What was wrong with Silva subs today in peoples opinion? Wague was injured so had to be Prodl, Carrillo was on a yellow and had also made a few risky tackles so bringing Pereyra on was a good one and Okaka was non existent by the time he brought Gray on. He had 77mins which I never thought he’d last till but what’s the general consensus from others? Thoughts please? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I only watch the home games and I know we've had some good performances on the road, but at the Vic, this is by far the worst season since our promotion. We've had a couple of decent performances, but the terrible ones are stacking up now. Stoke, Brighton, Huddersfield, Swansea. Only got 1 lucky point in those games. It's been largely dreadful to watch. Even Bristol City was dire. Away form is now matching the home ones. We are in big trouble.
True true.. as they say, you cant sack the players. Actually the recent form we have shown made me think back to when Silva announced to the press that he wasnt happy with our transfer dealings.. and that was way back in September. I wondered at the time why he went public with that (getting his excuses in early?) and what his future relationship with our owners might be like.
It doesn't matter if our disallowed goal should have stood or their goals were offside, the fact is we spend too long with the ball being tippy tappy played in defence and midfield, goals are scored when the ball in in the opponents penalty area and just outside the box, so why don't we spend more time up there! G.T. was aware of this and made sure the ball was played forward at every opportunity, please take note Silva!
Strange game, they didn't actually want the ball. They wanted us to have it, whilst they were compact until we tried to force something and to then spring on the counter. Worked a few times in the first half when they picked off over ambitious cross field balls but overall they didn't even try to attack for almost the entire game. After our goal, it was like they were quite content just to stay in the game and hope to nick an equaliser - there was a bit around 70 minutes where they just knocked it back and forth amongst their back four for about a minute with not a thought of going forwards. Their half time chat looked like it must have been, "don't concede a second and we'll go for an equaliser in the last ten" - little did they appreciate the collective weakness of our team. The Gray miss is everything in that game - he scores that and we come away happy as we'd beaten an ultra-defensive, unambitious team relatively comfortably and won two on the spin. It was a dreadful, dreadful miss - this is supposed to be his strength, playing on the shoulder and finishing when through on goal. He's not going to score any headers, long range goals or free kicks - this is his bread and butter - and yet he brainlessly smashed it straight at the keeper. His confidence is completely gone. Then we concede an equaliser from a hopeful ball into the box. Obviously it's a rubbish result and we've been mugged but whatever we do, just keep your heads and get a point. Nope, we completely deflate and lose our heads - Zeegelaar dives in, gets turned and brings the bloke down for a yellow. We head the ball out from the free kick but leave someone completely unmarked on the edge of the box and lose to the team bottom of the league that only bothered to attack for the last ten minutes. Absolutely brainless. Thought Okaka did well, he has his limitations but he's so much better than the other two options. The turn and through ball that led to our goal is a piece of play that Deeney and Gray are both incapable of. He held the ball up well and brought others into the game. Finally, big shout out to the guy near the 1881 section that started f'ing and blinding at Carrillo for not bringing down one of their players when he was breaking from just outside their own penalty area with 60 minutes gone. "Carillo you ****ing ****, you've got to take a yellow there for the team you ****!". Great idea big man - play the last half hour with ten men to stop an attack from 70 yards out. Also, well done for booing Okaka when he got subbed and telling him to "**** off cos he done nothing". ****.
