yeah he’s useless and an idiot to boot. I’m just so sick of sacking managers that I want our idiots to give someone a chance for a season or longer. But wider blame is Pozzo and his bulletproof henchmen.
Did you? It was a very underwhelming appointment, but l did see many comments that supported him and some that were unhappy. Those who did criticized him by saying he was limited coach, a one trick pony, no plan B, preplanned 60 mins substitutions, easy to play against , VI ball and dull tactics were generally slammed by the regular elite members on this forum. We were never in the running to get a decent manager. Ismael was a desperation appointment. We were never going to sign any decent players. Boardroom tactics, reduce the squad, reduce backroom staff, reduce our £200m+ debt and sell the club. No parachute money next season, so it is going to become far more grim. The game today was two relegation strugglers in a dull 0-0 draw. This is us, so get use to it
I found it revealing that Valerie Singleton said we needed to shoot more. This is exactly the audacious, thought provoking, tactical awareness we have been crying out for. When might I expect our " shot" to be executed? Speaking of which I note that Fluminense have a man named John Kennedy.
G.T. Would be turning in his grave!, if you don’t shoot you don’t score he said!, we played a team with 11 players out! Having been beaten 4-0 in their last two games, instead of tippy tippy in our half why don’t we go hell for leather in their half, but what do I know!
Only teams to not score against Huddersfield this season are Rotherham, Sheff Wed & Watford. That is the kind of teams we’re competing with, we’re just a bit better than them really. Wrong subs again.
Just got in the front door, what a waste of a Saturday that turned out to be. We could have played all week and wouldn’t have scored. Huddersfield are abysmal and we weren’t much better.
It really doesn’t matter if it’s Healey, Bayo or Ann Swanson up front at the moment when there are no decent chances being made. We create nothing. Asprilla yet again created nothing today yet some people were still up in arms about Bayo.
Jamal Lewis would have suited last seasons squad perfectly. Lazy, gutless and nowhere near as good as he was made out to be.
But our whole midfield looks up waiting for Bayo to spin in behind to lob a pass over! Or Asprilla playing one in with pace in behind, how often do they hoof it or play a one two and receive it back bouncing off the big tall striker? Makes no sense, we use a big tall striker and don’t play to their strengths either! In fact I don’t really know what the attacking plan, only when Rajovic comes on do we tend to have a very basic plan of cross it in far post and lofty. That’s it!
I think the trouble is we haven’t got many quick and direct players who consistently influence a game positively which is why we do seem to play a negative style of football ( or rather the modern way to play as Pep does ..) Even the Huddersfield fans said we were too passive and played in front of them until the last few minutes.
Only caught the second half, and from the half time reports I should consider myself lucky. That's the type of game last season where perhaps JP or Sarr step up for 5mins, show some sort of quality and we nick the game. Unfortunately, we don't have any players of that quality capable of conjuring up something out of nothing in the squad. Instead it was a lot of 5-10yrd passes, backwards and sideways, at a pedestrian pace amounting to sweet fcuk all. And I don't feel much anger or frustration at the majority of the players themselves. I don't look at Kayembe, Livermore, Bayo, Ngakia, Sema etc. and feel like they're massively underperforming, or not arsed putting a shift in. The simple reality is that they're middle of the road, midtable championship level players playing more or less to their ability. Asprilla still looks to me more effective off the bench, which is no slight on him at all, being a very young player in a tough physical league. Martins shows glimpses also, but again is only 20 and will be inconsistent as we've seen. Still should have come on earlier today. Really don't understand Ismaels substitutes sometimes. Why not have Kayembe sit deep late on, and throw Healy on for Livermore and go 2 up top. I'd rather lose 1-0 trying to win the game than limping to a tame 0-0 draw to one of the weakest teams in the league. Still, 5 unbeaten and all that.
