HB - why do these guys always end up taking a pop at you? I have never worked it out. I always find your posts reasonable and well argued. Don't find you one to put others down. One of the great mysteries?
I was thinking this during the 2nd half. All the rumours and talk of Richarlison and Doucoure leaving yet Hughes shows he's very at home in this league without half as much fanfare from the 'experts' on TV. I don't think he's a top 6 player but any club with money looking to shoulder barge their way into the upper half of this league would be stupid not to at least ask Gino how much he'd cost.
I think they'd get a swift reply from Gino telling them to bugger off. What a fantastic player, he kept finding space between Dembele, Dier and their defence and even when he was crowded out he almost always wriggled out of it with his fantastic footwork.
Hughes is still learning that position I feel. There's times where he drifts around without getting involved, and he'll need to learn to get on the ball more if he's to push on. That said, the pass to Doucoure showed he's head and shoulder above the rest of them in terms of vision and quality
This has saved me a lot of typing, totally spot on in everything. Despite what some are saying the squad doesn't need an overhaul. Gomes is better than Karnesiz he always has been so maybe look for another keeper to push Gomez or maybe the Swedish lad could come in. A striker to replace Gray is a no brainer, I'd like to see someone with pace but who can finish better, pace is important if the other two strikers are Deeney and Okaka if he 's still around. The main problem is the defence I know we haven't been scoring but even if we did we knew we'd throw away the lead like we have all season. Full back is the most underrated position in football and we are found wanting there big time, get a couple of good ones in especially if Kiko is played further forward and if there's any ,money left try to upgrade the centre back positions. So spend big on a left back, a right back and a striker, proven ones
Best midfielder on the pitch first half. The flick that put Doucouré in on the left hand side, and the timing and weight of his through ball when Lloris cleared wouldn't have looked out of place at Man City. If he had players with better movement and end product around him, he'd be in the World Cup squad.
Enjoyable match which I felt a 2-2 draw would have been the fairest result. But we didnt learn anything we didnt already know. Here are my thoughts, for what it's worth. Our midfield matched theirs. No doubt about it. Gray showed once again he's exactly the sort of striker we need, but we just need one with an iota of actual footballing ability. Our defence is plops. Only kabasele pleases me. Kiko was duff again, that's not his best position. Pereyra would have made a difference. Capoue was a rolls royce. Our fans singing arsenal songs.....extraordinary, deeply shameful stuff. Holebas had a decent game, but I notice the usual stream-watchers suggest otherwise. Maybe it's different when you're at the match after a few beers, socialising with your mates rather than sat hunched over your laptop eating wotsits with your slacks lowered, but he did a lot of good going forward and was left exposed by richarlison. This is the opinion of someone who's played the game to a decent standard by the way, not of an obese ****wit with rancid armpits who always got picked last in the school playground. It's a tragedy this team will get broken up before we get to see how ace it could be with no injuries and the addition of a proper striker and an ace defender. Oh well. Garcia was all over the place again. Tracky top zipped up: fine. Then wearing a massive freezer suit - unzipped - over the top which dwarfed him. He was completely oblivious to it all of course, just sat there gurning away like the simpleton he is. Get rid.
I’m sure Hughes is being managed because he’s incredibly fragile. I think it’s a miracle Gracia has kept him fit for this long. I think we are stating to see what Gracia’s team will look like and I like some of our play. The only problem is that we have some incredibly incompetent footballers who keep giving away stupid goals with awful errors. I’ve never seen a side give away so many unavoidable mistakes at the most stupid times. I’m glad people have finally acknowledged that Holebas is awful and needs to go ASAP - I haven’t spotted one ‘but he can put in a decent ball’ line on here. His action after hurting his head was pathetic and sums up the man.
The thought of him, Doucoure and Chalobah operating as a midfield 3 is the only thing that gives me hope
The cold hard facts suggest we had as many shots at they did (13) and more on target (5 vs 3). It seems the tactics were pretty much perfect but just individual errors at each end which cost us (again). Before showing Gracia the door I'd like to make sure we have a quality candidate lined up, as we did last summer before it all went horribly wrong....
I went last night expecting to be stuffed but actually with some better finishing and the keeper pretending to be an England slip fielder we may well have won the game. Gracia is an interesting one. There will always be people who don’t want the manager and are quite vocal about it and currenty it’s Malteser but there will be someone else with the next manager. You can of course coach players to be better but unfortunately you cannot polish a turd and we have more than our share of turds. I’m not fussed if he stays or goes but I would like somebody in the long term to see if we can push on. Much has been said about players performances most of which I agreed with but I liked the way we played as a team last night especially the first half. Gray is probably not good enough as we all know but we play much better football when he starts as he creates space for others and we don’t lump it. I thought Gerry D did well playing through the middle and might be an option. We all know what we need in the summer as I’m sure Gino does, we just need to find them at affordable prices which is the tough bit
The thing is, right now it doesn't matter who the coach is, the quality in certain areas is just not there, and it's costing us results. It must be demoralising for players who are quite clearly at the right level having to play with players that are clearly not. For me, you have to give the coach a fair crack of the whip and the tools to do the job. We have Championship strikers, useless left backs and feeble central defenders. It's causing so much harm to our progress. We all know how good the midfield is and out on the flanks is pretty decent too. However, come the end of the season I'm sure Gracia will be judged on his results. This is why I believe the Newcastle match is huge for him. Watford have to win this or else I can see the club letting him go. The end of season run will be too harmful, if Watford fail to win that. Only 2 points from the last 7, which may extend to 9 games. Knowing how the club operate, that record would probably finish him off, even with mitigating circumstances. Had the Liverpool, West Ham and Huddersfield performances been the norm, then it would be a "no brainer", he'd have to go. But those are isolated and I believe performances (not results) have been good enough in all other games. We're not getting what we deserve when you compare performance to result, and I put that mainly down to the lack of quality upfront and in defence. That problem can only be rectified by good recruitment.
