Remember, the relegation 6-pointer during the Hoofroyd Prem season against Sheff Utd. Injured jailbird Marlon King offering a rallying cry over the PA, some cards to hold up under instruction, followed by another abject performance and a 0-1 defeat. Just replace Poxbury with Ca$hton and Simpson in this case.
That was the game with the ball boys and the towels right? Certainly up there in terms of embarrassment alongside the lights out humiliation last night.
Good to see one of those historical re-enactment societies breaking off from the Civil War to give us Watford v Yeovil. Made a pleasant change from real football.
Even Sir GT not immune. Remember bringing Kenny and Luther out onto the pitch pre match and racing into a 2-0 lead against Ipswich to then go and choke 3-2.
I still think the fake crowd noise in a home game against Newcastle was the lowest we've ever gone personally.
Welbecks' overhead kick winner was pretty sweet though. Yet another player who was generally crap for us, went on to another club and had more (given marginally) success, ala Dawson.
In hindsight, I actually think I’ve been a bit generous in my assessment. Football isn’t fun anymore. We don’t have to win every match, but at least TRY. Just try. That’s all we ask for. I want to go to the game, have a few pints, have a bit of banter with my mates and watch a team who take pride in what they do. That just isn’t happening any more. I’m an STH, but honestly don’t want to go and watch us at the moment. I just don’t see the point. Time for Claudio to go, and I think Gino needs to do the right thing and sell up - his heart isn’t in it, despite whatever fluffy platitudes come out from lapdog Duxbury.
Have we all calmed down a little now guys? Well I have slept on it and watched the game in full as promised last night. So here is the moment you have all been waiting for, my take on the game Well without a doubt last night was a complete disaster, but did we really play all that bad, because I don't think we did despite the final score? HB1 posted the stats for the match on here last night and according to them we were actually the better team. At the end of the day having re-watched the game in full I think those stats do not lie. IMO we just did not get the rub of the green as Norwich got virtually all of it, along with considerable help from the ref, but I'll get back to this later as I want to give you my assessment of our players: - Bachmann - I do not hold him responsible for the 1st or 3rd goals as he had little chance with either. However he should have done better with the 2nd. Kiko - Not his best game by a long way and I think he made a very similar mistake to Ngakia last week by allowing the cross for their 2nd goal. Kabaselle - Has been given a lot of stick by some on here, but what did he do wrong? Very little if you ask me especially as he has been out for 3/4 months. Samir - Also given stick by some on here, but although I think he should have done better for their 2nd goal he was unlucky for their 1st as the ball hit his leg when he was down and prevented it from going harmlessly out, which gave Pukki the chance to get his cross in. As for the rest of the game I think he did well. Kamara - I don't know why he was subbed as I thought he had a relatively good game. Maybe he was tired or injured? Cleverly - Not his best game, though many of us did want him in the side, but he was rightly hooked IMO. Sissoko - A bit of an enigma, strong and forceful but appalling at finishing with the exception ironically of the offside goal he scored. But how did he miss that open goal that he was presented with, what an appalling miss. Kayembe - Our MotM for me, and so far he seems to be a gem of a find IMO, so lets hope he can keep this up. Dennis - He really must get his arse back in gear, not a good game at all. Having said that I think he was very unlucky to be sent off as the 1st yellow should have been a RED for the Norwich players TWO FOOTED LUNGE ON HIM. As for his 2nd I thought that was a very soft booking as well. King - He did a lot of hustling and bustling, but with very little finesse and dare I say it he reminded me of a certain Mr Gray. Pedro - Some great touches, but also a little greedy at times, a case in point the open goal he could have presented to King, though I suppose he might have thought he would miss it . Overall not a bad game, but he still has a lot to learn though I am sure he will. Cucho - A good overall performance and was unlucky not to score at least twice. Maybe he will start for Dennis next match, however he rarely plays his best when he starts and I think his current super sub position suits him best. Sema - Don't know why he replaced Kamara as I though Kamara was playing well, and quite frankly Sema was pretty much anonymous, sorry Ken but the PL does not appear to be for you. Kucka - Another who has been given a lot of stick by some on here, but other than his weak effort on goal late on which really should have been a goal I think he did OK. What about the own goal I hear you all scream! Well I think he was unlucky with that as if he had not tried to block it the Norwich attacker would have had a simple tap in. OK that was my assessment of the individuals games, so here is my overall summation: - Yes that was a very disappointing result last night hence a lot of people were very upset and possibly overreacted because so much depended on the game. Therefore they possibly lost sight of the fact that we were probably the better team despite the final score. I do think we were the better team overall and apparently the stats say as much as well. I too was so upset last night that I did not watch a fair chunk of the 2nd half after they scored their 2nd goal. Not because I thought we were playing that badly, but because I was so disappointed that we were 2-0 down in such an important game. Therefore I decided to watch it in full this morning in the cold light of day and I am of the opinion we could easily have won that game if we had got even 50% of the rub of the green, but unfortunately pretty much 100% of that luck went Norwich's way. Lets list some of the luck that went their way: - 1. Why did Williams not get a yellow for that horrendous foul on Dennis in the 1st half. 2. Why was Dennis booked at all when it was that Mallu whatshisname who lunged into him with a two footed tackle for which he should have seen RED IMO. 3. Their 1st goal was much more luck than skill as Pukki got lucky keeping it in as it hit Samir on the leg when he was down, and as for that flick Sargent just got lucky sticking his leg out. Finally I do not agree that we are now down, because we hopefully will soon have a full complement of players to choose from with players coming back from injury also coming back from Afcon and maybe even some more new recruits and or recalled players currently out on loan. Furthermore if Norwich can get out of the bottom three then so can we and surely our luck must change soon. Whether Uncle Claudio will be the man to lead us out of the bottom three and to safety remains to be seen, but I am hoping last nights debacle will spur us on to do just that rather than sink us into despondency.
