I have taken your advice and watched the highlights, it does appear that I am mistaken. Z had Vardy but should have had Mahrez, he should have called Kabasele across but he didn’t. Both Pereyra and I saw this at the time, unfortunately I barely got time to shout ‘who’s got Mahrez’ before Bobby ran to cover and the ball hit the back of the net.
It seemed to me that Maguire quite deliberately thumped Gomes in the face as he ran past him. Gomes, quite rightly, went nuts about it.
OK - Hold on. My answer was not well written (see what I mean about 'snappy' answers?) I did not mean to imply that patronising is a form of sarcasm. You are right, they do not mean the same thing. What I meant was, when you said "You must be dead clever" you were being sarcastic; and I think you were. I'll probably live. You are also right(ish), it was not a good example of being patronising - just a rather obscure one. Here is what I think: You believe I was putting Cassetti down - and I can see the argument, although really I was putting down his argument and that form of argument generally, rather than intending to be personally insulting. And I'll definitely stick with that. However, in an effort to, I am guessing, defend Cassetti from a put-down you, in turn, gave me a put-down: "You must be dead clever". And, in that sense, I think you were being sort of patronising. But, you're right, it's not a good example.
Please allow me to mention something that I have learnt, perhaps the hard way, that might possibly be of some use. Do not, under any circumstances engage or go toe to toe with any member over 12,000 posts, let alone 20,000.
We have played well and somehow lost far more than we have played average - the opposition fans’ comments are always overboard and we weren’t **** or a championship side, clearly - and won. The team have been heavily criticised, so a rare bit of praise on this forum shouldn’t be curtailed. Christ, it’s a toxically negative cesspit enough of the time. We have a very good manager with a very good team imo. We’re going through our poor patch, but two wins against Swansea and southampton in our next three, with a good transfer window and players back, will see us in a very rosey with European qualification a realistic possibility, which is fantastic. The Everton and Palace defeats were enough to send anyone spare, but we’re still having an impressive season, surely the majority think that?
I know plenty of media outlets and MOTD have used this line as well, so I'm not attacking you for doing so, but it really is a ridiculous red herring and annoyingly disingenuous, frankly, of them to use it, knowing the framing it will put on our performance. Indeed, it was far from perfect, but that 1 shot on target does not tell the whole story. Richy shot into the side netting having rounded and beaten Schmeichel, and two minutes later hit the crossbar. In the second half, Cleverley shot a foot wide from inside the box, a shot the goalie would not have got to had it been just a foot to the right. Those alone are concrete opportunities we carved that defy the 'one shot on target' narrative. On top of that is, of course, the inarguable fact that we scored those two goals, via two shots on target or one.
It wasn't the Everton and Palace results which were the problem, (there were reasons as to why we lost those) it was the Huddersfield and Brighton results that sent the fans into bewilderment!
Ha --Thanks - you may well be right. I've fortunately got a way to go to catch up with that! I always try to keep in mind that in all social media there is an off switch.
It's true that people's comments after a game are hugely coloured by the result. This applies not just to posters on forums like this but the press and especially so called expert pundits as well. If you take the recent bad run of results yielding one points from six games, only in two of those games could you describe Watford as playing poorly: Huddersfield and Brighton, and even in one of those the negative scoreline was exacerbated by a number of dodgy refereeing decisions.
I'm not convinced about your advice. After all the fan that you get stuck next to at a game who insists on passing on his insight constantly and LOUDLY, is usually the one who knows the square root of **** all. Maybe a similar principle applies here?
Insult me all you like. Hughes was SO much better than Capoue on the pitch that I refuse to believe either of the two options a) Hughes improved HUGELY over the space of a few weeks b) Capoue showed more in training than Hughes - he plays matches like they're training exercises so wtf must he do in training?? The Hughes selection was out of desperation and an incorrect judgement by Silva but you can pretend it's because Capoue had Prem experience.
The insult was because you gave an argument that Deeney would play before Messi because he had played more games in the PL. That’s why you’re a helmet. As for what you say about Hughes and Capoue in training we simply don’t know but as pleased as I was to sign Hughes and I did think he was a bargain, he had never played at this level so Silva went for experience. I don’t see a problem in that. If both are fit now, then I would hope Hughes would be in front of Capoue in the pecking order.
I don’t pretend it’s about Prem experience, I don’t know, it’s what I think makes most sense. That’s the difference between my post and yours, mine is an opinion but yours it seems is a statement of fact which of course, unless you work with Silva, it can’t be
We can all as fans of Watford answer this very easily, as can Leicester fans. I was having this argument with somebody the other day. Their assertion was that the quality of teams outside of the top 6 is rubbish and there isn't much difference in quality between the teams outside the top 6 and the top 8 of the championship. While it appears there are a lot of poor teams in the Prem I’d say the opposite is true and it’s just that the overall quality has condensed more and more over the years due to the TV money. We as Watford fans know only too well that our team now is significantly better than our team from our first Premier league season and light years ahead of our team when the Pozzos took over. We’ve been a championship team not so long ago and we’ve seen first hand the difference in a very good championship team and a team capable of competing in the Permier League. The stupid thing is so have Leicester and not so long ago we were trading blows with them in the championship, so they must appreciate the step up in quality too.
