Watford 0 - 2 Brighton & Hove Albion - 12/02/2022

Hmm, yes. Plus (or is it included?) a brand new £90,000,000 stadium, which is half as big again as our's.

 

Brighton’s pre Covid match day revenue was £18.5m, ours was £9m.

An extra 8k seats is a drop in the ocean as far as PL revenue is concerned, each place in the league is worth £2m alone, and easily surmounted anyway by not making brain dead decisions like spending almost that exact money on a keeper who can’t play for us.

 

I sometimes think we have too many men defending corners, yet we have all our players back and still can’t get that one right. A hideous combination that sums up our problems tactically, mentally, in terms of brainpower (or lack of) and on a collective and individual basis.

 

You have a PM from me.

 

I checked when those subs were made, and I’d forgotten they were so early (on the 64th minute). Must explain in part why around the 70th minute we couldn’t put together any meaningful attacks for almost all the rest of the game, as the Brighton players were first to the aerial balls and we kept committing fouls in our vain attempts to win the ball. That’s why I don’t understand why some say the second half was a big improvement, I only recall a brief spell early on where we had a bit more pace and energy, but apart from that we continued to be outplayed and outthought and were just as if not more disjointed than we were first half, and I’m less critical than most and try to see the positives even when the pickings are at their slimmest.

 

We still have 15 games to play. Probably have to win 7 (or equivalent). It's a tall order but not impossible.

I just watched the game again on Sky (yes the entire match). My overall impression was we were far too passive in the first half. The intensity has to be much higher if we are going to compete.

I think Hodgson has got us nice and organised, but the players need to show more personality and they do need to make better decisions. Especially the forward players. Yesterday was probably Dennis' worst for the club. He needs to be far more direct. Too often he finds himself in a good position, but always wants to feign the shot, take an extra touch to beat a man and invariably it all fizzles out. All the forward players do this, but he is the worst at it. It's a simple game. You shoot on target, you score or create issues for the opposition with rebounds etc. We've got to make it happen. We have the quality, but we need to be far more direct in the final moment.

Second half we looked better. I don't think Hodgson knew too much about Louza and from his post-match comments seemed to have been impressed with him so hopefully he'll trust him enough to start him. I think he's the only player we have who knows what the next pass is before he even receives the ball. He moves the ball on quickly with quality and you can trust him in tight areas.

I think we have enough winnable home games to improve and have a good end of season run. There's no wiggle room now though. We have to beat everyone at home pretty much from now on until the end of the season.

Everyone has written us off now, so that could be to our advantage. No one expects anything, and this takes off pressure. I'm looking forward to our late charge up the league. I believe it will happen and will look forward to the standard mockery and abuse from the usual posters for saying this. But, I'd rather support the side and believe in it. It's far too easy to jump on the negative Nancy bandwagon.

 

Have you seen how old our squad is? Forget about getting much consistent intensity. Besides, most of them have probably given up the ghost, knowing they are leaving the club, so what's the point of them busting a gut from match to match? You're obviously going to trot out this nonsense until we're mathematically relegated.

 

Just how much money are the club wasting with paying off manager after manager?

I would not be surprised if we could splash £50m or more on quality players if we did not have such a high turnover of managers to pay off instead

 

The greatest escape I've ever seen was in 1991 when, funny enough, we won 7 of the last 15 to get out of trouble having seemed completely doomed.

 

I'm mostly agree with you on this HB1, in fact having just watched the game myself I was about to post something very similar to what you have just written. In fact except for you saying it was ED's worst game for the club I was going to say pretty much word for word what you have said about his performance.

Anyway, I'm not on the Nancy bandwagon I'm with you mate.....

THE ORN'S ARE STAYING UP​

 

Same actually, but with a worse goal difference (we’d just won only for the second time that season in a 2-1 home win against Blackburn):

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/premier-league/23-january-2007/

And there are some players from that season that honestly I’d have over some who have played at least a reasonable number of games in the same position, including even Richard Lee over Bachmann.

 

Honestly hope you are right. It will cost me £2,500 if we stay up but I will happily forfeit that for our survival.

 

Having watched the game this morning I don't think we played as bad as many have been saying. I am more than happy with Big Ben and the back four, our MF is not bad, but could be better. However I believe our finishing is the root of all our problems, and must improve very soon.

Foster - Yet again a professional performance and even the commentators said as much, and he could not be faulted for either goal.

Kiko - I said it last week and I'll say it again, we need to find someone else to take the set pieces! Other than that he put in another decent performance and his crosses in open play for some reason are far better than his set peices.

Cathcart - Yet again he did not let us down, lets hope this continues.

Samir - Yet another great display he has settled in very well so far.

Kamara - Another great performance from him, he kept Lamptey quiet for most of the game and not many LB's can claim that this season.

Kucka - Not a good game, but now Sarr is back hopefully Kucka will be consigned to the bench which is probably his best position.

Sissoko - I'm still not so sure about him, but maybe when Entebo is available he could possibly replace him in the starting eleven.

