Dreadful game of football between two average sides. Winner coming due to a typical Watfordy moment involving an unmarked corner kick and some comedy from Bachmann and Porteous. Sheff Utd just about deserved it, we offered next to little and still contrived to miss ANOTHER OPEN GOAL right at the death. Assambolonga and Anajuro contrived to both swing a thin air with goal at their mercy. Sarr was, alright overall, had some good runs. Davis... wow.. just stop picking him. Useless lump up front who doesn't even bother to track a marker, or hold the ball up. Lazy is beyond description. Bilic has to go surely? No win in what, six? seven? We are supposed to be challenging for the playoffs and despite getting most of our good side back, we continue to churn out rubbish week in week out. WBA was a flash-in-the-pan which we were lucky to win - but it proves nothing has changed. Get him out, get somebody else in for the remainder of the season and let's just finish as high as we can. I know this was a tough game today, but Sheff Utd were hardly all that for most of the game. We gave our usual present of handing a struggling side three points. I am tired of each match, no game plan, no direction... hit and hope football. Bilic ball is boring and has been for a while. I really do not have much else to say about the game, it was just dreadful and the ironic way we are gifted chances to score and don't take them is quite honestly laughable now. If we go up, we have to buy Davis, so at the very least we are holding off that. Our next four games are all winnable, and if we do get change in manager between now and Preston, let's hope for some sort of reaction. Safe journey home to all who bothered.
Defensively, teams cut through us with ease. In attack, we’re ponderous, don’t have a plan and rarely create clever overloads or guilt edge opportunities that don’t come through a lucky bounce or defensive mistake. Bilic is trash and needs to go. Maybe we’re not a good enough side to get promoted, but we’re a far better side than we’re seeing, and with a full strength side the excuses have run out. We look lost.
I get that people react emotionally to a defeat, but I'm finding it hard to be annoyed after that. We lost a very even game by a scrappy and unlucky own goal, and how we didn't score at least once I'll never know, especially in that scramble at the end, the ball would just not fall our way. The jury is still out for me about Bilics in game management, Davis wasn't up to much again (14 games without a goal now), and should have been replaced much earlier, we weren't even relying on him to hold the ball up, his only redeeming quality in the last few months. And Assombalonga before Araujo seriously needs explaining. I hope someone genuinely asks him why. Sarr looked a bit more up for it than usual, actually taking on his full back and beating him, but that should be the norm not the exception. Pedro dropping too deep for me, and his rambling runs can look nice on the eye, but they usually don't amount to much attacking intent. We slowed the game down too much, letting Sheff Utd get set, often with 10 behind the ball, and that's where we struggle to break teams down. Our decision making at times is very frustrating, but to be expected somewhat with young players in Pedro/Kone etc. Choudhury fantastic again. That's 6 points from 18 in that so called 'tough run' (1 Win 3 Draws 2 Defeats) from M'boro, Reading, WBA, Blackburn, Burnley, Sheff Utd. About what I thought we'd get, and perhaps unlucky not to have another 1 from today and 2 from Burnley. Playoff picture looks tighter than ever. We seriously need to be looking at taking maximum points from the next 4 games if we're to get back in the top 6.
We're completely toothless though, and it's become a running theme. Close or not we never looked like scoring
Enjoyable game even though we lost. The scrattiest of scratty goals too. I thought we played pretty well although neither Ken nor Pedro contributed that much this week. I had the Sheffield United commentary watching and every time a decision went against them or they misplaced a pass, there was a big explosion of disappointed air from them. Pffffffffff! Probably the best one was when that free kick of theirs got smacked straight into the wall. PFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!! I was really hoping we'd score after a series of catastrophic errors from their defence so I could hear the explosions reach their crescendo. Motm for us - of course, Choudhury.
This is what I don't understand. This dispiriting habit we have of turning seemingly confident players into imbeciles with " banana feet" and the inability to pass the sphere to someone wearing the same kit. Who was the last coach who made our players better? Silva, possibly Gracia for a while. What happens at Colney? Is it a card school or knitting circle? Coaches should improve players or at the very least not make them worse. Baffling.
Davis is ****, two great chances and he cant even take one, add that to the other chances during the season, woeful record. It was always going to be a tight game, we had the better of the first half. Second half we started ok but then Louza gets taken off as we are quite rightly managing his return from injury, it went all downhill from there really. Got the nasty fixture run out of the way now, got a supposedly easy run in too. I feel sorry for Bilic in a way, we are creating chances and space but if the players arent scoring then I dont see what else he can do really. Sarrs head has gone im afraid, total lightweight. Would love to see him dropped to the bench. We need 7 points out the next three games now if we are serious about challenging for the playoffs. Overall not too disappointed about today as it was always going to be one of the tougher fixtures this season, we created chances again and were on top until Louzas sub.