Nice no frills reasonably priced meal in 'Spoons before the match was as good as it got . Train from Huddersfield to Manchester delayed put the cherry on the icing. We looked ok for 15 or so minutes then it just went turgid . A blind man can surely see that we have no "outball" player up top hence the pass pass pass pedestrian paced football. We cannot get out of 2cnd gear because we do not have the player who can lead the line , gain good possession, and have other players playing off of him. We struggle to play in the attacking third because of this and so our play is condensed How many times did our 2 CBs have possession in their half ? HTFC were happy for this to happen because they knew our strikers could not hurt them or bring others into play. IMO Bayo was the better of the 2 today but not much. New Year shopping list: A GK who comes for crosses A no. 9 who can lead the line
He wants them to attack I think but we aren’t very good at it because we haven’t got the players particularly up front to break teams down . I don’t think he is deliberately setting us up to be negative like a Ivic or Hodgson but appears that way as we don’t have the movement or cutting edge for a quick passage of play . I know that is up to him to sign and pick the right players though for his style of play .
I don't think we struggled so much yesterday because we don't have some creative players in the team. Asprilla, Chakvetadze, Louza and Koné are all able play a killer ball behind or take a dangerous shot. Sema and Martins are direct and normally put in shots or crosses too. What we struggled with yesterday was getting the ball to them so that they could then do something with it afterwards. Huddersfield were happy with sitting deep and leaving no space in behind for us to try and exploit as we have done at times this Season. The 4-3-3 shape VI uses relies on space down the wings to cause panic and drag the opposition wider and out of shape that then creates the opportunities we didn't have. I could understand letting the first half play out as it did because it's Plan A and what the players are most familiar with. We saw 3-5-2 fail miserably when we tried a new system. What we should have had was a 4-4-2 so that either a combination of Bayo, Rajovic or Healey could try and have a bigger chance of winning 2nd balls and enable us to play more directly to get our players on the ball in more dangerous and effective positions that way instead. Every one of our creative players whenever they got the ball always had at least 2 or 3 players to try and beat ahead of them which we couldn't do nor could they find a past with the perfect pass so going more direct would have naturally put them higher up the pitch and in a more dangerous position. As it's clear we don't want to move away from 4-3-3, I think though what we're seeing is a dire need for a new CDM in January who can tackle and also pass it with some range that would massively help to break down teams like Huddersfield going forward. Livermore has been excellent at the former but the latter is where he understandably struggles because that's never been his game. We solely rely on Hoedt for our adventurous passing from the back and it puts too much onus on one player who the opposition can then focus on to stymie our attacks like we saw yesterday because nobody in our defence or shielding players can pass it beyond short passes reliably except for Hoedt. I'm glad Sierralta's CDM experiment has been stopped because although I appreciate having some emergency depth there, it also hid the fact we only had one proper CDM in the team in Livermore. Kayembé is not and never has been a CDM like some managers have tried to fit him into and thankfully VI recognises this. My ideal solution would be to ship out Louza in January and bring in a like for like in profile. Additionally I'd then also bring in a CDM who could pass and tackle. It was a hateful game to watch and it has shown some of the worst traits of VI's game management. However I will also say we're seeing a level of commitment from the team that we've sorely lacked for many years. Although not having Koné starting hurt us today it was because of his own actions and ill discipline and was treated consistently like Hamer, Louza and Dele-Bashiru has been. This kind of management is a hugely positive thing and it's notable there's been no repeat offenders as of yet. Nobody out there looked like they weren't trying or they were disinterested and let Huddersfield bully them either and that's the first time I can say that consistently about a Watford side since 2018/2019. We were crap but at least we were committed. In isolation, it's not a world ending result if we get a win vs Rotherham now but yesterday raised some valid concerns that must be addressed going forward in both tactics and squad recruitment come January.
I don't think he is being negative but at the risk of repeating myself we seem to get bogged down in midfield as our options up top are sub standard. Maybe using a "false 9" could be an alternative ?
That's the sort of game we would probably have lost last season. Losing to teams in disarray and on bad runs was one of the few things we were really good at last season.
Yes I did. Often. Probably too often tbh. I was a bit unfair without giving him a chance. And I was miffed we didn't try harder to get Farioli. But I was unhappy the moment I heard we were linked with VI. And I have got used to it. There’s no sense of entitlement from me. I realise the mess we are in and how tired the club and it’s ownership currently feels. Ismael has done some good, it’s not all black or white, but I still feel he s a tactically limited coach and I’m sad that he seems the best we can do in our current situation. Did he do enough during the match yesterday to give us the best chance of winning it? I’d say no. And that’s the frustrating thing. Even in our present malaise, we don’t have to be so limited.