If he is going, which I suspect he is, he is going already Newcastle means nothing. I think he is going as our tactic seems to be getting a new coach for the pre season and using the time upto Christmas to get enough points to stay up. I don't think the Pozzos trust our current manager to do that, he was brought in to stop us going down.
Can I just temper this a bit? What if we don’t sign the players we all think we need in the summer? Holebas just got a new contract and so did a couple of others. Duxbury has said a couple of times they are generally happy with the squad. We had all last summer to address key areas where we are weak - LB, CB, Striker. And we ended up with Gray and Zeegelaar. Our owners love to buy midfielders. So I ask this - if we don’t improve those key areas and there’s no evidence to say we will, are people still happy to let Gracia have a pre-season with the squad? I agree at times he has got us playing good stuff. But we still aren’t winning. And we aren’t scoring away. And we still make the same defensive lapses. I agree that he’s not on the pitch so can’t control much of the stuff that happens. But he’s responsible for them. It’s under his watch.
It is a very interesting point. I don't have faith in Gracia doing this. But I don't have faith in anyone else being able to do it with the current squad.
That's got to be the key consideration. There's no motivation for players like Hughes to keep playing great through balls or for Deulofeu to consider signing if they know they've got players ahead of them 99% certain to waste their good work.
I spoke too soon. Which is a shame, as the rest of your post was pretty good. It doesn’t matter if you’ve played the game to a good standard. Often top footballers make the worst pundits, because they have the IQ levels of a packet of Wotsits. Holebas should be nowhere near our squad. He is the first player we should give the boot. Your general play can be excellent every match and you can be the consummate professional, but your manager should still think about dropping you if you give away at least one clear goal scoring chance per match. Holebas’ play isn’t excellent. He is the most petulant man child to have every played for our club. He gives away at least one clear goal scoring opportunity per match. There are defenders out there that can cross AND defend you know?
It's alright, if we continue our away day drought all next season and lose all our home games, we'll go down but go down with a pat on the back from the media for sticking with him like a weak man sticks with a psycho girlfriend who attacks him in a pizza restaurant.
My fear if we don't recruit well in the summer is the decent players we do have all putting in transfer requests. Can't imagine how demoralising it must be for them.
I think there's going to be a bit of that in the summer anyway. I'm pretty sure both Richarlison and Doucoure will go, but if we get around £80m for them, then that would be good business. The bulk of that can be directed towards the squad and stadium development plans. But, we do need to be active in signing quality. I believe those two players can be replaced, but in order to convince the likes of Deulofeu to sign for us, we have to show him we are serious about improving. I believe he likes it at Watford, and he's certain to leave Barca in the summer. We're in the running, there's no doubt about that, but are not the only admirer. I also believe he likes Gracia, so those who want rid of the coach should take that on board.
I cant agree with that. I was behind the Tottenham goal, and Deeney made an impact winning headers, linking with pkayers. He won the head down for Richarlison to put the ball into the upper tier. Too often in the first half Gray was unable to hold the ball up. His first touch was poor and he lost control of the ball. Often his passing was poor. When he had opportunities to score he failed. He was not alone in all that and to be fair he has barely played a competitive match. But in the context of the game Deeney was more effective.
Gray played an excellent ball to Richarlison to put him through on goal on the break, Deeney didn't even see Hughes in an identical position and chose to turn around and go backwards. Neither of them are the answer going forward (pun intended) but apart from the knockdown to Richarlison, I can't remember Deeney doing much at all, other than shooting well over the bar.
I’m not sure we are certain to lose those two players now as performances have definitely dropped. £80m would be incredible
I didnt say he was excellent, I said he had a decent game. He took a few players on, got a couple of crosses over, got stuck in. Defensively he's not the best, everyone knows this, which is why he needed support from richarlison. The fact he didnt get this support means the blame lies with richarlison, or more likely our gurning gremlin of a manager. People dont like his personality and it clouds their view. It's fine, I'm the same with gracia and his face.
Thought we gave it a good go but so poor upfront Hate Wembley for a league game Javi should stay and see what he's like when we have the likes of Chalobah, Cleverley, Kaboul, new attackers, new defenders et al next season. The thought of that genuinely excites me
