One of your most passionate, honest and best posts. The club spent a fortune in the summer and took a hit when we went down on several players, seemingly in an attempt to cut out the cancer of bad attitudes, yet from yesterday, we can see that without Deeney, Gray, Capoue, Chalonbah, Pereyra etc. Yet yesterday we saw that the deep rooted Watford problems are as prevalent as ever. Norwich are gash and probably lose that game 5-0 yesterday, but I bet their goalie doesn't give tickets to away fans, joke about with Salah during and after the massacre, their defenders make mistakes but not due to lack of heart and courage. This is the antithesis of the Watford we all grew up on. Even the shyte sided of the 90s, whilst assembled on a shoestring and bereft of talent, mostly gave committed and passionate performances. Yesterday, by no means for the first time, we saw a group of players in our shirts give a half assed attempt at their jobs, fail miserably and then seemingly shrug their shoulders and put it behind them so they can do it again. We have nobody in our side who cares. They all have personal plans away from WFC. Either retire, start a media career or get a move to a better club for more money. None of them are invested in seeing Watford survive or be successful. The few who will definitely be going down with us shouldn't even still be at the club, but are here due to a bizarre policy of clinging onto the very weakest members of the squad for way longer than we should.
No the melt behind me who shouted that Deeney playing up front would've sorted this lot out. Time stood still temporarily as anyone that heard him went into a kind of paralysis (aka Massina defending syndrome)
Well we’re going bankrupt apparently so won’t matter what we do on the pitch .. I don’t think the fans have given up or accepted our fate by any means yet. I think you actually enjoy it all tbh.
Thanks for that Foster you utterly unprofessional idiot. How many other tickets did you give to Liverpool fans in our end. How many of your own fans match day experience did you ruin? Guess like when the team gets embarrassed you don’t care.
Yes my mate showed me this once I got to my seat. But I think the club needs to promote that way to use the electronic wallet. I will do that from now on. For a sell out, four seats empty in the row in front of us. The club needs to reinvigorate the strategy on building a supporters base. As to the performance. Liverpool I am sure we’re motivated to address the defeat from last time. They are one of the clubs that can operate in a league where players demand £400,000 a week to renew a contract. Realistically the club need to ensure we don’t lose at home against Newcastle, Norwich, Crystal Palace, Burnley, Southampton. Getting spanked by Man City, Liverpool, etc is not part of the 11 wins from 38 games we are looking to achieve. The Aston Villa win may turn out to be the points that keep us up. We have to hope that players in the squad that are unfit still getting integrated will step up in the new year to improve the team. Like the new centre half, a reinvigorated Sierralta, Louza, etc.
Time to get him out of the club. He’s a disgrace and a poster boy for the embarrassing unprofessional rancid culture in our club under the current owner.
So much you've written there are many of the reasons why I've stopped going. Just the fact that you can't get a beer or hot drink without a 20 minute wait is just so easily fixable but the club can't be ar5ed. Next time take ne of those flasks that keep the stuff hot all day and can fit into an inside pocket.
They didn’t sack Andre Gray for breaking Government guidelines at least twice so doubt they will do much here . Ticking off no doubt but that is probably it.
In what way? I took a mate, who is a Liverpool fan, to the match in 2000. My cousin sat with his wife, who is a Newcastle fan, in the LR a few weeks ago. I sat with Ipswich fans at Portman Road in our promotion season in 1998. I presume you mean passing on or selling tickets to complete strangers?
I had a can of pepsi max from Zaks in my inside pocket. Was tempted to throw it at someone, just to get kicked out, but Ben Foster was out of range.
