People only say pre-season results don't matter when they lose. I read the comments from the Cambridge end and it's a totally different spin. Great to get a win over former Premier League opponents, sets us up nicely for the season, good to see our pre-season work paying dividends etc, etc. For me, to have lost to a team who finished below mid-table in League One is not an encouraging sign. They were not at full strength either. They swapped their entire team around at half time too, giving their full squad a run out, but found no issue in getting to a 3-0 lead after just 50 minutes. That's car crash stuff from us really. For me, especially under a new head coach, the early signs have to be encouraging. If we are all over the place, it will really sounds alarms bells, even this early on. It's a shame as I can see fans are desperate for the feel good factor. Off the pitch things are improving. I can see encouraging signs of that, but the result of the first team is the be all and end all. Hopefully whatever happened at London Colney on Saturday will be sorted out quickly. Our squad should have been vastly superior to theirs, and though a defeat is not the end of the world, going to 3-0 to such a side before an hour is played should not be happening. They only had 2 weeks of training and it was their first game too. I looked at the line-up and it was fairly strong from us. Sure, we gave minutes youngers such as Adeyemo, Morris, Cukur, Blake, Manning, McKiernan and Holding, but we also played Okoye, Bachmann, Bayo, Baah, Cathcart, Pedro, TDB, Masina, Gosling, Kabasele, Hungbo, Kamara, Kayembe, Ngakia, Samir, Pollock and Kiko. The noticeable absentees were Cleverley, Sema, Sierralta, Quina, Louza, Kalu and WTE. I think in the case of Louza he is some way off playing first team football. Sierralta and WTE only had one week of training after coming back late. Not sure about the others and if we can read anything into it. Cleverley is probably injured though. Kalu, Quina and Sema could be out of the picture I guess.
If anyone reads anything into this then they need a lie down. It was basically a kick about to break in new football boots.
Hopefully this will help show the powers-that-be how generally gash our squad currently is. And how the new Head Coach is trying to shoehorn people into his preferred system rather than playing them in their best positions/formation.
Only to show what we know about the defence - it’s brittle and likely to let goals in. We actually have no idea how the how the goals were scored or how we played really. Probably just as well !!
The biggest concern is that Masina is still running around in a Watford shirt. He needs to be melted down into glue.
Erm.. does that count as another home defeat? Friendly or not - that shows we have lots of problems. It could be a meaningless loss in a kickabout, but the fact we played more or less our first choice (current) 11 and we got turned over is a big worry. Let's hope it is just a teething and we get over this quickly.
That team/squad would finish mid-table at best. Let's hope for some more signings in the coming weeks.
Looking forward to the same comments when we lose to Stevenage in the first round of the League Cup. People will never learn.
I think we may look back and see this result as the zenith of the Edwards era, so lets enjoy it while it lasts.
Now playing Panathinaikos on July 10th, which is the final day of our Austrian trip. I'm presuming we'd have flown out yesterday or today, though the club has given no word on that.
Think I saw somewhere that the trip was from 5th-10th. Edit: 'Rob Edwards’ charges will also be travelling to Austria for a training camp from July 5-10.' https://www.watfordfc.com/news/pre-season-202223-millwall-date-added
Im just glad we finally announced it. Panathinaikos fans knew about the friendly 4 days ago and posted about it.
You mean the win against Palace? Or the awful season that followed the loss to Newport in 20/21? Or the awful season that followed the loss to Bristol City in 17/18? Or the awful season that followed the loss to Doncaster in 14/15?
Some seasons we do well in the league. Some seasons we do poorly. What grates is we without exception seem to do utterly dreadfully in the league cup. It's not like we have Europe to worry about ffs. Maybe that is what people get annoyed about when we lose to Newport/Bradford/Doncaster etc etc? I'd like to see us do well in what is 1 of only 3 competitions available to us.
So would I. I was referencing those who read way too much into it, like those doing so with pre season matches. History shows that the results give zero indication as to how the league season will go.
The whole tournament should be scrapped, or made max League One like the Johnstones Paint or whatever. No other major footballing country has a second cup competition. It's an utterly pointless distraction which needs to be axed and forgotten about. Plus then when we'll no longer get people moaning about how our reserves have got knocked out in the 4th round vs Colchester or whatever: so it's a win-win.
Then surely won't it be far less annoying that their only major achievement would be winning a competition that doesn't even exist any more?
No coincidence the forum went down just before we took a frightful beating at the hands of Cambridge. I reckon we’ve been infiltrated.