How can anyone say the teams attitude is to do with Silva? Attitude was a problem for Zola, Sannino, QSF & Walter at some point. Silva is not the problem IMO. He’s a great coach. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The blame for that has to sit at Silvas feet. Yes Gray missed a sitter, but christ it was about the only chance we had in the 2nd half. What on earth was said at half time ? we went out with no conviction, no intensity, no work ethos and no passion. I think most of the people around me kept saying that we needed a 2nd to kill the game, we all knew that Swansea were just waiting for their one chance. If anyone thinks we were in control and cruising, well apart from Slilva who was deluded enough to think we were, have a look at the match stats - Home TeamWatfordAway TeamSwansea Possession Home51% Away49% Shots Home9 Away9 Shots on Target Home4 Away4 Corners Home1 Away8 The bottom line is that we weren't good enough, prepared enough, motivated enough or committed enough to beat the team at the bottom of the league. The fault for that lies with the Manager
“Bottom of the table and need a lift ?” Come play Watford . “ Cant score for love nor money?” Come play Watford . “ Recentky sacked your manager and need an immediate confidence boost ? Come play Watford . “ Watford are here to cure all your footballing ills and malaise . Come to Vicarage Road and take advantage of our ‘Buy 1 goal , get 1 free’ offer”
Anybody that knows anything about successfully leading a team of people knows that preparing the team mentally is as important (if not more important) as anything else. Obviously, reading your post, you don't.
Only watched the first half and 10 mins of second as I had to work, but I saw that coming, ok maybe not 2 but a Swansea equalizer. When we weren’t putting the game to bed I knew we would throw it away. Put money on us to stop Citeh as it’s going to happen Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
And how many absolute sitters does a Premier League striker need in order to put one away? At the highest level, clear-cut chances don't come along very often. When they do, the last person you want on the end of them is Andre f***ing Gray. Surely we've persisted with enough sh!te at this club over the years to have learned our lesson by now - just cut our losses and f*** him off to the first div 2 club that will take him before it costs us our place in the PL. We aren't good enough to be carrying that sort of dead weight.
So every manager we’ve had apart from Jokanovic didn’t know how to do this is what you’re saying then? I didn’t say it’s not important you plonker. I said it can’t be Silva as the problems are consistent whoever the head coach is. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I’ve read lots of excuses of late but surely now they must stop. No excuses from Silva. His demeanour around the time of the Everton approach suggested a man who believed he was the greatest coach known to mankind. Actually he’s one with a relegation on his CV from his only other job in England, admittedly at at a club half way down already when he arrived. But you get my point. Since Everton looked elsewhere we’ve taken just 3 points from 18. A double Silva relegation is not an impossibility. No excuses from our recruitment team. Time after time we hear how good they are, yet time after time we seem to limp into the next transfer window with everybody yelling that we need ‘major surgery’ when we can recruit once more. They did well to unearth Richarlison (although they’ve since saddled him with too much of a burden on his young shoulders) and brilliantly to sign Chalobah, whose absence and our lack of form since cannot be a coincidence. But yet again they’ve brought in piecemeal players not totally suitable to the cause and left our squad unbalanced. And on the subject of Gray, he’s a striker. Strikers are paid to score goals. He isn’t. No matter what other positive attributes he brings, he ain’t doing the thing we paid an unbelievable sum for him to do. He fluffs his chance today and a likely win became a defeat. Of course he must shoulder some of the blame. No excuses from our players either. They’re paid more in a week than most of us earn in a year. What we ask is commitment to the cause, to the football club all of us on here love and treasure. A club that we look to to bring us pleasure in our lives that otherwise in winter seem full of losses of loved ones, of illness and gloomy days. That’s commitment for the whole match, not just for part or most of it. We’ve lost 16 points now from winning positions this season. Our players have been shown up by those of supposed lesser clubs such as Brighton, Huddersfield and now Swansea. Our club captain appears live on tv insulting the ethos of a club who’ve won far more than we could ever dream of, then gets banned from 7 matches out of our first 21 of the season. For some of the players Watford may just be a pay cheque, another club on their long international CV, but for us it’s so much more than that and we have a right and an expectation to see players wearing the shirt perform consistently to their very best each minute of each match of each season they’re with us. We can blame officials if we chose. Or the weather. The size of the grass. The stars in the galaxy. Or each other on this forum. We can moan and feel hard done by. Or we can stop the excuses and ask those who are paid so handsomely to win football matches to make us all happier should start looking harder at themselves and where they are going wrong. Silva should stop thinking he’s the greatest gift to management and realise he has much work to do to merely keep the club in the Prem. Our recruitment team needs a big month, homing in only on players with decent attitudes and injury records, characters who will fit our club, and skill and hard work that will benefit it. And the players need to realise they’ve achieved nothing with us yet. All their caps and long CVs at other clubs and other countries count for nothing when the likes of Swansea and Palace and Stoke are humiliating us. We fought long and hard to win our place in this league. Another month or two like our December and we will soon be sliding out of it. Time for the excuses to stop. Only losers have excuses. Winners have the spoils. Happy new year.
