The Premier League - 2021-2022

I agree with the sentiment. But if Newcastle get rolled it would be funny to see Arsenal and Spurs splashing around in 10th place year after year and see the fan reaction as self anointed big sixers.

 

Absolutely. Because we were in such a great position when they took over. If only Bassini had stated, eh?

 

I wish I looked that good at 45!

 

If we hadn’t have been promoted we would have been in a worse position than the Bassini shambles. But I can’t be bothered with your usual tedious binary nonsense. I’ll stick you on ignore to save mine and the forum’s sanity. “Don’t you use any debt running your business”. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

1011100011

 

Troy has said publicly that he thinks some of the abuse Andre gets is racially motivated and I agree with him. Abusing a black or mixed race player can provide an outlet for racists to express their hatred without needing to use racist language. It satisfies the racist urge without the risk of being labelled a racist. I disagree with most of what Troy says about Watford but I'm 100% with him on matters relating to race.

 

Watford 0-3 Yeovil wasn't too entertaining!! I get your point, we played great football for half a season under Zola in the championship but it was the champo not the PL. Zola's job was to get us promoted and we had the team to do it with. Zola is a terrible manager who failed catastrophically at Watford whilst entertaining the seals in the stands for a few months at the beginning of his tenure. The peak under Silva with Gray as #9 was very brief but it was exhilarating. Peak Watford.

 

Haha, you shouldve followed the fried food and booze Deeney diet!

 

I think your memory is wrong. Zola's 1st season was good all the way to losing in the play off final.
The second season started well but the wheels came off in October. The Yeovil result you refer too was on 30th November, a couple of weeks before he left.

 

The wheels came off in February of his first season. We were two nil up at palace, he took off Vydra and Palace got it back to 2-2. We were never the same after that. We got found out and our form went downhill. We were nailed on for promotion until that Palace fightback. After that game we had nothing left. Zola was a great player but as a manager he was a complete fraud. If we'd kept Dyche we'd have cruised to automatic promotion. How Watford fans get emotionally attached to people like Deeney and Zola who are clearly incompetent at their jobs is completely beyond me.

 

As was the second half of that season and the play off final when most of the players failed to turn up. We had a superb team but a terrible captain and a hopeless manager. Although it possibly helped us in the medium term, it's criminal we didnt go up that season.

 

That game was at home if I recall. Immediately after it we won 4 out of 5 including a 4-0 away win at Birmingham

 

I don’t want to speak ill of Zola, he was a great player, lovely guy and his first season was full of the kind of exhilarating, heady, crazy brand of football that probably none of us will ever see at WD18 again - goals (at both ends, including no shortage of late ones), comebacks, thrashings galore - just the tonic we needed after the mostly dour and frustrating post-Cardiff seasons. But ultimately, it proved to be a case of style over substance. The positive memories of his tenure stem from a mid-season four-month purple patch and the Hogg-Deeney moment, but the number of points we dropped in winnable games in the run-in which cost us automatic promotion and the play-off final suggested he couldn’t get the team going when the pressure was on. Given he’s flopped at every other club before and since, this suggests this was a gamble that largely paid off, whereas for some reason the not too dissimilar appointment of Vialli didn’t.

 

Let's be honest we're not the first and certainly won't be the last to choke on a big occasion.

 

Zola was great, I wouldn’t swap that first season for anything, but he’s the epitome of how Gino sees management. He thinks the players he gives to any any manager are good enough to the point he thinks a monkey could probably do it.

 

I believe it was Bournemouth away under Silva that I thought Jesus this guy has got something. When it worked it looked so fluid. Even Arsenal at home we were playing with a swagger but for reasons we all know didn't carry on. He's not go on to prove that he's got anything really about him. I certainly can't see his type of football working long term in the Championship too.

 

drawer

 

I despise City, but lol, Villa ain't touching them any time soon!

 

Troy was great up until he got his mega contract

 

The snake is a very erratic manager and unlikely to succeed long term at any club. His peak at Watford was very short but amazing to watch and Andre Gray was the #9 during that purple patch.

 

Choked in 1984, 2013 and 2019, turned up in 1999 and 2006 - 2 of the best days of my life!!

 

We took 24 points from the 15 games after Palace. You could say it started to go wrong after the Sheff W game when we went on a run of 11 points from our final 10 games but in my view it was the Palace game that was the turning point even though it took 5 more games for the results to fall apart. We were terrible during the run in under Zola.

 

Didn’t we also smash Blackburn 4-0 near the end and beat Hull and Leicester away? I do remember losing at home to Blackpool being miserable and a loss at Peterborough. I don’t think 2nd place was likely for us due to our poor start so think we played like an inconsistent playoff contender near the end. I think Zola’s first season was a good one.

 

That was the 2 Tommy's season, wasn't it? We played some lovely stuff

 

It’s also often forgotten that Vydra went right off the boil in that period. After a goal against Derby in February he went 13 games without scoring before the Leicester play-off game.

 

He made up for it by turning into a re-incarnation of Marco Van Basten. Definitely had the ability to have a far more successful career than he has

 

Such a shame. I think its partly down to the fact that his style didnt suit the modern game where you need to be either a No 9 or a CAM/winger type. Vydra struck me as Michael Owen type, all pace and finishing .

 

Indeed. He was rapid. I'm guessing injuries have taken a yard of pace from him?

 

For Matty to score goals you have to set up your whole team to suit his strengths, like with Vardy. That's his biggest weakness, he's not as effective slotting into a different formation and he's not good enough for a PL team to change their formation for him.

 

I don't completely get the use of the Sterling example. It was given by the on field ref. So are they saying it would have been overturned by PL VAR this season or not?

 

Agreed. He's definitely lost pace though. This is what set him apart in 2012/13

 

Yes, that was my thought. Is the "clear and obvious mistake" criteria no longer going to apply?

In my opinion it wasn't a penalty but I don't think it could be deemed clear and obvious so the on field referee's decision should stand.

If VAR is going to routinely overrule borderline decisions made by the referee it is going to end up with more chaos and controversy not less!