Kucka and Tufan were likely brought in to be the more attacking midfielders at the point of a midfield three. However, one was fat and crap, and the other is ready for the knacker's yard. Kucka actually had a decent scoring record in the past, but that's where it is. We also didn't bother trying to replace them in Jan despite them being failed signings. In some ways that matters a bit less though now we've gone to a 442 with Hodgson, but it makes us reliant again on our other players to rediscover their shooting boots. As for the DMs, Etebo and Louza were probably meant to be the more deep-lying midfielders, but one has been injured most the season, and the other is not ready and was not the style of midfielder we needed there anyway.
Even they are not actually attacking midfielders, though - as you say, they might be considered a bit 'more attacking' than, say, Etebo, if you want to try and use them that way, but Kucka has appeared as either a central midfielder or a defensive midfielder more times than any other position in his career by a factor of 15-20, and, of course, we can all see that he's not a player to bring any kind of guile or line-breaking from watching him play. Tufan is very similar in terms of the proportion of his career spent in central or defensive midfield, and he was always sold to us (by random Turkish fans, not any communication from the club, of course) as an all-action box-to-box rather than any kind of playmaker.
There's more heart and passion but I'm very concerned with the response from going 1 down and the changes he made. Kamara was excellent and I even thought Kiko looked good. But I believe King needs to be dropped with JP and Dennis starting. Hopefully Sarr is back for the weekend. We do look a little blunt at the moment.
This team will down tools and stop pressing within the next 3 games, so we will have a biteless team playing turgid Englandball making mistake after mistake. COYHs.
The sword of Damocles hanging over the head of any incoming Watford coach - 'when will this team stop trying?'. It doesn't always take that much! Here's hoping Roy's approach manages to counteract that and keep them motivated/fighting somehow - you'd probably say it's something he's known for, at least.
Whatever was spent on Tufan and Kayemebe would have been better spent on Lewis Ferguson. Obviously no guarantee he was good enough but he was young, decent goal scoring record and a better profile.
Leventhal falling back on the COG favourite position of demanding the person criticising specifically name a replacement owner otherwise the argument is invalid. Sad to see his absolute fall from grace from a very decent TV sports journalist to trying to belittle a Twitter user called ‘Lord Heineken 5’.
Didn't catch the game last night but just watched the highlights. Find it surprising so many have said that a draw probably would have been fair and West Ham didn't really look like scoring... they hit the post twice! Meanwhile Watford didn't have any clear chances. How did Samir play? The Benrahma double chance was shocking defending from him that thankfully didn't get capitalised on.
I thought Samir looked decent, which he has done on the whole. But like all of our defenders he has a mistake in him. I do think he suits English football though with his aggression in the air, he could be great in the Championship but I suspect he'll head back to Udinese.
At times he looked quite savvy and covered well - often stepping out or reacting fairly decisively/quickly to deal with threats. But, as you say, there was that incident, and you could also accuse him of backing off and backing off and backing off to allow Bowen the free run and shot at goal that he scored from by deflecting it off Samir himself... So far he looks like an upgrade on our worst calamities at centre back, but not even as high quality as Nkoulou did in his short time to date, to me.
The trouble with just watching the highlights is you don't get an overall perspective on the game., you just get to see what the TV director want's you to see! Believe it or not we were actually probably the better team and that is not just me saying that, the match commentators and pundits said as much as well.
I wonder how much of a say he had in it. I would not be surprised if his bosses told him to play Zouma. Think of who they are.
This was true in the first half, and that is indeed what they said at the half (fairly), but I really don't think it stands up in the second - they managed to get their other hand out from behind their back just enough to do what needed to be done, and we had no real response. As I posted straight after, it was another fairly typical Watford Wind Down, in truth.
We started solid with two banks of four which West Ham struggled to break down but the ball kept coming back at us when we cleared it. After a while West Ham started making mistakes which allowed us to counter and we finished the half the better side - as said by the commentators The second half started as the first finished but after they scored, our defence got deep and the space between the two banks of four widened. West Ham looked much the better side after that and only a King break (without any support) and a long range Cleverley shot (our only one on target) is what we had to shout about. Kamara looked very good over the 90 minutes and while obvious a West Ham player would get MOTM it was odd to hear it given to the player Kamara defended well against. Lazy commentator reaction to name the player that scored
I wasn't at the game and there is some truth in it. Of all the grounds to get a good picture of the game, The Olympic Stadium is not it. Been 4 times, not bothering again.
We simply were not the better team last night. We were better than we have been in previous weeks but thats not really saying much. West Ham were poor - yet did more to win the game than we did. I can just about understand an argument about us being worth a point - but the better team? No chance.
What makes you think JP would be any different and deserves to start ahead of King? They were as useless as each other vs Burnley.
Can I ask - what would you do? Play with no strikers? Because you seem highly critical of all of them and shut down anyone who suggests which one should play...so I'm wondering what plan you'd go with?
I thought first half we looked pretty good. Kamara was excellent. I know people are saying that West Ham were rubbish, but our shape and work rate forced them to pass it along the back and forced them into corridors where they couldn't progress the ball easily. Roy is doing a good job with a team with no previous defensive shape, a weak mentality and lacking stamina. If we scored our point blank header, who knows what would have happened. Zouma is a massive ****, but was dominant in the air and his playing meant that we couldn't use Dennis to exploit the lack of pace behind Diop, potentially disrupting Roy's gameplan. Second half was clearly worse. A key issue we have is that our defensive, tactical midfielders have to be swapped around the hour mark. Roy needed to inject more pace earlier, to give us an out ball and to close down Bowen. Overall we probably deserved a point or a narrow loss (Xg supports this 0.9 - 0.3). I think we are about 60-70% relegated, with our only hope that Roy can keep our workrate/ belief up, whilst Sarr's return turns 0-0s into 1-0s.
He'll play him as one of the front 2...as he regularly did with Zaha. Difference is Palarse had a midfield that could get the ball to him.
No, I just think that although King doesn't look like scoring he still offers more in his general play and holding the ball up than JP, and thus it's justified starting him instead. Clearly Hodgson also agrees. JP has typically made more of an impression off the bench. I already posted a few days ago that if we're sticking with 442 then ideally the front 4 would be: ----Dennis King ---- Kalu ------------ Sarr Though that's assuming Kalu isn't now utter gash, which he could well be.
That's fair enough but I believe King has no direct competition in the ranks and needs to see for himself that he's not undroppable. Pedro had a nice little cameo last night and ghosted past a few to put the ball in the danger area late on. I personally would like to see him get a decent run in the side as one of the front two, that's if Roy keeps the same shape. It's just my opinion.
Exactly - I hope this is not the case. He's about the closest thing to creativity we can claim, especially in tandem with his sometimes alright enough relationship with Kiko behind him - he's never convinced when played centrally in the slightest.
I said at the start of the season the squad has a brand new MLS franchise feel to it with a team just thrown together based on whoever was available Now I think it’s more like your mates 5 a side team who’s asked you to bring a friend along to make up the numbers even though he can’t really play football
Maybe Scott should copy Fozzy and set up a youtube channel 'The bul$hitting CEO'. He lies shamelessly to the fanbase and no doubt to the players we sign too and yet he's still the CEO.
King has played more minutes since he last scored than JP has played all season. King has had his chance to prove he is good enough to be our main striker and not delivered. Time to give JP the chance to prove what he can do over a few games as our main striker.
What I don't understand in that is why Sissoko appears to be on the left wing?! Either way it was ridiculous that even though we were effectively playing with 4 CMs, we still found a way to let Bowen have all the time in the world to shoot from the CM position.