Happy Clapper? I admire your somewhat blind faith, but the majority of fans feel that we will struggle to get to 20 points. If you look hard enough you will always find something good, no matter how awful we were last night and we were dreadful. You are obviously a deep seated fan, but l think you are clutching at straws from a performance that had the look of relegation all over it. One ticket wins the lottery, so you never know...
Not the most important stat of all though Just out of interest as you’ve just watched it again, how many of our improved stats occurred after we went 0-2 and a man down? From memory we only really woke up and started fighting then. I don’t remember us having many shots on target at 11 v 11 but might be wrong
I hope you're right, VoR but I'm not sure you are. A poor Norwich keeper had no shots to save that were worthy of the name in the first half despite our dominance of midfield, and after the fluky first goal we fell apart. I've just watched Everton and with Big Dunc in charge they look streets ahead of us even though they lost.
I can only suggest you watch it in the cold light of day and see for yourself as your take might be different in the cold light of day, you might be surprised at what you see.
I don’t want to watch it again, I’ve got better things to do with my time. You went to great lengths to give your detailed opinion on last night and I asked a reasonable question to expand on your opinion. As you’d recently watched it.
Sorry, I can’t agree that the problem was only the second half (despite the three goals). In my view that game was lost, or at least not won, in the first half hour when Watford basically did nothing against a poor, poor opponent. It was so reminiscent of the Brentford game: a great opportunity to get on top and push the opposition back but it completely passed them by. The only time when they played with any real verve was when it was too late at 3-0 down with ten men.
Can I just say, been reading this forum since 2007 or so and this is the darkest most despondent thread I have seen on here.
Sort of goes hand in hand with the floodlight failures last night. Even the stadium had given up on the team.
Because we've rinsed every excuse there is, thought maybe the Pereyra, Capoue & Deeney squad was possibly just uniquely toxic. That squad has been stripped, replaced and the same underlying issues remain. That was the hope, now that's been extinguished. Now we know a change of ownership is really what's needed, that's something that doesn't happen quickly or overnight, it could take years and even then there's a lot of scenarios where it could go even worse. Truth is, we're game over halfway through the season, 20 played out of 38, what is that, 52% played? And I have no hope of staying up. How fecking sad is that. Norwich has this belief now with back-to-back wins. Newcastle has hope in their billions. Burnley has belief in Dyche and being here many times before, what do we have? What is our hope? A new head coach coming in and uniting 20 unmotivated strangers with one sole purpose? Good luck to the man.
Thanks TVOR. A wildly optimistic prognosis for the remainder of the season on the basis of last night but my main thanks is for having the bottle to watch the game again. I just cannot stomach a re-run of that, ever. I'd already consigned the Brentford game in that same bin. I fear some more this season still to come sadly. I do agree that Mike Dean had one of his arrogantly odd one-sided games that meant every 50/50 fell their way as did some pretty cast iron decisions that we should have had. The chirpy scouser just smiled his way through the match convinced that he was being totally fair. Prize ****.
I share your optimism. I think the break has come at the right time, and I think we will be much better when the injured players come back. Most of us thinks just because we lost the easiest game of the season to Norwich means we won't survive the drop, just four points in our next three games and we are out of the bottom three. With our injured players and Afcon players back, our team will be much stronger with competition for places. The truth is, we didn't really played that badly in our last two games, we were just unfortunate and our players made some poor decisions which affected the outcome of those games. Let's get behind the team after the break, the team has been strengthened with the three new signings, and more might still join, we have been playing better and I think this team needs just a win from somewhere to build confidence and who knows we could go on a short run of games without defeat and we can build on that. Sent from my TECNO P701 using Tapatalk
Who are these magic owners that are going to come in and take us any further? We are small town in a terrible catchment area with 3 of the big 6 on our doorstep. I think a lot people on here are kidding themselves that anyone coming in is going to improve things, we aren't attractive to the middle Eastern princes. I am 26 so I missed the GT glory days. But I did live through the post Vialli era where our club was in genuine shambles and nearly went under. Gino has got a lot wrong in the last few years, but across his tenure he's got a lot more right. Realistically what more can we get from our limited resources? Or should we overreach like Leeds did or Portsmouth? I am not saying there aren't problems, I'm not blind but there are far worse owners out there than Gino.
I think the point is some people aren’t talking about new owners coming in and improving things in terms of absolute league position, many just don’t like how the club is run and would accept ‘worse’ owners as far as the league they can get us to operate in.
