Well that was awful, at least it puts the season to rest. No need to watch anymore Watford games until July 30th, happy days!
There is something in this, definitely. During the 2cnd half Dennis had the ball on the edge of penalty area and Pedro was overlapping into space and the ball was played into the centre into a bunch of Leeds defenders. 5 minutes later the reverse situation which ended with a Pedro shot blazed over instead of a pass to Dennis in space .
Dennis was having and moan and strop in the warm up when they were doing that piggy in the middle thing.
Roy Hodgson who’s 74 and is probably one of the top five “most experienced” managers in the world, given his age, clubs AND countries he’s managed. He gave Brighton the freedom of Vicarage Road, parked the bus and still lost hopelessly so what does that make him?
He’s lost 20 of his last 38 games, conceding 71 in the process. Roy “he’ll get you organised” Hodgson
Don't quite agree with that - yes, Newcastle was embarrassingly bad first half after a bright start but we upped the tempo second half enough to get the crowd behind us and nearly had a (however undeserved) winner. But yes, RS2 mentioned Brighton away but that first half was a more comical example of how out of his depth Xisco was given it was Steve Bruce and a really bad Newcastle side we were facing at the time - the four corners in succession we conceded, the free long range shots on our goal, Cathcart in panic mode almost giving away another goal with a suicidal back pass (which bad though he is, wouldn't have happened had we been organised properly). Also Brighton away was unquestionably bad but I think the reverse fixture was even worse especially when you consider what was at stake. On the plus side, Xisco now seems to be doing quite well at Huesca who after an indifferent start are closing in on the La Liga 2 play-offs with 18 points from the last 30, so he may turn out to be a good rather than lucky manager, if not ever up to managing at the top level.
I can’t really comment too much on his achievements at Huesca as I’m obviously not as familiar with the lay of the land in Spanish football as I am English, but Huesca were a La Liga team last season, so I would’ve thought on the face of it he should’ve been challenging at the top of the league, rather than lower/mid table for most of it. They’re also 6 points away from 6th with 7 games to go so probably as likely to make the playoffs as we are to avoid relegation.
Fair enough - misread the table and thought they were 5 points from 6th and didn't notice that they play only 42 games in that division and not 46. Still, his predecessor had a bad start and maybe he had a few problems to sort out before they could really get going (a bit like us before he stumbled on the Deeney-less formula, though as I've said before were it not for Troy's injury, I think we would've have been on much the same run as Xisco has been on at Huesca until recently, which would've only been enough for a lower play-off place).
So true. For some reason I decided that going to watch this match was a good idea. First game I've been to all season. My main takeaways were: - Watching our forwards is like watching a bunch of kids playing, who hog the ball and don't understand how to be team players. - Kucka was much better than I expected. - King was awful. - Pedro is going to be some player. - The notion that any Udinese players were going to fix us has, again, been proved wrong (not that this wasn't blindingly obvious in January). - Sarr can **** off. I wouldn't even bother playing him again this season. Give Kalu a chance and look to building for next season. (I am well aware that Pozzo doesn't 'do' forward planning in any way shape or form. So there is zero chance of this happening.) We will not get promoted next season. Norwich will keep Smith and continue playing with confidence. Dyche knows how to get a team promoted. That's 2 promotion spots gone already.
The latter point is a very good one, if Dyche stays at Burnley you’ve got a manager who has got Burnley promoted from the championship 2 seasons out of 2, Norwich are obviously experts at it and Smith seems to be at least no worse a manager than Farke. Then either one of Cooper and Wilder or possibly both won’t get promoted and with a full season with their clubs will be right up there next season.
Just seen this. Fair enough. Shame the group didn’t stick around for it. Which is why it looked weird.
Nah, Hodgson gave Brighton far too much respect to play whatever football they want. Notoriously goal-shy and we let them have their way. They play good football, yet have won as many games as Leeds, Everton, Southampton and Newcastle. Lol.
Talking of which, when do we get to play at home again? Looking forward to using the stuffing of Manure as a springboard for another unbeaten run.