How on EARTH do we keep doing it? No tempo,no intensity,content to play in second gear against a team woefully lacking in confidence. For a while I thought it was Walt's team hanging on for the 1-0. The manner in which we are throwing games away from winning positions is vomit making. Gray should have scored but really the game should have been over, but for terminal complacency. Agree with the notion that Gray should play with another striker. Prodl appears to take longer in his decision making than fixing his hair .What has happened to him? He looks a shadow of his former self. Really didn't think I'd see a repeat of the Palace debacle but at 80 minutes I was expecting it and that is the most concerning aspect of all. No idea where we go from here.
Was anyone else bored out of their mind even when we were winning? The negative energy from the pitch was tangible and I started to reminisce about when I used to watch Watford play and feel connected to the team.
I agree with everything you've written. Always very thoughtful. However, we shouldn't let officials completely off the hook. Had Atkinson awarded a perfectly good goal, I'm sure today would have been an uninspiring routine win. We've had an incredible run of bad decisions, and they are predictable as it's always the same guys doing it. Oliver, Probert, Atkinson and Taylor. These guys always give us a hard time and when you're getting bad decisions in tight games, it has a big impact. How can it not? But I agree, the performance today was as bad as anything we've served up this season. we even got the perfect start. But there was no urgency and speed of thought. We held on to the ball for too long or misplaced the pass. It was woeful. Silva says we did have chances to score, but so we should. We were playing the side bottom of the league. They looked like a team that should be there as well. Gray is a flop. He's had plenty of chances and he's just dreadful. He cannot score from the simplest of chances. He was an embarrassment at Newcastle. His touch is far too heavy so all attacks tend to fall apart when he gets involved. Right now we are in a mess. I'm not too sure what the solution is. Do we sack the coach or buy new players and hope they are the solution? Whatever the problem, the fact is we do have problems and they seem to be big ones. If we cannot fix these, we will probably go down this season. I'm still hopeful that solutions can be found in the transfer market.
As someone else said, our squad is almost completely different from previous years. Are you suggesting that our Club scouts the world and brings all the players with a bad attitude to Watford to play in the same team? Obviously not. So you say that the teams attitude is nothing to do with the coach? So what is the coach here for then? Certainly he hasn't coached us to defend corners and set plays well. He hasn't coached our defenders to defend well. He hasn't coached our forwards to score goals often. He hasn't coached our players to take good corners or free kicks. His formations are out of a textbook His is substitutions seem to be pretty random. We look neither good going forward, nor good hanging back. We don't press well. We have the worst disciplinary record in the league by far He has "fallen out" with at least one player to the extent that he hasn't played him despite a clear need And what players out of 25 in the squad has he actually got playing as well as they are capable. I suspect there is only 2 or 3. So just what has he done? What is he responsible for if he has nothing to do with the players mind-set when they run onto the pitch and play 90 minutes of football? ...and changing the subject slightly, Gray came on and ran into space well and created his chance. He should have done better, but at least he hit the target and the goalkeeper just made a good save. Yes, he should have scored but he isn't to blame for the other 80 odd minutes of terrible football we played.
I'm surprised there hasn't been much talk about Gomes. Awful from him in the last minute and he throws away more points.
Fair point. He was at fault at Palace,Brighton and again today. Brilliant bloke and really cares but I think,like others in the team,he is near to the end of his career.
That's just crazy. He is always over employed in the last few minutes of games. Our team always clocks off after 87 minutes and offers the opposition great chances in the last part of the game. Even in the win against Leicester he had to make two great last minute saves or else we'd have had another capitulation in that game too. Neither goal was his fault. He's left totally exposed time and time again by our unfit for purpose defence.