I think Ismael has to be a little concerned now. We're 5 unbeaten, but the level of opposition has all been against bottom half teams. In those 5 games he's been lucky, IMO. Sliding door moments against Swansea and Sheff Wed, could have meant two defeats instead of two victories. A 93rd minute goal prevented defeat against Millwall. So from those 5 unbeaten games, we could easily have had 3 defeats, so luck has been on his side for sure recently and things have gone his way to a degree. Yesterday was unacceptable though. To have been that cautious against a club who is currently on it's knees in terms of available players. They had 11 out including their captain. They'd shipped in 8 goals during their previous two matches. It should have been easy pickings, but we laboured to a deserved 0-0 draw. That should not be happening. Ismael gives an air of authority and confidence, and I think that's what the board have lapped up. But for me, strip away the talk and just watch the games. This is where he should be judged. Ok, our injury problems are none existent this season, which is a good thing. Discipline and work ethic seem to have improved, but we're still crap on a match day more often than not. We've won only FOUR matches all season, and 3 of those were late wins. It's a poor record, and let's be fair, we've had a very comfortable first 15 games in terms of difficulty. I still think we're right in the relegation mix, when you consider the games we still have to play this season. Ismael will come out with rational conclusions post-match and will assure that the next game will see improvements, but he's been singing from that hymn sheet all season. I'm not seeing progression at all. I'm just seeing regression and plateaux. Next match is on paper our easiest remaining fixture this season. It has to be a convincing win or else I think he could well be on his way out.
Glad I didn't waste any time watching that. More mediocrity again. Funny how Pedro and Garner and others are flourishing away from the Vic.
Well they are pretty good players much better than us . Can be be no surprise there . I mean Pedro looked pretty good even with the dross around him .
I don't think fitness and late winners can all be brushed off quite as easily as you've said. How often in the last few Seasons have we conceded late goals? How often have we bemoaned our fitness and injuries? No injuries isn't sustainable but the lack of muscular injuries and management of them cannot be overlooked. The last 2 Seasons have produced the least fit and least mentally strong teams I can recall in a Watford shirt and that's because of the constant changing managers being undermined by the board and Gino constantly changing managers and their rudderless actions. VI has to be given credit here, however begrudgingly, because we haven't seen that for quite a few years. He does seem to have the respect of the squad which is a rarity. If given the choice between Eustace or Ismael at the beginning of the Season I think Eustace would have been the fan's and board's first choice. Eustace wasn't available though. I think changing the manager between now and Season's end would reset the slowly changing work ethic and team spirit we are also seeing. I wouldn't be against changing VI for JE come Season end but we can't keep doing the same thing each Season. We are where we are now because of that and have to change our ways at some point. For better or worse, VI is who we've chosen to do this. If we constantly change managers, they will ignore the medical team when it comes to injury management because they need immediate results. That's how we got to the ridiculous list we had these last few years. I agree our performances overall have been poor these last 2 months. But we are still picking up points which matters. Currently walking the dog so post isn't quite as cohesive as I'd like but think point comes across
I don't think this a balanced view to point out we have been lucky in those 5 games in isolation. One could argue we were even more unlucky not to get more points from the games against Plymouth, Stoke, Blackburn, Coventry, WBA. We lacked a lot yesterday and it was uninspiring but we weren't lucky to get a point.
I went to the game and said something very similar to my son. On paper I think we are superior to Huddersfield, but we kept tippy tappying the ball from side to side. All our passes were to players with there back to goal. Rarely did our players run on to a ball. 70% possession, and how many shots did we have??? Shocking! They needed a Graham Taylor style rollicking at half time. I feel sorry for Bayo. He works so hard, making runs and not once did he get a ball played through to him. Bayo would score loads of goals in a Graham Taylor team. Can you imagine if that game was played in 1980? They would have come out for the second half looking like a different side and hammered them.
