Championship - 2022/23

I am going to bet £10 on us going down not because technically the squad is bottom 3 in the division but the mentality is to weak and pathetic them capitulating at the slightest sign of trouble seems 50/50

 

Millwall also isn't a disjoint squad of mentally weak losers so they are more than the sum of their parts.

 

All of those players are less cowardly man-for-man than each player in our squad so I would replace all of them as they make up for the lack of ability by not being ****s

 

We had an equally mentally weak squad last time we went down, full of cowards and shirkers. Finished comfortably second and set defensive records.

 

I like most of your posts and I kind of understand what you're getting at, but I do despair when I hear this sort of comment. Would you really have swapped that win at Wembley for a 7th place finish? Football is all about the glory of the moment and that was one of the best I've experienced in 50 years of watching Watford. What has happened subsequently has undeniably been poor, but I suspect it would have happened anyway.

 

Not for the grammar, I presume?

 

Similar to the Play Off semi final v Leicester, which was such a high that the players seemed to think the job was done and turned in a terrible performance in the final v Palace.

 

I would've swapped that Wembley win seeing as I was in the forecourt for the Geri wonder goal, down Wembley Way for the late penalty and Harrow on The Hill for the winner. In my defence I had a fractured hand in a cast and a terrified son who wanted to leave after it kicked off next to us.

#cherisedmemories

 

Oh dear.

What happened with it kicking off? Trouble with games like that is you never know who is going to be sat around you.

 

Big kick off with fans. Some idiots actually kicked off at Tony Cotons old minder because he had a midlands accent so he left the seats too. Ironic that when he told us in the concourse he said to hang around after so I could meet my hero and I missed that opportunity too. Lovely guy really wanted yo make sure the kids we were with were OK.

 

Maybe.

 

Possibly.

 

Which part are you saying "possibly" to?

Our performances and results literally dropped off a cliff immediately following that game.

Wolves even beat us at home 4 games later. Deeney got his ridiculous red card vs Arsenal. Cathcart crapped the bed in the first minute at home to Southampton. Everything went to pot.

 

All of it

 

Sunderland spending over £10m to retain Jack Clarke. Guy barely made an appearance for Spurs.

The top teams are building great squads by selling absolute nobodies for massive amounts.

 

Where'd you get that from?

Sunderland fans seem to think it's around £3-4mil up front, with add-ons potentially taking it to about £7mil+.

 

Sky ticker

 

I dont think the season would've panned out much different. The big difference is that Scott and Gino might not have lost the plot if we'd lost the semi. After beating Wolves pretty much everyone at the club thought we were better than them and had become an established premier league side. We thought we just had to turn up the following season to avoid relegation.

The reality was Wolves completely outplayed us for over an hour and we needed a wonder goal and a farcical (but legitimate) penalty to get back into the game and the reason Wolves were shot in extra time was cos they thought theyd already won and couldnt reset their mentality.

If we'd lost the semi I think we'd have had more chance of staying up especially as we wouldnt have had the bonus problem. But we would still have had the issue of Cathcart and Dawson not working together, Doucoure downing tools cos he wanted out, Deeney being past it and spending most of our transfer budget on a player who didnt fit our system. Those were the days when our debt was 'only' 8 figures.

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned already but I was very interested to hear Elton saying at his concert that when the tour is over he's going to be much more actively involved at the club and gonna get his hands dirty. Very very interesting indeed!!! Better get the shredder out Gino LOL!!

 

The same guy tweeted just after it that Henry would prefer to stay in Italy and Hellas Verona are also interested. The story could just be trying to push his price up for Verona?

He'd easily be our best striker if he came in though and outperformed Manaj in Serie A who seems to be joining us.

Hopefully he turns Boro down and joins Verona.

https://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/mid...thomas-henry-player-pushing-for-hellas-verona

 

Boro seem to be lining up to have a real crack at promotion this season.

 

Our squad are all "good in championship but not good enough for premier League". We need a few astute signings but don't need to splash the cash. Teams like Boro have average championship squads so do need to splash the cash. If your perception is that anyone will easily finish above us because they spent more money then your being foolish and unnecessarily pessimistic of our chances.

Our squad as it is should easily finish top 6 and with a little luck will be top 2.

 

Our performances that season were not that great, it was only a series of wonder goals that got us into the position we were in.

Once they dried up we dropped like a stone.

 

Agreed. If you go back and watch our goals from that season (think there is a video on the club's YouTube channel) it is like watching the goal of the season nominations. We were often scoring 2 or 3 'worldies' a game. Completely unsustainable.

 

There is absolutely nothing easy about any game in the Championship, especially when our midfield looks so weak.
We could get lucky with a strong defensive setup but once teams work out our weaknesses we will be in trouble because of having no enforcers in the middle of the pitch. Udinese are happy by the look of it to lose Walace, a 6-2 solid defensive midfielder who can and does usually screen a back three. Why is he not being pushed our way. He will know WTE and Samir his communication shouldn't be a problem especially if the three was Samir, WTE and FS. He is exactly the type we need imo and would allow the wing backs more freedom.

 

Not easy but we still have a squad that should be comfortable top 6.

Louza, Cleverly, Gosling, Kayembe are likely better than most championship midfields despite being a little old in places. Dele Bashiru has played here before and should be ok.

 

Until not long ago I'd have agreed that a lack of enforcers/destroyers in CM was a big issue in that area of the pitch, but having seen the last friendly and how Edwards has set us up I reckon the lack of goal threat or at even creativity from midfield is even more of a problem.

It seems we'll be playing with one CM dropping deep in front of the back 4, and then 2 box-to-box CMs in front.

Louza and Kayembe seem nailed as the two options for the deeper lying CM role, but the 2 box-to-box roles appear up for grabs (though Kayembe might end up taking one once Louza is back).

With 3 CBs and 1 deep-lying CM, that's already quite a lot of protection in defence, even if neither Louza nor Kayembe are the toughest midfielders. Edwards also clearly intends that the other 2 CMs must work their socks off in winning the ball back.

The problem with all this is it doesn't leave much room or impetus left for our CMs to join the attack. If the wing-backs don't get forward enough, which only Kiko is really confident in doing, then we're left very reliant on 2 isolated CFs. A very similar tactical approach actually hasn't worked out too badly for Brentford, but that was in large part because although they didn't pose much threat in open play, preferring to stay solid, they were excellent in grabbing a lot of goals from set-pieces (it also helped that Toney can be a menace even on his own). They were still transformed last season when they eventually got the creativity of Eriksen in to CM.

I'm sure anyone else we bring in for the role will be someone Edwards is confident will work their nuts off for the team in winning the ball, but hopefully they'll have some attacking quality/creativity/goal threat on top of that.

 

But by having a midfielder that sits would allow the wing backs the opportunity to bomb forward and put crosses into the box. If not I don't see the point of three at the back.

 

That should in theory be the case, but as I said only Kiko is likely to be particularly adept at doing that as things stand. Kamara still seems a bit too reserved going fowards.

Sema could maybe do so but he was terrible yesterday and is in general very unpredictable.