thought it but Livermore is a terrible footballer and ‘one of our own’ Morris is bobbins.
Listening to the DNSYE podcast after the game I was quite amazed how many fans came on and said "Yeah Livermore was pretty good actually for the 60mins". He is just a Cleverley replacement, and a poor one at that. Yes he cost us nothing in fees, but their was a reason WBA got rid of him. He, just like the players who came before him of this bracket, is past his prime and a lot slower that he once was. Not his fault, age does this to us all, but the fact we took a punt on him just to fill a hold in the squad when we could of possibly looked at other options still baffles me. Morris I thought had a poor game, as did Andrews to be fair, but credit to Andrews in the fact he attempted to shoot on occasion. Bayo was crap but never got any service as both sides cancelled each other out and we only lost due to the best piece of skill being from a player not in Watford shirt.
I don't think Louza came off because he was out of puff, I think it was more because he was ineffective, we did look slightly better once Chak came on. Bachmann reduced his mistakes down to 2, signs of improvement! Definitely were some positives, the defense being the main one, but it's hard to appreciate when we created next to nothing and conceded one at our end...
I was hoping he would do it out of a sense of personal dignity and step aside for his failings as an owner than anything else.
I love the clutching of straws about how Xg suggests a draw was quite likely. Stoke scored a goal and we didn’t, they have 3 points and we have 0. Stoke didn’t need to score a goal for 40 minutes of the game which would’ve impacted how they attacked, and we needed to score at the very least one to get at least a point which should’ve meant we attacked more, but they still had a higher Xg anyway.
They created more xG after the goal than before it. It's not clutching at straws, I never said we deserved a draw (we were ****), just that a draw was statistically highly likely based on the chances in the game - albeit less of a chance than a Stoke win (but yes, there are extra variables)
Two good performances, one bad. Defensively we look ok but we clearly need a striker, and a midfield department that has Livermore, TDB, Kayembe and Kone involved is going to struggle.
Yesterday was disappointing given decent high energy /intensity performances at home . The concerns for me are that : Could the Stoke performance set the tone now ? VI claims the players didn’t stick to the plan. Where have we heard that before ? We don’t have enough goals in the team . However , it’s early to judge and hopefully we’ll see a good reaction vs Blackburn . Plus the transfer window is still open for another 10 days so whilst I’ve no idea if we will get players in , we might still. Judging by yesterday , I would rather see Kayembe start in the No 8 role than Livermore . Hoedt still looks like our best defender at the moment Stoke looked average but had a bit more quality than Watford . maybe this is just what a mid table championship side now looks like .
That was crap and a carbon copy of a Edwards/Bilic/Wilder/insert any other name from the last couple of seasons performance. We looked utterly clueless on the ball, couldn't get it from back to front at all. Not really Ismael's fault, he's got the same players as last season minus some of the better ones. Three matches in and the only new signing to start a game is a guy that was brought in as cover and doesn't look up to it. I've never seen a team play like QPR, they looked like they were trying to get their manager sacked and allowed us to do whatever we wanted. Plymouth was ok but they didn't really show a lot of ambition and came for a 0-0 or hoped to nick a 1-0. Stevenage and Stoke are the two teams we've played that decided to compete with us and we haven't coped at all well. The blueprint is there now for other teams, let Bachmann have it, mark the two centre backs and Louza as he comes short and we have no way to move the ball up the pitch. Our central midfield options are desperately poor, Koné for £8m looks an utterly baffling signing. Had hoped he'd kick on but struggling to see a player there at all.
