Woking 0-2 Watford Fc - 06/01/2019 - Fa Cup Third Round

They were Surrey prices, remember.

 

Someone needs to get hold of Success and tell him that using his speed and strength to run with the ball and get a shot in is better than falling over to try and get a free kick outside the area. He does it every game, including a few times today. With his physique he should be aiming to be our Hasselbaink, not our Knockaert.

 

As dull as the game was and as unsensational the result, we did a pretty standard job.

If you watched that without any Watford bias ( if it were Leicester, west ham or Bournemouth for example) then you'd be saying how controlled and we'll executed it was.

I think we were all hoping for a big score against weak opposition, especially on TV so we looked good to anyone watching, but it doesn't need to be 7-0 to make it a great performance.

 

We have played double that many times against non league clubs. 42 times i believe.. and we've lost 4 times. Leytonstone in 1948, Walthamstow Avenue in 52, Bedford Town in 55 and Northwich Victoria in 77.

 

Passing to a team mate and good movement off the ball doesn't necessarily risk injury

 

I think it was 19 of our last 20. They mentioned it on the TV today. I was quite impressed with that.

 

I saw loads of that, especially in the first half.

Is hard to maintain a 100% performance level against utter dogshit.

 

Lucky we're not in a lower league, then. But Man City and Spurs seem to be able to overcome this difficulty

 

Yes, only one defeat in 20 (including replays) but that was post Bedford in 55.

 

I think it's fairer to compare us to teams like Leicester, Fulham and Everton rather than Man City and spurs.

How did they all get on?

 

They were even more crap than us, but playing stronger opponents. Man City v Rotherham is a more comparable gulf in class

 

I thought success had an attitude problem all game. I know JV had to warn him to cool down.

 

Johnny Vegas?

 

Errr did you see the team City put out? They'd all walk straight into our starting XI.

 

Of course, but Certs' original point was thst it's hard for class players to do themselves justice against inferior opposition. De Bruyne and co didn't struggle too much

 

What was going on after the match outside the ground? Group of youfs were trying to attack police.

 

The passing and link up play in the first half was a lot better IMO.

There were times in the second half where our passing was abysmal. But our players were basically lumping it back to them. They offered zero threat, and we were playing risk free football.

But if you think our overall performance was bad today, I’m guessing you haven’t seen any of our league cup games in recent years? Fewer first team rotations than today, with much worse performances/ results.

You’re always going to play bad football with more than 6/7 changes, unless you’ve got world class players.

 

The issue with Success IMO is that he knows he has ability but his attitude a lot of the time is that of a player who is producing the goods, when he isn’t. Falling over with a constant ‘hard-done-by’ look on his face when he does so and the referee doesn’t buy it. For someone so clearly powerful and quick, I don’t remember many players that waste or fail to show their best traits quite as much as him.

And lastly, I’m now convinced he’s not a striker. He would be best deployed as one of the wide players as that’s where I think you’ll see the best of him - he’s nowhere near disciplined to play as a lone or main striker. But again, the danger of him playing wide is that he is tempestuous and is unlikely to track back or defend from the front in a controlled way.

One of the real test of Gracia is if he can make Success realise his talent and pair it up with a better understanding of the game. If that proves impossible, then Success really won’t be achieving much at all in a yellow shirt.

 

If we had a clinical striker we'd have been 5-0 up at half time. Or more.

It was a dominant performance that of course tapered off in the second half.

 

Match Highlights:-


1. Penaranda runs full tilt off the pitch and has to do really fast little steps down the stairs into the players' tunnel

2. Ball bounces into the gents toilets

3. Linesman falls over advertising board

4. Woking string 4 passes together (for the only time in the match) prompting an extremely posh and well-enunciated chant of "Come on Woking! Come on Woking!" from the gathered gentry.

 

Please don't use disablist language. It is as offensive as racism, sexism and homophobia. Thank you.

 

I was suprised by that stat.

If asked how many times Watford had lost to non-leaguers, most Watford fans would probably blush and reply with ‘do we hold the record for the most defeats?’

 

It was comfortable but you need to factor in how limited Woking are. They train twice a week and are not even Conference. Play that team away at a Newport and if they show the same level of performance there is a decent chance we’d lose. Yes we may up our game if needed, but I don’t think yesterday was a performance to remember with any pride.

 

If you’re “always going to play bad football with 6/7 changes” might be best to let Javi know before the next round. He made 11 changes today.

I hope Javi will only make 3/4 changes for the next round.

 

Strangely, i watched the game in a pub with a guy who told me this and was at the funeral


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

We won comfortably against, understandably, the worst team I have ever witnessed. I'm sure a select 11 from this forum would have given them a run for their money. Our reserves won despite playing really poorly. Whether the aimless long balls and lost possession was part of the plan or just through boredom/lack of ability we will never know. However allowing such a poor team to be within one goal of us until about 10 mins from the end would seem an odd strategy given one decent connection from a set piece "into the mixer" could have seen them equalise.

 

Yes I think he was getting frustrated that he couldn't score against such poor opposition. I've yet to see all this "ability" that others talk of. He just looks like a championship forward to me. Has no history of scoring goals and I'm not sure where this will suddenly come from.

 

But 3/4 changes from which eleven?

 

9 goals from 95 games.

I exclude Granada B who probably play at a similar standard to Woking.

 

During the game yesterday I was thinking something similar and about what team Quique would have had to play if he did the same in our first season after promotion. It surely would have been older, with less international calibre and I actually doubt he'd have been able to rest every first teamer.

 

Success has none of the composure or anticipation a striker requires.

It seems like Buggins’ turn with our #9 shirt.

Gray back for the 4th round?

 

We played a similar team at Reading and won. Very few sides could change their entire first XI and still win a match so comfortably against a fully motivated side, who are used to winning and are having a fine season at their level. They have won 7 on the trot and only failed to score once this season. They are almost certainly going up this season, so come May they will probably be a National League side. They beat Swindon in the previous road. They are no mugs.

Yesterday showed me, that we have an extremely strong squad that can be rotated completely, yet still can control a very tricky tie from start to finish. I was impressed in how we did that.

I'm not sure what people expected. We switch our entire first choice XI and win 7-0?

To my mind, it's huge credit to how Gracia has every member of the Watford squad playing. Yesterday was further endorsement at how well he's managing the club. The players are all up for every match. There's real competition within the squad and the attitude of the players when they are selected is first class.

 

We did well, job done, they were never in the game but I'm also glad they didnt lose by a cricket score like Rotherham. Good day for everyone i think. We showed Woking respect by playing a strong side, and that side dominated the game as a premier league 11 of full international players should.

Nobody got out of second gear really, but again success spend his whole time diving. You are playing against semi-pros - it is pretty pathetic to try and cheat.

I am not convinced he has the right attitude to lead the line. It might come with time (as someone said, how good was deeney at 22?), but Deeney was never one to flop over at the first opportunity or skulk around.

He has the physique, he has the speed and at times he has initiative, but he seems some way off being effective at the moment.

 

We huffed and puffed, made quite hard work of it, but ultimately got the job done.

Hughes, Wilmott and Masina stood out for me. Penaranda looked handy but did fade as the game went on, perhaps unsurprisingly. Definitely something to work with there.

Success was awful. Didn’t fancy it from the first whistle until he was put out of his misery and taken off.

Good subs made at the right time.

Most importantly, we were professional and didn’t succumb to a banana skin like a number of other clubs.

Heres hoping for a winnable home tie in the next round.