First half cost us, it was straight from our kick off to casual no intensity really was like watching a pub team at times. Silly mistakes and got punished but also allowed them time to look like Barcelona knocking the ball about. The debuts of last week were the complete opposite as louza had a wake up call etebo must have an identical twin who does his travelling. 2nd half was an improvement but that wasn’t hard. Dennis has to stay on side when he was played in by King. Anyway great to see Troy get a cameo and hopefully lessons learnt. Look on the bright side could of and maybe should of been a bigger defeat than 2-0 which would of been soul destroying. Busy week for Xisco ahead. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I guess he gets leeway for being his debut but Louza looks a case of Pozzo getting business to his mate Mogi Bayet at the expense of the benefit of the club. His acquisition has used a large chunk of our limited budget: Hopefully he improves but I don’t expect him to start at Spurs.
Wasn't exactly a secret tbf, he's absolute dynamite on the counter, but when we need to open stiff doors, he lacks that bit of guile. Not all bad mind you, if he had that, there's absolutely no way he'd be here!
Definitely, I can't deny that I am concerned by todays performance but I do believe we will better with Tufan and Kucko in the midfield as we will have more bite and composure. The midfield today was extremely soft. Still I would have taken 3 points from the opening two games as you say.
Last time I had such a bad feeling immediately from kick-off was that game towards the end of last season which we shall not mention...
You’re right. Today was about damage limitation. Brighton have had a grip on the top 6 since the alphabet was invented and the table was complied in pre-season.
May be. But I'd prefer Cathcart in the middle instead of WTE and Ngakia as RB Ngakia might not be a Premier League quality RB but neither is Cathcart imo. But Cathcart is a much better CB than WTE imo. If Ngakia is not good enough and will never be called upon then I would prefer to see a youngster on the bench personally.
Don’t feel I can add much to what’s already been said here already really, but a very disappointing evening for sure. What’s really frustrating is the fixture computer seemed to smile favourably on us, and while Norwich got sent to the Etihad for their first away match back, we were given one that seemed eminently winnable, or certainly one with a good chance of a point. And then came that team sheet, and that first half showing. Our best centre back inexplicably still not starting. No proper right-back. Every current midfield player still standing in the squad starting tonight, while one who I think could have made a difference tonight rotting with the youngsters. We can perform on the road, and have done so under Xisco. But whereas what we needed was something like we saw at Carrow Road last season, all we got was a repeat of Luton, Brentford and our other listless away showings. Too many more like that, and not even our excellent home form will keep us out of trouble. I know many people don’t care much for the Carabo, but Tuesday now gives us the ideal opportunity to give starts to the likes of King, Cucho, Sierralta, Rose etc, who would probably all improve our starting eleven, as indeed the first two did tonight when coming on. Louza needs time to show his class, so hopefully he starts too. Ngakia. Maybe some minutes for Fletcher. By the time we go to Spurs let’s have no more excuses of players not being fully fit or being cold to start. Just as one win doesn’t guarantee survival, nor does one poor away day mean obvious relegation. What’s clear though is we will make life very hard for ourselves if we set up wrongly, start matches so listlessly and show so little menace in attack. Let’s pray tonight will be a wake up call rather than a portent of things to come, or it’s going to be a very long winter ahead. To paraphrase from the excellent movie Se7en, tonight “we’ve experienced about as much pain and suffering as anyone encountered give or take, and we still have Harry Kane to look forward to” next weekend. * transfer to Man City not withstanding
Yes this, no one is stopping him if we actually get the ball to him on the counter attack, we just didn't move the ball good enough when we had the chance to break today and isolate him against their defence. He also wasn't helped by the fact that we had an ageing slow centre defender playing right back. I think you see a different Sarr alongside Kiko. .
If the thread in the transfer list section is to be believed, we won't use Ngakia until the window has closed, I get the logic, but surely he can't have done any worse?
First half cost us and that’s basically it. Why our players rocked up to the Amex with that mindset is just shocking. That’s what cost us the game. Zero passion, fight or desire to win. Made Brighton look much better than what they actually are. Said it in my pre match post, they will be a threat from set pieces, and they were. Second half we were the better team and had we played like that in the first half, the result might have been different. Big learning curve for Xisco now. He showed loyalty to the players that got us off to a great start, so understand why he kept it the same, but now he needs to drop those who were poor. The Premier League is unforgiving, we don’t have the luxury of playing favourites and showing loyalty. All of us have said Ekong is a liability and his distribution is awful. We all knew it would cost us in the Prem, and today it has, we’re only 2 games in. He MUST be dropped. We MUST sign a starting 11 CB to partner Sierralta. Likewise, Masina needs to be dropped. His distribution is just as bad as Ekong’s and it puts us under unnecessary pressure. Sema, again, as stated by a lot of us, just not good enough. Cucho on the LW is the way forward. This will be a test of Xisco’s character. He needs to drop his favourites. Ekong, Masina and Sema all need to find their way to the bench. Spurs don’t have the height that Brighton do, but they are quick. Xisco needs to start this 11 against them Bachmann Kiko Kaba Sierralta Rose Etebo Kucka* Tufan Sarr Dennis Cucho Not mad at the result, we deserved nothing because of our first half performance. What Xisco needs to do, is make sure that doesn’t happen ever again! Lesson must be learnt and changes must be made. Still believe we will stay up comfortably, but we won’t if we start games like that again.
Disappointing performance and result, but Xisco has got to now earn his money and start making some tough decisions!