Davis fluffed two glorious chances in the first half, we should have gone 1-0 up which would have changed the game.
I agree with your overall view of the game but will defend Porteous to the extent it's clear none of the outfield player trust Flapmann and so act accordingly. I'm not sure I've ever seen a goalkeeper cuckolded by having a defender take his goalkicks from minute one.
Must admit, Bilic must be livid with the extent of effort we put in to find a decent striker. GP seems to think that any player with a bit of flare can be Considered a "striker" - so bilic gets manaj (dumped) and assombalonga.!!? I'm sure bilic puts most of his current effort into proving to GP what a cr@p squad he's got....
Slow the game down when your winning, not when it's evenly poised for so long. I am still baffled on what our plan is each game. We have had a somewhat settled side for a few games yet we still look lost every game. I do not know what Bilic does in the week in planning for each game but it's clearly not working or getting through. Strikers at this level should be at least connecting with the ball - Davis should of shot when well placed. Pretty comical when Bachmann took his first GK and booted it out of play. I still think we can finish there or there abouts but we need to identity, and under Bilic we just do not have that. Bad subsitutions again at the wrong times.
Bit surprised the folk at home noticed a drop off between Louza and Kone. Thought the latter looked marginally busier when he came on to be honest.
On another day, Davis gets a penalty and Assombalonga tucks away the open goal chance. Can't say fairer than that! COYH!
"We're going to win the league. This division is awful!" "Well, we probably won't be champions but we can still get top two" "OK, the top two are running away with it, but we're comfortably good enough to finish in the play off places" "Alright, we might be down to 8th and the teams around us have games in hand, but at least we're not going down. I like the Championship anyway!"
To be fair to Louza, I think due to his long term injury he's probably pacing himself which is fair enough. I do not think he will be in full flow for a few more games. He still does look good on the ball and is undoubtedly one of our best players. Was he taken off at the right time? Kone' has looked better these last few games I do agree. Still not sure why Martins was not chosen over Bacuna though.
Kone played well when he received the ball but our defensive shape went out the window when he came on. A massive hole appeared in the middle of our midfield and two SU players could suddenly cut through five or six players with ease. But it could also have been due to Choudhury, who was immense, tiring.
Miles apart when it comes to quick decisions. Kone needs about 5 seconds to set himself every time, and our play slowed down accordingly
I'm looking forward to a new season now. Bilic out. Sarr out. Kamara out. Davis out. Benfica u15s out. Flappman out. Pedro can go too. He's wasted here and isn't the goalscoring #9 we need anyway. Rebuild with a few younger hungrier players and we might enjoy it again. We flattered today. Some busy passes. Some effort and some movement (woah really?) But I was watching us "do well" for a 20 minute spell and realised we'd not got near their goal once in that time.
I reckon we should sell the whole squad , flatten the ground and sell the clubs name, heritage and history to a Chinese sporting franchise and rebuild from there .
One positive is that most of the playoff contenders have a lot of games against each other whereas we have just two. This should present an opportunity to pick up ground .
A very narrow 1-0 defeat away at the side 2nd in the table is surely not what's going to be final nail in the coffin for Bilic?! If we fail to win one of our next two it could well be a different matter though.
That's my point to a large extent. He scored a few for Forest. We have done this consistently for years now acquiring players and then not playing to their supposed strengths. This happened with Grey. Expecting him to hold the ball up and control it when he wanted to run onto it. I know he couldn't trap a bag of Blue Circle but he's not the only example.
Not sure. I don't think it'll come to that anyway - I think with the new defenders and the players coming back we'll probably do just about enough to scrape in to the playoffs and keep Bilic in the job until the summer. There are others on here who seem much more keen to sack him than me. I'll add that people have floated the ideas of Adi Hutter and Ralph Hasenhuttl on here - both would be good, but might be tough to get. They also might prefer to join in the summer to get a full pre-season if they were interested.
I think his spell with Forest was fortunate for him. Confident side on the up, got a few goals and did ok. Ultimately they opted against him so probably saw he wasn't worth it
More random names of known and unknown overseas managers who will probably do well for a bit before starting to struggle.. Be the same old cycle really.