My hopes were never high and they declined when giving my ticket to the lady who sits next to me. When I had transferred it she messaged me to say her son was delighted and would be supporting LFC on the day. That's the last time she gets the ticket if I can't go! Whilst getting drenched on court,a parent of a lovely lad I coach arrived to watch his son play a match. The father is on first appearances a humble, quietly spoken man. However this is a mask and he is a controlling, interfering bully, especially to his children. He is also a LFC 'fan'. He proceeded to tell me the result ( I knew the half time score as a pal was updating me). He said it as if the remaining members of my family had died and made a praying gesture. Fortunately an eight foot fence was between us otherwise I may have resorted to Bernard Cribbins in 'Fawlty Towers'. I haven't dared watch it back or read all of the comments. However from what those I've spoken with tell me it's clear that if Claudio didn't we had a problem,he jolly well will now. I read Sissoko says we had a plan but it didn't work. No ****!
Understandable anger given the result and performance but in the cold light of the following day these are my thoughts: 0-5 would have been a realistic prediction beforehand. Liverpool have scored at least three in every away match and they are back to their 'money buys quality' best. Within the first five minutes you knew it was going to be a thrashing, that's why the crowd weren't up for it. There was no chance of getting anything from the match, hence the ironic / sarcastic cheering when Kutca had a shot. I don't think it was because we weren't bothered, we just couldn't get close enough to the ball because of nerves and simply not being good enough. Salah is breathtakingly good at the moment, the best in the world according to MOTD and I agree. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and say 'Now that was a great goal'. Remember he did the same to Citeh a couple of weeks ago. We aren't good enough. We knew that before the beginning of the season and it'll be made obvious every time we play the top six and increasingly, many below them. I'm philosophical about yesterday, but I was livid about the Leeds match because we should be aiming to get something from games like that even if we end up losing. Scapegoating Foster because he's pictured smiling with Salah at the end and he captained Salah on his Fantasy team is misguided. Neither of those things, nor his Youtube channel, are relevant to our position, nor even his arranging tickets to go to Liverpool fans in the Watford end (however stupid that was, if it is true the club needs to investigate). We're focusing our frustration in the wrong place and moaning about Foster is ignoring the bigger picture. So should we instead direct our ire 100% on the Pozzo model / transfer policy / infrastructure? We express anger at the team because that's what we can see in front of us, that's human nature. But there's no point in saying we know our players aren't good enough and then moaning at them after each game because .... they weren't good enough. The Pozzos are worth 'only' hundreds of millions but that's not enough, maybe the Pozzos need to sell up to a corrupt, brutal, human rights-abusing but filthy rich regime like Newcastle, Citeh and others have done. We are a small, overachieving club that isn't rich enough to compete in the Premiership. The gulf now is even greater than when we were promoted 6 years ago. We and Norwich are awful this season despite being the best and finishing 1 & 2 in the Championship last season. Brentford have everything working for them in synch at the moment, but they'll be sussed out, just like Sheffield United were and any other upstarts that have the temerity to challenge the big boys. For the vast majority of football fans, 90% of the time it's misery and vain hope whilst we get fleeced for overpriced tickets, crap food in grounds, expensive travel etc etc. After over 1,000 Watford matches I'm increasingly asking myself is it worth it?
I think you are wrong. I feel that many fans are resigned to our fate. I wouldn't say l enjoy it, but you could clearly see this happening throughout the summer months. You would have to be of very limited football knowledge not to notice the lack of investment. The gulf between the Premier league and Championship is growing every season. You have to have a plan. Fail to plan, plan to fail. I liked Xisco, but he was a coach with zero plans. A terrible Jumble Sale transfer window. The players look unfit and lack interest. Now, l can't claim that l can predict the future, but it is a fairly safe bet that we will be relagated. If not, l am proved wrong. I don't care. This site is for all kinds of rubbish from Watford fans. I accept that it is not all rubbish. That would be unfair. Even tbe Happyclappers on WD18 couldn't find anything positive to say about the game yesterday. So l wouldn't say enjoyment. I am a realist, but bordering on clueless. Who cares? I don't play, own, pick the team, or pay the wages of Watford FC. So l feel pretty sure that the Watford FC owner and players don't care at all for what l have to say or feel. Today is another day. Yesterday is history. We are off out to walk down for lunch in the Village. Have a great Sunday.