Kayembe - Pretty anonymous yesterday, not his best game.

Cleverly - Possibly our best MF player for 60 mins and did ok.

Louza - Not to bad showed some good touches and maybe he could get a start next time.

King - Needs to be dropped because we need to score goals and he can't hit a barn door.

Dennis - Is so frustrating because he gets himself into so many good positions, but always seems to take that extra touch that he does not need to and ****s up the chances he creates for himself. However, hopefully he will regain his MoJo soon.

Sarr - Started brightly and faded a little, but hopefully he will back firing on all cylinders soon because we really need him if we are going to stay up.

Pedro - Not his best game, he already looked beaten when he came on, and did not really get into the game. Very poor as he can be so much better.

All in all I really believe if we can start to find the net again we have every chance of remaining a Premier League team.

 

You're both the same person!!

 

From my seat Brighton absolutely dominated possession and pinged it around at will as if it were a training session. If your take was just we need to improve finishing I’m not sure what game you were watching! We were outclassed and humiliated.

 

I can assure you that we are not, although this has been suggested by others on here in the past. I do however have to agree we often do seem to have uncannily similar views, and I have to admit I have thought in the past that he was plagiarising me.

I hasten to add I do not think that now, as I think it's just a case of great minds think alike or as I am sure many of you would prefer to say, fools seldom differ.

Fill your boots.

 

Yeah you're definitely the same person.

 

Conversely, if this doesn't happen, will you be willing to accept that these predictions looked ridiculous?

 

Why do I have to? I’ve got you for that. Why buy a dog and bark yourself?

 

Of course you don't HAVE to do anything.

You are proclaiming with confidence that we will surge up the League and implying that others are being O.T.T with their reactions.

I'm trying to work out whether you are just being contrarian for the sake of it, or not...

 

Cathcart and Samir, our centre backs, "did not let us down" and "great display" in a 2-0 home loss to a side that doesn't really score goals lol.

 

I know it’s an alien concept, but I’m a Watford “supporter”.

Why is only criticism accepted? I can see we’re on the right track. We have some good players who have come back into the team and we’re being coached by someone with a proven track record.

There is every reason to still have hope and look for the positive. I prefer to swim against the tide anyway……it makes you stronger.

 

Before the Muapay goal, I thought we looked organised and cohesive with a solid structure. The problem with the tactic is it too negative. We were playing Brighton at home. And I can't see how we are supposed to score goals; we have two banks of 4 with defensive-minded central midfielders without pace playing as wingers. The midfield is too far back and never crosses the halfway line, isolating King and Dennis completely.

 

He is. Just ignore............

 

And gave them three or four gilt-edged opportunities too, including free headers in our box.

 

"Doing the business", apparently. Hilarious.

 

Yes, I’m not happily aboard the good ship Titanic. I don’t snarl and sneer at every opportunity. I’m an outsider. Better to just ignore.

 

We're good as down so I hope before the end of the season we start giving other squad players a go and start thinking about who will stay and go in June.
We've got a few young loanees that will be useful in the championship, sell off the big names and bring in a few homegrown players with some of cash.
I really feel now that within 5 years the re could be so many billionaire club owners that teams like us will never be able to hold a place in the prem...

 

You crave attention. You don’t believe what you are posting you just want to be in the middle of the debate. It’s tedious. You’ve been doing it for years. Anyway I’ll go back to ignoring you. Carry on having your fun.

 

Please do.

 

Low bar.

 

Brighton are a good side at what they do: They are a cautious, possession-based side who seldom lose but win too few games. They have been that way throughout Potter's placement (and, indeed, before with Chris Hughton). The club have a modus operandi almost the opposite of Watford's. They have steadily (and quite expensively) replaced players with better players on, it seems to me, a like-for-like basis. This makes them very good at what they do - which is keep the ball better than almost any other league team. It also makes them very boring to watch.
I would not be surprised if Hodgson thought that pouring forward in numbers would be football suicide, but that playing defensively would stultify Brighton's insipid attack and maybe earn a point against a team who have lost just 4 times this season. Given that the majority of Watford's players are inferior to the quality, man for man, of the Brighton players I think it is what I would have done.
All that, of course, fell apart the moment Brighton got a goal. They are delighted with one goal wins.
Hodgson had to try more attacking and the game opened-out rather more attractively in the second half.
Hodgson is well known for his solid defence-based approach, but with Watford's defenders you can hardly blame him for trying to tighten it up.
Even so, they were caught out several times with poor positioning and Brighton squandered several chances.
Watford have big problems with the feebleness of their attacking: Everything shouts of lack of confidence amongst those players. Always just take an extra touch, beat just one more man. Hodgson has to get this changed, but it is ingrained in them and he has too short a time left to accomplish it, I suspect. He also needs to improve the team-work of the attack - nobody takes the right decisions and nobody helps anybody else out. A heap of organisation is required there.
Of the 3 Hodgson results so far, this one surprised and disappointed me the least. West Ham and Burnley were more beatable.