Honestly think we need to go 4231 Bachmann Kiko Kaba Sierralta Rose Etebo Kucka or Tufan Sarr Cucho Dennis King
Team for Tottenham: Bachmann Kiko WTE Sierralta Rose Kucka (if available) Etebo Cleverley Sarr Dennis Cucho Some tricky calls to make, maybe in other games I'd go for King up top, Dennis on the left and Cucho instead of Cleverley, although I don't think Tottenham is that game. 3 of the back 4 should be simple enough, a debate to be had over Masina and Rose, but I'd play Rose
Maybe a good thing Sarr never had another great game today. Stop the pundits drooling over him and maybe give these rich super powers of the game a second thought. Bissuoma can happily take today’s plaudits and be someone’s big panic buy before deadline day. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hugely disappointing first half. Straight from the off we looked shakey and couldnt deal with Brightons press. Even more frustrating that despite their domination in that first half they actually didnt create an awful lot and we've gifted them two avoidable goals. Their version of the tractor bossed the midfield. Better second half and had one or two good opportunities, though if Brighton had a better striker we could have fallen further behind. Dennis took his goal well even if it was offside. Cucho looked bright when he came on as did King. That starting midfield is far too light weight. Louza looks like he's going to need some time to adjust to the physicality of the premier league. While I would have taken 3pts after two games before the season started , with a much improved first half today we could have maybe nicked a point.
I missed the Villa game, so this is the first time I've seen us and I'm not impressed. Starting with a defence including WTE, Cathcart and Masina is a disgrace at this level. We got what we deserved from that. Midfield was powder puff. Without Kucka we look awful. Xisco was completely out of his depth. Picking a 4-3-3 every week and selecting 11 out of about 13 options might work in the Champ when you have the likes of Sarr, but today we saw what Xisco really is - a clapping, happy, good spirited idiot. He had no idea how to respond to Brighton setting up the way they did and took until the 65th minute to stumble onto a response, by which point the outcome was settled. On a positive note, Dennis, Cucho and King all looked decent. Our midfield and defence will see us relegated though.
Lots of usual over reaction Disappointing that we started off so slowly and failed to win one on one battles all over the pitch Mystifying why Sieralta not starting, got to think with him in the side would be more solid Plusses for me is that at the front end of the pitch with King, Dennis, Sarr, Cucho we are stronger than our previous spell in the prem. Midfield I'm sure by the end of the window we will be much stronger Kucka a massive miss, Louza hopefully will get up to speed and the Turk should help things too. We should also either have Chalobah/Hughes back in the fold or potentially a replacement? Disappointing today, seems an opportunity missed to pick up points. We move on
That wasn't good was it? Brighton outplayed us as much we did Villa last week first half. Both goals were preventable, but when you stick with the dross we have like Troost and Masina what can you expect? Cathcart was awful as well, and we just never got into the game. King looks good, live wire. Dennis huffed and showed effort and even Deeney almost scored with a header. Our Midfield is our biggest weakness. With such a frail defence we need Serialtra back ASAP. Kucka was a big miss and Cleverley along with Louza were both very off the pace. Ngakia isn't good but he's better than Cathcart. Our attack does look potent, but when we have such a weak link from defence to Midfield it's difficult to break up play. Why we sat so deep today in the first half was beyond me. Brighton are no Citee but they hardly looked like conceding today. Sarr was easily nullified and Xisco only got up to speed when the game was gone. Spuds will thrash us next week if we play like this. Hopefully the midweek Cup game is a chance to switch it up and get a feel for our best 11. Or who shouldn't start the league games.
What a **** performance that was. The worst 45 minute showing since that dreadful day against West Ham. Worst performance under Xisco I'd say. I take no comfort in the improvement second half as Brighton basically were told to be professional, don't take chances and see the game out, which is exactly what they did. I've been wishing we invest in a good centre back for years now, but we still haven't done it. It cost us two goals today and the match. Both goals directly down to poor play from central defenders. However, that's not the worst of it. Midfield without Lucka looks an utter shambles and weak, weak, weak. We cannot just rely on one player, who has only played for us for 70 minutes, to be our saviour, but without him we seem to be cannon-fodder. Our forward line, looks capable and exciting, but means very little if we do not control, or at least compete in midfield. Today was probably one of the worst debuts I've ever seen from a Watford player. Louza was utterly hopeless and completely off the pace. He's nowhere near first team ready. I was surprised at how bad he was, but he surely must be a lot better than that.....surely? Sadly, Brighton will be bottom six, and we can ill afford such a pathetic performance, even at this stage of the season, against this type of opponent. We saw today too many Championship players, playing to a Championship level.
Obviously he knows far less about managing a football team than you. Seriously though it t was plain enough to see that Louza was out of his depth on that pitch. Not neccessarily with the ball at his feet , although that was poor, but without the ball he had no tactical awareness or positional sense and was behind the game at every step. The only reason he was on the pitch is because Gosling was unwell/unfit which is a pretty damning endightment.
Agreed, but Brighton absolutely won't be bottom 6 this season, that was bad, but there are absolutely 6 teams, probably a few more, who are worse than them. The disappointment in today wasn't losing, because they have better players and a better manager, but the manner of defeat
Standard under reaction from the usual insipid suspects. Same people who said we wouldn't go down, as we sleepwalked our way to relegation. We need a new CB, LB and RB and at least one midfielder, unless Chalobah or Hughes returns. We also need a new coach. Sticking with Xisco after promotion was a mistake.
Well, although we have Masina going to Cameroon mid-season, since we signed one left-back already in Rose, I don't think we'll sign another (especially since we probably have more pressing needs elsewhere and might not have room in the squad to buy). At the very least, we need a new CB
Why are you crying? I said I didn't think Louza was any worse than the other midfielders, is that not allowed on here or something?
