It's perhaps harsh saying his head's not here, but he isn't playing like he was. He doesn't seem to be getting on the ball to influence a game in the last few matches, and as a result is snatching at it more. The pass by Success in the 2nd half was sublime, which he then bent over the bar. Heaton looked to have it covered as well.
Credit to Burnley for for strangling any semblance of entertainment out of the game. They are the Premier League's leeches. Making a fortune while offering nothing in return. Let's face it a half decent team would have murdered us. E.g Bournemouth.
Agree with this. I firmly believe Mapps is not the level to play regularly for us, but yesterday he gave a decent account I thought, certainly head and shoulders above Kabasele in dealing with their brute forwards
I love Javi but substitutions are not his strength. Instead of bringing big Ken off yesterday, he should have switched him to the left and brought Bobby P off, who absolutely bottled it yesterday. Gray should have been given a chance instead of the incredibly frustrating, Success.
If he had gone with his right foot he could have blasted it in, dont players get trained to at least get their weaker foot up to some standard?
Err... Chris Wood absolutely dominated him. Can't think of a time when Wood was stopped from taking the ball down and turning his man.
Burnley do a good job of what they do. The commentator mentioned they caused us problems every time they got behind us. But it wasn't even that complicated. They hook it into the channel and get the ball in the final 3rd. They're a little like 1980's watford in playing % football in the right area of the pitch. but they slow it down and niggle and waste time intentionally to stifle the opposition. It works but is ugly.
No Glitter style sex tourism on the docket but Elton style karaoke definitely was. I managed to find Tiny Dancer on the jukebox when my turn came. Mumbling along to it in the car is, however, a different exercise to a full throated rendition in front of an expectant crowd. A long song & one involving considerable repetition of the main tune. Being a moderate singer maybe added some pleasing natural variation to the tune in question.
Nothing remotely like 80's Watford. The 80's team attacked, did not go in for cynical time wasting or negativity l. Passing forward into space, yes but that was to two of the best wingers ever in Cally and Barnes.
We were playing Burnley, what do you expect? They are a physical side with limited technical ability. They bring others down to their levels in order to beat them. Unfortunately we fell for their game plan hook, line and sinker rather naively. Had we played our brand of football, mixing up the styles, we could have created more chances. Our defence was understandably all over the place but still kept a clean sheet. Kabs was off the pace and struggled with Barnes and Maps was thrown about by Wood but held on just. We still lack a mobile/intelligent forward, Deeney either stands still or runs away from the ball and Duelofeu does whatever he wants. On Duelofeu had Hart been in goal he would have scored but that doesn't excuse him staying off the pitch immediately after for several seconds whilst we still had the ball in the final third, he should have been chomping at the bit to get back on side and in a position to score. It wasn't a bad result and neither was it a good one.
What is all this bitching about Burnley Yes they play negative, ugly football but if we aren't good enough to play through them then that is our problem, not theirs. They were unlucky not to win. We need to find the spine we had earlier in the season, we look very limp when teams challenge us physically. If we start crying when teams put the boot in us we deserve to lose. Some of yoh sound very much like the football elitists that we have complained about for the last 40 years. 'Football the way it should be played' blah blah blah. If they clatter you, clatter them back. Don't hide away and sulk.
I think this - from the consistently excellent Bhappy blog (https://bhappy.wordpress.com) - captures most people's view of Burnley perfectly "There’s something admirable about Burnley, in the way that you might quietly, privately, take pride in a very large sh1t. Consistent with this analogy however Burnley are a thing best admired from a distance; you might be capable of a sort of respect but you don’t want to watch it, be close to it, invite it round to dinner. You want to flush it away and forget you ever saw it. There is no joy in it. It’s just a very large sh1t."
He was facing his own goal and puts his laces through it, I'd argue you have to know what you are doing there.
Yes. He wasn’t trying to put it out for a corner! Under pressure he passed 30 yards back to Heaton. Oliver bottled it and Troy should have told him so via the media.
Agree with this in terms of their physicality. But their time wasting from the first minute was simply embarrassing.
+ Barnes increasingly theatrical attempts to win a free kick after every challenge. Didn't we get a free kick very early on when he dived ? But no booking, which would have nipped that particular festering sore in the bud
He probably hope the goalie would just control the ball and kick it I guess.. I am not sure what Dyche would have done had a free kick been given though - he was in the officials ear all the time. Even Gracia got a bit frustrated by it all.
Bad performance but still picked up a point. At this stage of the season that is still important. Burnley did arrive with 4 consecutive wins so were unlikely to be a pushover. We are not yet at the stage where we can play well "just for fun" - we also still need to labour for points.
Our position has sort of quietened the chorus around it, but the issue has not at all gone away; we really are still desperately in need of a competent striker, especially one who can play alone upfront. Success may develop into it, and he's already the most effective as the lone striker when it's used, but only time will tell there. Troy is still offering remarkably little, and almost never a goal threat. In the rare times he does manage to make a decent movement and get onto a ball into the box, he invariably hits it straight at the keeper, such as he did again yesterday. He also continues to be disappointing in the air, given his reputation. His all action young-new-girlfriend-lost-20-pounds style doesn't seem to have impacted his overall movement as much as we might have hoped. He's not unprofessionally out of shape, but we're still reliant on our midfielders (and Deulofeu, who is really a midfielder) to score our goals for us, and Burnley showed us yesterday what that means when they're collectively out of sorts. Very little created and very little goal threat. Obviously, it did not do our cause any favours that Doucs and Hughes were both out; both could have been useful given their attributes and the situation we found ourselves in. Sema is the most one-footed player in the universe, it seems.
Dyche had a point - we're bigger than Burnley and the bad decision was in our favour. Burnley deserved to win - they were quicker to the ball, won most of the second balls and seemed a lot more committed than our lot. Only Kiko and Foster deserved their money this week.
Thinking back over the game now, it really irritated me that Barnes escaped a booking for kicking the ball away in anger when he hand balled it on the touch line and thought he should have been given a free kick, but Oliver didn’t hesitate to book Deloufeu for his equally obvious and petty reaction to a decision. Both were clear and obvious bookings, but once you let one go, you have to let the other slide as well.
I saw this and it was noted. I knew he'd book our player if we did the same. I'm just relieved he didn't give Burnley a penalty. To be fair to Oliver, apart from that incident you mentioned, he was ok.
And yet the previous week he subbed a sub who scored the clincher. Like any manager some work and some don't but wouldn't be criticising him for it . Likely thought that in a turgid game it only takes one moment of class to steal the win and Pereyra probably has that in his locker more than Sema
He also should've booked Ben Mee the second time he stood around as though he was going to take a free kick, only then to run straight past the ball and wait for Heaton to amble up to the halfway line. Oliver spoke to him but let it go. Also, Bardsley's tackle that led to his booking was followed be an obvious show of dissent, with a full body contortion and waving of hands and gesturing at Oliver. Should've been a booking for the tackle and a second for dissent. Always find it weird that you can show as much dissent and abuse the ref and his colleagues but the minute you bounce the ball, it's a guaranteed yellow. And that's before we get into the constant running off with the ball or kicking it away...
What is the point of Burnley? Horrible, awful team. When I saw a half empty away end for the first time I can remember since promotion I was surprised. After seeing play I can see why they're fans don't bother turning up! I don't want to criticise Watford too much. Burnley made us look really bad by sucking as much joy out of the occasion as they could. 20,000 people paid money to come and watch a game of football and Burnley's only objective was to ruin it for everyone. Confident we'll beat Everton as at least they will attempt to play football!
