It did make me laugh when Helen Ward sympathised with him on Hive Live saying 25 yards is too far out for her to shoot too
Looking forward to him getting a chance to run riot against an opponent more at his level at the weekend.
About the only thing you can say positive is that he looks dangerous and opposition defenders keep close tabs on him, so providing more space for others. But his pace is glacial. He's obviously been told to challenge the keeper when the ball is on the ground, but he never gets anywhere near. A waste of time really. A terrible back pass from them in the 1st half and he took ages to react before plodding forwards, leaving the keeper plenty of time to come out and clear. Also in the first half, Andrews got clean through and really should have shot. However he decided to pass it across the face of goal for a tap in for Raj. Unfortunately the defender got a touch and put it out for a corner. If it had have got through, a pound to a pinch of ship that Raj would have put it wide or hit the keeper anyway.
It’s hard to dislike him, because I believe he tries his best. He just doesn’t have the core skills that you need to be a professional footballer. At the stage of his life, you have coaching that is based on an assumption that your players have the basic talents and a coach’s job is to enhance those talents, not to start off at u8 level again. I do not blame Rakovic at all. What is he supposed to do? Tell his manager “I’m not good enough”? We have to get to a situation where his role is limited to coming on later in games to try and pinch an equaliser from balls smashed into the six yard box. Anything other than that, IV is just frustrating himself, the squad, Raj and supporters by playing him. As I have said in other posts, that all sounds mean, but professional sport is ruthless.
Will be interesting to see what happens V Chesterfield if he starts, I imagine the likes of a Grieves, Ince and Pollock will start, may even have Bachman in goal!
I've said this before in this thread but I don't think he should be completely written off until he's had a pre-season with us. Kayembe looked like he gained half a yard of pace and some agility over the summer with Val's routine, so maybe Rajovic can as well. He also arrived here after already having played 20 games of the Swedish season so could be feeling that a bit.
Not “mean” in the slightest. This is the professional game at the end of the day; there is literally multi-millions of pounds at stake for the club.. He’s paid a bonkers salary, and if he’s not performing well enough, he needs to know that, especially from the manager of all people. I want(ed) Rajovic to do well, but he’s not doing well at all… He doesn’t press, he doesn’t head the ball well, his touch can be atrocious at times, and he’s pathetically slow. In terms of his good attributes, its holding up the ball for 3 seconds, and then playing out to the wingers for them to do the running. Oh, and scoring tap ins. The 8 goals he’s scored, whilst an OK tally at this stage of the season, is papering over the cracks of his actual footballing performances. A decent player in his position would have scored more, and potentially won us more games. Whittaker, the striker at Plymouth, is exactly the type of striker we really need.
Along as he is knocking in the goals that's okay by me, after all that is what football is all about........ GOALS WIN GAMES!!!
But if another player was to offer more in terms of playing in teammates, ability on the ball + finishing then you'd say we're likely score more!
I cannot remember seeing any other Watford player look so firmly out of his depth as Rajovic. I struggle to believe that he would cut it even in League Two. I vaguely remember Adrian Bakalli looking completely lost for us in the 99-00 Prem season, but at least he only got two appearances before disappearing into footballing obscurity.
Sport Witness today! (do me a favour) Watford star Mileta Rajovic has raved about his move to Vicarage road, and outlined his big plans going forwards as he shines at the Championship club. The striker has been speaking to Ekstra Bladet about his time with the Hornets so far after joining them in a €2m move in the summer. The 24-year-old has exclusively played his career in Denmark and Sweden up to this summer, playing for the likes of B.93, HB Koge, FC Roskilde, Naestved BK and Kalmar FF before making the move to Watford in the summer. That move was a significant step up for him, but he’s taken to it superbly so far, with eight goals in 23 games for Watford so far in the Championship making them their top goal scorer this season. He’s naturally delighted with that, having gone from part time to the big time in a relatively short time and found the experience a good one so far and has big plans for the future now he’s settled where he is. “It has been some absolutely fantastic first months in England,” he said. “After all, this is what I have dreamed of and fought towards, and it makes me hungry for more: Now I want to give it even more gas and get even better. “It’s gone really fast in 2023. Just think that a year ago I moved from Næstved to Sweden – and now I’m in Watford, which is a club with things under control, great fans and big ambitions – and which recently played in the Premier League. “It’s a wild upheaval, but I think I’ve been building on it all along. I know that I am not the finished product, and I feel that I have much more in me.”
That’s an incredibly one dimensional view. He’s effectively goal hanging and getting the odd tap in here and there, but offers us absolutely NOTHING else. You could give that remit to any other player in our squad and you’d get the same result, a few tap ins. Heck, dare I say a few of us on here would get a few tap ins over the course of the season if that’s the role we were given, but of course the team as whole would be carrying a dead weight and suffering massively as a result.
In all my long years of watching Watford, I’ve hardly seen a player who is as big as enigma as he. He looks out of his depth most of the time, doesn’t have a good first touch, doesn’t always make good runs, can be totally anonymous for whole games at a time etc etc.. But He’s scored 9 goals already this season. He’s won us matches and saved us matches. He’s not far behind last season’s goal tallies of Sarr and Pedro. I have no idea how. But he has.
Perhaps it's a touch of Napoleon and his thoughts on his generals? Many a player I've played who looks,on the surface,poor,yet when the umpire called the score it occurs to me that they are winning and I am not!
You really would not. Which one of our other players gets in front of the CB and scores that header today? He has a limited skillset at present, but it's still a skillset which doesn't just grow on trees, otherwise you'd have plenty of more athletic or technically gifted players at the same level banging in way more goals than he does.
He knows he has to improve and Ismael says he needs to improve so that's good enough for me. We don't have the money to buy 20 goal strikers so we'll have to get the most out of what we can afford. I maintain that his general play outside of the box is getting better, albeit slowly, and he keeps popping up with important goals. His header today was fantastic so fair play to him, I'd love to see him become a real handful next season after a pre-season.
He is such a strange footballer. I have been critical of him and I stand by that, but it was an excellent goal today. His role is to come on when we need a goal. To get to the level he has, without the basic skills, is bizarre. But with 9 goals, he we be justified in telling me to piss off.
Looks more like a Baby Giraffe having a Laugh. To be fair to him, he tries and he does score goals, not his fault he can't do anything else, that's on the people that scouted him.
Agreed. If he keeps on improving then he’s an asset. But only from the bench, for this season, I’d like to think.
He’s crap overall, but can certainly head the ball. He had a great chance to score again shortly after, but scuffed his shot as he always does. He can’t kick a ball with laces. He doesn’t have that basic technique. But with his head he is excellent.
Not true. Plenty of players capable of stepping up to our level. Plymouth got Whittaker for about £1m.
It is true. The statement was that there are plenty of players already at his level ie champ, that are scoring at the same rate AND have those other attributes. There aren’t, at least not available for £1m. Of course there are tons of other lower league prospects and prem/champ reserves out here who could turn out to be a Toney or a Whittaker. For every one of those there are 9 duds who will cost £1m and not make the step up.
He's an exception though; it's the bargain of the season in this division - Swansea sold him for that because they weren't sold on him for the Championship. That fee for Whittaker is more about Swansea being mugs and Plymouth being fortunate to have had time to have him and assess him while on loan than anything else.
Swansea will be kicking themselves for selling him and every other club in the Championship other than maybe Leicester will be kicking themselves for not buying him. One player is not "plenty" or indicative of a wider trend. You also never answered my question of: "Which one of our other players gets in front of the CB and scores that header today?" because you claimed supposedly anyone else in our squad can do what Rajovic does and just score "a few tap ins".
