Buzzing. Just got back and what a pleasure it was spending an afternoon with the away fans. Brilliant atmosphere. I forgot how good it is to win away. I only go to a couple of away games per season, but delighted I chose this one. We survived a first minute scare after the ball was cleared off the line, but after that we dominated. Scored two great goals, and missed a host of other great chances. Seriously, we could have scored SIX today. Shame Leeds got that last minute goal, but apart from that a perfect day. Even Andre Gray scored against Luton and they lost. The boys were fantastic today. Sissoko was immense. Love Cucho to bits and knew he'd have his day in the sun (quite literally today). No one played poorly. Foster had virtually nothing to do all game, apart from tip over a late header. He did have another flub though, but luckily this time it went straight to Sissoko. Pedro is leading the line better than King right now, but I still have faith in King. But Pedro was quality. I've not seen it as it was at the other end, but I thought we could have had a penalty after a great surge from him, but nothing doing. Of course the referee wanted to engineer something again today. He was quite fair until the closing stages then went heavily towards Southampton. Giving soft freekicks in dangerous areas. There was one occasion when we had a player down and he wouldn't stop play while Southampton were on the attack, but as soon as we got the ball and cleared to Cucho who was free and advancing with acres of space in front of him, Scott decides only then to stop play. 7 minutes of injury time turned into 11, but even Scott gave it up, after the ball was permanently in the Southampton half for the last couple of minutes. VAR did have a little effort to award a penalty for a made up handball in injury time but decided they couldn't justify it. So well done Watford.....you deserved the points.....the 'orns are staying up
I didn't really appreciate the quality of that Samir header off the line at the time, but seeing the highlights it was superb. Had that gone in, we could have been facing another Wolves type defeat.
Such a pity Everton was postponed as I think we’d have had a genuine chance of our first back to back wins of the season
We’re playing at home in constant relegation battles, and we’ve got three stands that sit munching on cold sandwiches and sipping on their tea all game, and another with the quietest ‘singing section’ in the division, that continue to overlook the clubs structural flaws but turn on their own players faster than you can say ‘wonderful foil display’. Our players look like they don’t want to be there when playing at home, and I truly empathise. If I were Roy, I’d be sticking my middle finger up at the whole stadium and launching handfuls of my own sh*t into the crowd. Fair play to him for the abuse. Away fans are decent though.
Oh dear - have Southampton never time wasted in their games when winning under Ralph ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60635713
Weird interview. Wasn't it their player (Broja) who needed to go off in extra time, hence 11 minutes instead of 7?
It’s the usual defence mechanism of a beaten manager, if it’s not that then they’ll say the opposition were physical and direct.
This was the manager who said about a month ago that there was no reason why Southampton couldn’t challenge for the CL places. And they just lost to us. At home.
Its not the fear of the home crowd Skyla, it's the unfaithful fraternity in our crowd at The Vic moaning groaning and getting on the teams back instead of getting behind the boys and giving them support rather than ridicule. Furthermore you have hit the nail on the head by agreeing with what I have said in a previous post, and that is the fact that having no fans in the stadium was probably why we had such a good home record last season, because the players did not have to listen to the moaners and groaners.
I'd ask you again if you've even been to the Vic this season, given how far removed from the actual experience that is, but then again you're starting to sound a lot like you're brewing some kind of 'stab-in-the-back' myth here, and I for one don't plan to have you putsch me in a beer hall, no matter how much you might beg.
I didn't watch the game but I very much agree with you that if Southampton had scored an early goal, we would have lost by 2 or 3 goals. I noticed we usually start playing well from the 10th or sometimes 15th minutes if we don't concede earlier. Sent from my TECNO P701 using Tapatalk
Fewer. Less pedantically, I had forgotten about the outrageous refereeing incident described by HB1 where one of our players was down injured for ages. Soton had the ball and were attacking, one of their players almost had to jump over our downed player, no whistle, we won it back and cleared it up to Cucho who had the whole of StMarys ahead of him with only Forster to beat; Southampton player goes down and ref blows up. Our boy is still on the ground. Away fans totally apoplectic.
A well developed tactic by Ralph; https://www.foxsports.com.au/footba...c/news-story/bc6126d5747330a18ebac2fe5a8176a5
This makes no sense at all. You’re basing your opinion of a home match experience on a few dozen detractors on an online forum. That hardly represents the 18000 odd home fans on an actual match day. A decent % of which also travel away Besides a lot of the detractors have said they’re not returning while the current owners remain or the team plays like they do. How are their empty seats upsetting the players, when you also say the same empty seats made the team play better?
It also doesn’t really make sense, because surely 30k opposition fans properly getting on your back is worse? I think the simple truth is what’s been stated above, we’re most effective as a counter attacking team and it’s harder for us to do that at home.
Someone should tell Ralph Hasenhuttl thst people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. https://www.google.com/amp/s/pundit...southampton-injury-tactic-majority-games/?amp
I’m guessing our chap made the schoolboy error of not vaguely holding his head and the saints player did?
Was literally just going to say this, was picked up by Carragher and Neville a little while ago. Hilarious that he's crying about game management.
Clearly the thing wrong here is trying to be the progressive team. We need to cut that out and fight out some bore draws at home.
