Yep, I agree with these comments and I would add that I thought Ngakia did OK, maybe early on he found Traore too much but he stuck at it and second half Traore was moved on to the other wing.
I’m more than happy to post pictures but they would be easy to fake, there needs to be rules. For example, I need to pose with a picture of a specific Watford player with a random phrase of the forums choosing printed on it.
Driving up to game today listened to the FTRE podcast . They had a Wolves correspondent from The Athletic who said that Wolves were in a false position , they had had 40 odd shots in their previous 3 games without scoring and wouldn't be surprised if they would soon give a team a good thrashing. Wolves stared well and we couldnt really get the ball, we gradually grew into the half and overall I thought we had the better of the chances. Second half started slowly, again Wolves built up head of steam and after opening goal was all over Defensively not bad overall Issue really being out gunned in midfield and slow build up from the back Danny Rose thought did well A few wasted short corners which didn't work Sarr worked hard but let himself and the team down with some poor decision making and very poor delivery of crosses into the box
It’s not Xiscos fault that we are in the position we are, his job was to get us promoted, he did that, however staying in the P.L. Is different! Swapping managers all the time is not the way to go unless we change with a proven P.L. Manager. Seeing as Gino has never gone for a proven P.L. Manager (Pearson was and wasn’t), we might as well go for continuity like Norwich have, take what’s thrown at us and accept us as a yo-yo team which if you can’t survive this league is not such a bad thing!
But we literally did just survive this league, for five straight years. Also worth bearing in mind that Xisco would not have a £50m winger next season if we drop back into the mire, nor a newly-unearthed genuinely international-level centre back.
It's a decent point, but I'd rather go for continuity with Gracia, Pearson, Ivic than Xisco who is pretty much a nomark.
If we could stop gifting goals to the opposition we might have a chance. Seven goals conceded... Four have been absolute blunders... Massina v Villa, Troost v Brighton, Bachmann v Spurs, Sierralta v Wolves Two have been questionable defending... Poor marking from Massina for Brightons' first Wolves second goal today This could be a positive sign in that at least we are not being outplayed for goals, or it could be a sign that our players are just short of EPL quality and therefore make those small mistakes in vital moments where top quality players dont.
Interesting seeing the differing views above. I thought the first half was competitive and both sides could have made a case if they’d led at HT, as there were a handful of half chances for each side. Couldn’t work out Sarr’s decision making throughout but particularly in the first half. Seemed from the Rookery it was easier to shoot than cross a couple of times. Looked like King missed a sitter. And that’s the first time I’ve seen Bachmann close up and wow he’s glued to his line isn’t he? Painfully apparent the defence have near zero trust in him. Xisco needs to bin him off pronto or he’ll relegate us. Thought Ngakia did really well and forced Wolves to switch Traore to their right in the second half. Second half was abysmal. King wasn’t great but I don’t get the man management behind sending someone out for the second half and then publicly hooking him 6 minutes in. His body language going off and sitting down on the bench showed he was pissed off. And from the other end it looked like Bachmann could have taken that cross rather than leaving it to chance and a Sierralta brain fart. My overall feeling was I had no idea what our plan was at any point. We setup like an away side, faffed around far too much at the back, invited pressure, couldn’t string two passes together up front and committed heaps of fouls which broke up the flow of the game. Most worrying is that we don’t look like we have a draw in us. The classic survival strategy is if you can’t win, don’t lose. We don’t look capable of that.
Bit by bit people are coming round to the thought that Sarr makes frequent bad choices when he has got himself into good attacking positions. What's taken you so long? Either it's him (in which case he is nowhere near worth £40mill). Or is it because the strikers don't make the correct runs? And either way a coach must address the issue (and you might quite reasonably ask why this apparently hasn't already happened).
A couple of other points to add: our set-pieces were absolute dog turd; we really missed not getting to sign @reids in the summer. We've also been showing repeated worrying signs of tiring more than the opposition in the final 20 minutes of games, which isn't really a surprise given we spend so much of games on the back foot and the age of a number of our players. That said, Xisco could have made one or two more subs earlier today, particularly taking off Kucka who was generally off the pace.
We very much overpaid for Sarr. That's not to say he isn't our best player and our only asset of significant value. Just another poor investment decision unfortunately. That said I like watching him play for the games he does have a big impact.
Kucka was poor today. 4 weeks ago people were talking of him a planet above Hughes. Maybe some will give Hughes a bit more respect in retrospect.
Why not just get the ball in the box? Really did nothing for us apart from often ending up in losing the ball.
We are generally poor at corners anyway. We just don’t have anyone who can correctly attack the ball and haven’t had anyone who can do that in years, apart from maybe Dawson.
Thought first half was even. We were all at sea first 15 mins but grew in to it. Second half never got going. I actually agreed with King going off but in hindsight that cost us. He really needs a goal
I agree thought he held up the ball well though his passing was poor. Seemed to lose our shape when he came off though that may not have been because of King being efficient.
I thought he'd be a lot better than he is, but he's our best option, which is a bit depressing tbh. I just don't see where the goals are going to come from in this team. We're not creating chances and we're sieve like at the back. It's a huge problem. At least one of these areas has to improve or else we've had it. The biggest problem is we are in the Premier League with a Championship defence and no strike force. Sure, we can sack Xisco, and I'll expect that will happen after the Newcastle game, but we really need to get some more points on the board soon, or else we'll have had a poor start and we all know how hard that is to turn around no matter how good the next head coach is.
In fairness to King, there was a moment of disbelief in the first half for those around me in the Rookery as we struggled to process a move ending in a Watford striker making a run across his man and getting a shot away. Actual movement in the box from our central striker has been as rare as rocking horse poop for about 5 years.
In fairness to King, it’s not as if he’s had many chances created for him to score by the players around him, albeit the one today which I’m pretty sure was just a little too far ahead of him. When he’s having chances created for him and he’s missing them, we'll have something to worry about. Maybe once our midfield starts creating some chances and getting him in behind, rather than hoofing it up to him, he’ll score some goals.
Not hugely slating King or indeed, before anyone starts going off, 'blaming' him for today, but that chance was absolutely on him - there was only one place the ball could have gone, he was aiming for it, and that's where it went; he just didn't work/gamble enough to get there and properly reach it.