I can deal with being thumped. I can deal with the dice being heavily loaded against us. What I would prefer to avoid is having obnoxious away fans screaming in my face when having to watch the gutless performance served up by our team. So if they are put there by our own gurning substandard clown of a goalkeeper if it’s quite alright with you I’ll give him both barrels and hope the disgrace never plays for us again. It isn’t scapegoating - what the fool did is unforgivable.
Fair comments. We just aren’t very good or as good some hoped but there isn’t any excuse for not trying which was the issue yesterday . We have inexperienced forwards and older not particularly fit players elsewhere- a bad mix. The PR of the club is poor at times and communicating is an issue.
Or is this his team ? https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/4094663/event/8 Either way guess it doesn’t look great .
If that's what you want to do, that's up to you. I did say it needs investigating. For me there are bigger problems that need attention - money and club leadership, neither of which look like being solved in the short term.
We arrived in VR at about 1215....still missed KO. Never had this problem with the fancards. It should not take 15+ mins to get through a turnstile.
Fair point - it does seem this is a long convoluted process when it doesn’t need to be . Anyway don’t turn up too early or you will get run over by the team coaches .
The result was a forgone conclusion...the debacle with queuing, tickets, traffic etc combined with the complete lack of decent amenities in the ground makes for a pretty miserable family day out.
Not just convoluted, but utterly inefficient. There are now stewards on every turnstile to scan ppl through plus others to carry out cursory bag checks; hitherto, I guess there was one steward between every 2/3 turnstiles. Any savings on tech vice printing cards must now being used to pay for additional stewards....?
As we were going in to the VR/GT corner at about 11.50 the senior steward around there shouted "keep moving everyone". And then had to remind the steward in front of the gate to keep people going through, as they were daydreaming instead. The queue for each turnstile was already back across the road, which would have been unusual for 40-45 mins for KO in the past. The technology worked fine for me when the time came though. There were two older chaps a little way in front of us. They had pretty big rucksacks which the stewards searched in surprising detail, so they had to turf a load of stuff out. Then they had issues getting their phones up and running and ready to go through. And then when the light did go green, both promptly got their bags stuck in the turnstile as it rotated. I think that nicely sums up the issue - the problem is people. But the club have invited that problem and seem to have no solution to it in sight.
You missed 50 minutes of watching some stunning passing, movement, closing down and finishing. Not by Watford, admittedly, but I don't understand how any football fan wouldn't enjoy it.
I think we all saw a heavy, one-sided defeat coming. Sometimes, you get beaten by a far better team. Salah was absolutely brilliant yesterday, tore us to shreds and our defence had absolutely no idea what to do or how to deal with him. We need to get rid of Masina, and Cathcart - I've never been wholly sold on Masina, but whilst Cathcart has been a loyal and dependable servant to the club, it's becoming more and more obvious with each passing week that he doesn't have the legs for Premier League football. I also think we need to think long and hard about dropping Troost-Ekong. He is an accident waiting to happen and makes me SO nervous whenever he tries playing out from the back. I'd have Kabasele in next week, and hopefully Nkoulou is fit. Sierrelta coming back in will improve us too. I'm not going to be too harsh on Rose; he's looked pretty decent the last few weeks and all players have off days. However, it did seem more noticeable than in recent times he is carrying a bit of extra weight - hopefully the club can put a lock on the biscuit barrel this week. I do think Ranieri was a sensible appointment, and in time, he will certainly get us a lot more organised at the back. We can't afford to burn too many more games now though. We need to see a reaction next week.
I think you'll find many latecomers were still trying to navigate our 'world-beating' (TM. Boris) new stadium entry system.
It is a Premier league thing that certainly seems to be causing issues everywhere from what I read - not just us. You are tight - there do seem to be more people standing around now and even if you get in someone usually has to press a button to open up the turnstile gate. Apparently they were doing more searches too which no doubt took time and created queues.
