From the Wobby: Team news: One enforced change for Watford as Francisco Sierralta's quad injury rules him out, Jake Livermore takes his place. Tom Ince is on the bench for the first time since his summer move from Reading while 18-year-old striker James Collins is also on the bench.
Scrappy first half with little on display from either team, although Stoke probably the slightly better team overall so far. The injury to Morris which has forced the sub of Asprilla could hopefully inject some quality into our game.
Probably the worst we've seen of Morris, seemed a bit overwhelmed physically, but still a concern to see him go off. Still, at least Asprilla gets to come on
Players dropping like flies. Morris is a gonna now. Idiot policy of having no players is not paying off. Shock, horror.
They've not exactly been threatening, but we've had nothing more than hopeful punts from outside the area, let's hope Asprilla can do something!
What an awful half of football. Can someone tell me why we sent Ferreira to Udinese? We could have done with him on the bench.
At least this injury was in an area where we have a player who can fill in (Sema), if Andrews gets injured, we are well and truly stuffed...
First two games were fast and exciting this was the exact opposite terrible game , we just didn’t get into it , to some extent we just were not physical enough and were being kicked all over the pitch , but that’s no exercise for dreadful passing. At no point did we looked like we had a chance of scoring very frustrating
Don't worry chaps and chapettes - first team regulars will never motivate themselves for a meaningless friendly like this in the same way as a competitive fixture; it's just not how the modern game works. We'll be alright on the night, just you wait
I knew that - you didn't explain why you thought he might have come in for him today anyway? On today's evidence he doesn't deserve to if both are available.
Frustrating game. Awful first half, but didn’t deserve to lose. Stoke didn’t really create any chances just scored from one moment. Livermore as bad as we all thought he might be, likewise Bayo. Pretty clear we need a couple of bodies. Desperately need a striker. Some positive signs, but we’re not going to be much higher than mid table with the current squad.
Game that was devoid of quality all round with both teams cancelling each other out. We couldn't really get Louza involved which really hurt our chance creation. Bayo was invisible as a result. Sema much better on the left again. Martins was unlucky to get subbed, thought he'd been our best player up to that point (again). Morris getting injured was a blessing in disguise as felt he was getting bullied. Would've liked to have seen a change in formation with Healey played alongside Bayo to give them something else to think about since our plan A wasn't working. Still glad we didn't sign Wesley as he was rancid.
Not sure we deserved to lose that, but we certainly didn't do enough to say we deserved a win either. Quality finish aside for their goal, Stoke didn't do a massive amount to hurt us with their attack consisntely, much like we struggled with the same.
Nothing performance in the first half, around 20 mins of a decent performance in the second, but we ran out of ideas. Neil did his homework. Not many standout performances, many anonymous ones. Bayo, TDB, Louza, Ince all very quiet. Livermore looks well off the pace, I'd say Kayembe is the better option for that holding role presently. As others said previously, days like these will happen, and we need to be patient if we want a team with a recognisable identity. Onto the next.
The decline from being the best championship team in history to the most mediocre has been alarmingly quick.
Asprilla must start somewhere, not sure where but he generates football and causes chaos, nobody else in our team really does that. Martins is more like organised chaos. Need an alternative to the Bayo lone striker plan, when it's not effective it's really ******* painful. Louza showing why he's a Championship player, too easy to mark out a game. Dele-Bashiru shouldn't be starting games come September. Invisible. Need Jamal Lewis fit expeditiously because Morris is crap and now he's injured. Andrews worst game in a Watford shirt. Could do with a Tuesday night fixture really as we need to bounce back from this sharp-ish.
Would’ve been completely spot on if they’d taken advantage of his latest gift wrapped pass to the opposition towards the end.
Simply for rotation. That's a new role for Sierralta and involves covering a lot more ground than at CB. Away from home, when the objective first and foremost is to be solid and disciplined, it wouldn't be unreasonable to bring in an experienced head to do a job in there and see the game through. I'm not necessarily saying I agree with it. You have to make the assumption that Livermore is capable of filling in ably for 90 mins and like others I have my reservations as to whether he has the legs to be anything more than a stabilising influence off the bench. I wasn't at the game but sounds like those reservations are well founded. Definitely think that's an area where we need reinforcement.
Ince looked like he was still playing for Stoke when he came on. Hopefully just a lack of sharpness. It is getting really frustrating watching Andrews smash balls into the defender because he takes forever to shoot allowing the defender to recover. We need Lewis in that squad sharpish because Morris is not the answer.
Typical away performance from a lower mid-table/potential relegation candidates team. We’ve seen enough of them play us over the years. Teams like that don’t have any creativity, like we don’t. They don’t have decent strikers, like we don’t. And they can kid us up that these players ‘want to be here’, but it’s very clear that there’s a few who definitely don’t. Hopefully we can get in a couple more freebies before the window slams shut otherwise we could find ourselves in a real relegation flight simply because we don’t have enough players.
We’re a relegation contender. Unless we do something in the market, which I very much doubt, we’re going to be down there, scrapping for whatever points we can get. Ismaël has got the most from this limited squad, but he’s not going to get us winning regularly, as the first 4 games has proven. Those first 45 minutes of the season surprisingly fooled so many people. Since then we’ve scored just once (against a League One side). That’s 3.5 games and counting.