Nobody knows what goes on in training. If Hughes wasn't doing what Silva wanted then it's not exactly a new thing, Flores and Mazzarri both did it as well. You can't always call it poor judgement when a player comes in from the cold and does well, the coach has to be happy that they can do the job being asked of them. If Hughes was thrown in earlier in the season and looked lost then people would say he's not ready. Should Silva not be praised for working on Hughes so much that he could seamlessly fit into the team?
We have used the most players in the Premier League this season - 27. Palace are closest with 25. This either proves that Silva is giving everyone their chance (with the exception of Okaka) or that we have indeed suffered badly on the back of injuries and suspensions, contributing to our recent run. I’m not surprised at all he’s taken half a season to give Wague a game, he’s our 7th choice centre half when all of the others are fit. Holebas until quite recently has been one of our better players. His drop of form and attitude was the only reason to bring Zeegelaar in. Had Chalobah and Pereyra been fully fit all year we’d have been shocked to see Hughes given a game at all this season...
Remember Capoue had scored from the subs bench, whilst not his biggest fan on paper it would have seemed sensible to start him ahead of Hughes. The only one that has always baffled slightly is Okaka but even that isn't much of a surprise considering he is our best striker for around 30 minutes. I've said it countless times but we are a better side when we start with the pace of Gray or as it was Saturday Richie and then bring on a battering ram to finish the job. We are less efficient when we start with a battering ram and then bring on pace because the defence aren't as tired
Had Pereyra been fully fit and firing all season, and Chalobah not got injured - who on here would be calling to give Will Hughes a chance. I think the fact that our results may have been somewhat more positive in these circumstances means most would have forgotten he existed.
That’s it exactly, I’ve been looking for away to describe his performances for ages! I will now be passing this off as my own observation!
At the start of the season assuming all fit I thought (wrongly as it turned out) of Hughes as a sub for Pereya and Cleverly as a sub for Chalobah or Doucoure.
Quite. It’s a ridiculous narrative and having had a quick scan of a Leicester forum a few of them have twisted it further, suggesting we scored two goals but only had one shot the entire game. So much was made of Vardy’s one on one miss, but it wasn’t on target, so can we just erase that from the match report?
Is it true that a team could pepper the crossbar and posts with shots all game, but not register a single shot on goal? Seems a crazy method of relating what really happened in a game if so..
So you're saying that if two things that didn't happen had happened, then something else that did happen might not have happened?
Agreed I have always thought this was a crap stat , you could spend the whole game shooting from 30 yards out straight to the goal keeper , never trouble him and have some pundit wax lyrical about how you had 30 shots on target. Doesn’t matter if you only have 1 shot on target if you win 2-1. Out of interest why wasnt Doucoure shot on classified as on target -looked like it was goal bound to me ?
Going across the face of the goal, if no one touched it the ball would probably have gone out for a throw-in if it had reached that far.
Why are you trying to be clever? It’s a simple and obvious point. A few people with massive hindsight are saying Hughes should have been playing from the start of the season. He came in due to injury and exceeded expectations in the games he played in. I call ******** on anyone now claiming they saw that coming and that Silva should have given him an opportunity sooner. In fact, I think most were quite worried when he came in as they didn’t know whether he’d be ready based on his one poor performance in the league cup.
I wasn’t calling for Hughes to start but I found it odd - and said so - that he was regularly denied even a place on the bench early in the season.
Going across the goal wasn't it.. Just sums Doucoure up though that he didn't give up on the ball when so many would have done. Who cares how many shots we had - got the win and that is what matters.
Watched the goal a few times, what annoys me is why Pereya isn't screaming at the defence as he's running back, he's clearly not getting there himself and there are enough defenders to cover. Surely a piece of communication like this is basic?
Not a single person on here has said that Hughes should have been playing from the start of the season. What people are saying is that perhaps he should have had an opportunity at some point in the first quarter of the season, AFTER the injuries to Chalobah and Pereyra, ahead of the likes of Capoue.
Pereyra has taken over Capoue s role as brilliant in the summer , disappears in winter . Expect some MoTM performances from in late March if we get a sunny spring . If not just the last few games if the season .
Yes, I think you're pretty much right. I must say I found the match gripping entertainment: Very close, just the right side of very competitive (the ref should get credit for getting on top of the ott stuff early on). I thought the quality of football was very high; there was a fair number of mistakes, but these were largely due to the quality of the opposition and the relentlessly high pace they were playing at. It is very easy to be blase about the quality of premiership football but the levels of fitness, skills and physical prowess are very high, not forgetting the sophistication of modern tactics. I saw two good but not perfect teams battle it out, with Watford just about shading it, probably deservedly. I can't be bothered to read the Leicester forums but the stuff reported on there sounds like sour grapes to me. (Sour grapes on a football forum - who would have thought it?).