Don’t think it’s really his fault , nothing to do for 75 mins then our defence start falling apart and we expect him to suddenly get upto speed with no support.Yeah maybe could have be sharper but we should have pushed after the first goal and been 4 up anyway. Frustrating thing was for about 20mins in the first half we were starting to look more confident , a few nice touches like we were playing early in the season.
Defending set pieces & defending in general is a problem that stretches back to the start of last season. Since we got promoted we've spent a measly 9 million on CB's who you'd say are the key to defending set pieces. Kaboul was £3 million. Kabasele £9 million. Prodl & Britos were free. That's half an Andre Gray. Not good enough. I can accept the money probably wasn't there but it's cutting corners and inevitably leads us to having a shoddy defence. Do you want him to perform miracles? Is he supposed to finish Gray's chances against Newcastle and the one today? Again, not good enough. He is a Head Coach, he works with what he's got. If what he's got would rather fight dwarves and take selfies with their celebrity missus then what can he does? We beat Leicester with a goal from a corner and a goal from a free kick. Good one.. What textbook? He's gone 3 at the back, 4 at the back, wing backs, fullbacks, strikers, no strikers. The only thing he hasn't tried, annoyingly, is two centre forwards. He put Hughes in a genius half wingerish role, maybe by force not choice but it worked. What formation do you want him to try? I honestly don't get what else he's meant to do with the subs considering the squad? All three subs today were the best options available. We have ZERO good centre forwards, ONE good centre back and THREE out of four full backs that can't defend. So really who's fault is that? Again, another myth. We're 2nd in the Fair Play table so it's not "the worst by far" and West Brom are only two points behind so we're closer to 3rd than we are the top of the table. Not Silva's fault.
Blimey, Gomes is our most experienced player, of course we should expect him to play for the whole 90+ minutes.
This Silva Watford squad clearly think they are the dogs and too good to go down. They are bottom of the Premier League table for current form and have the hearts of gerbils. They/we are easily can be relegated. Andre Gray couldn't wait to get down the tunnel. He was 10 yards from the dug out when the final whistle went, didn't acknowledge anybody or any opponent and slunk off like a rat without a backward glance straight down the tunnel. Or rather like the Pied Piper of Hamelin as he was followed by the other gutless mice wearing yellow, Gomes excepted. Gray can keep walking as far as I'm concerned. I expect he was disappointed to be told to come out with Pererya and the other subs when the crowd had gone for the warm down. Doucoure seems to be believing his own publicity. Again I thought he was poor by his own standards. Giving the ball away, getting repeatedly caught in possession being over elaborate. He also had a touch of the Deeney's by holding the ball and looking for a ruck with Jordan Ayew, who was he goaded twice into challenges when AD could've got rid of the ball. When the ruck happened, he luckily got a yellow card for reacting to Ayew when he easily could've / should've had a idiotic red card because Doucoure threw a punch or arm to Ayew. Madness at 1-0 with ten minutes to go! But by that time in the 2nd half, we were already panicking. Cleverley, Watson and Carrillo looked shot and Janmaat and Zeelegaar were diving into challenges and making rash fouls. Against a Swansea side that for the last hour of the game showed not much skill but far more heart and guts and willingness to have a go than we did. Prodl. Bloody hell. Zeegelaar. Ditto. Most of these guys look like they're only at Watford for a bit to impress their agents, and even the hapless manager falls into that category. The positive was that Okaka pulled away from a guy fouling him to create the move for the first goal that none of our other strikers could. I'd sack off Gray and put Folivi and Jakubiak in the squad for Man City (why oh why am i going to that game to see this bunch of quail hearted knaves?) 'cos at least like the Swansea 62, Mcburnie, they'd be up for it. City will murder us. That's Bristol City....
Watching these last 5-10 minutes of games has become like a recurring nightmare. I actually half expected it today. What we did to have Wague’s goal chalked off I have no idea but - if we are honest - what in all hell were we trying to do after we went one up. They were absolutely terrible and we played like it was a testimonial for 70 minutes. (And YES I would be saying that win lose or draw). Just isn’t good enough in my humble opinion.
