It’s a fair point. I don’t think I’ve ever been this bored watching a Watford team live. Utterly soulless football from a team that hasn’t got a clue what it’s supposed to be doing. No plan, no style, just run around and hope for a goal from a set piece or an opposition mistake. For a team that people seem to think can win the playoffs, we don’t do much in the final third. Despite the ‘riches’ we have in this area. I thought the applause from fans at the end was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen from our completely quiet fans. It wasn’t a battling point, it was a tragic one. Though the sensible ones stayed away as indicated by the increasing amount of empty seats per game.
Our shape in the first half was odd to say the least, our fullbacks joined the attack at the same time with Kone and Choudhury filling in at fullback. This meant that we had no midfield to support the attack.
Porteous and Hoedt seemed good enough for our level and were more or less the only players who knew what they were actually doing, when you look at our supposedly attacking talent, considering the last two goals have been scored by debut making central defenders says it all!
Literally started rewatching this masterpiece on one of the gold channels last night. 'They're sex people Lynne!'
What we don't do very well is build up momentum and pin a team back in their own half very often. Even after we scored Blackburn then had more of the ball than us.
Surely not: Their goal was down to Sarr: The Rovers player started running from deep, ran straight past Sarr and deep into the penalty area, who continued walk/jogging back and seemed oblivious of what he must be doing in that situation, i.e. watching over his shoulder and then running back like crazy with their runner. My impression was Bachmann's block from nearly point-blank range was a good one, but he couldn't hold it and then it was a scramble by Dack to push it in.
Easy to get those two mixed up, they look like clones of each other. We were better today, probably could and should have won it if it wasn't for some profligacy in front of goal (Koné) who generally had a better game despite the miss, a definite improvement over Bacuna. Good first start for Hoedt, hopefully him and Porteous can cement their places as centre-back pairing as there was a good balance and generally better passing.
How lucky we have to Joao Pedro back (or at all)? He looks like a dad playing with his 7 year old and their friends. We have to keep him fit.
I'm surprised by some of the negative comments, I thought it was generally an encouraging performance even if the result was less than we should have got from the game. Blackburn were very ordinary and apart from the goal, which we gifted them, they didnt have a chance of any note apart from the disallowed goal which didnt count anyway. Arguably they could have finished the first half a man down if the ref had spotted their number 10's kick out at Porteous. With better finishing we would have run out winners with a 2 or 3 goal margin. Porteous looks an excellent signing. It was pleasing how positive he looked to be with the ball, likewise Hoedt. Araujo showed some nice touches before being outmuscled as the first half wore on. Kone had a much improved performance and along with Hamza covered alot of ground. Pedro was cropping up all over the place and was a close 2nd to Porteous for MoM.
I didn’t think it was a bad performance and for me it was mildly entertaining game, which was an improvement on a lot of the dross we’ve been served up at least since the World Cup. We seemed to have more tangible links between the defence, midfield and attackers today and there was evidence of a lot more intelligent passing. We also faced yet another opponent that seemed content to sit back in a very defensive shape every time we had the ball on the halfway line. Ultimately though we have some big weaknesses which seem to impact on nearly every game we play and today was no different - we often gift opponents the lead, we often miss good chances at the other end and then we end up chasing a game and working far harder for far longer than a team with promotion ambitions should. And we have a goalkeeper who no one has any real confidence in and who makes more hurried hospital passes than seems humanely possible. Pretty sure we’re going to struggle to stay in the play-off picture. Even if this ends up being a low points season we’d need 25 more points for 6th I reckon and I’m not sure we have that in us. Can see us topping out in the late 60s for points and going through a massive summer squad turnover.
Some good progression from defence. Good running in the space too. Absolute bobbins crossing over and over again though. These pithy little rolled balls into the box might work in the warm up but are hopeless in a real game with real defenders.
I’m not saying I want this to happen, but in terms of getting in to the playoffs, we essentially would now need to sack Bilic and hope for a bit of new manager bounce to see us over the line. I’m pretty certain that’s what Gino will go for at some point.
As good as it was, I prefer the newer stuff like Mid Morning Matters/Scissored Isle/From The Oasthouse
I thought it was an entertaining game for the neutral at the start, as both sides made it end-to-end. But it seems universal that, if you let the away side score first, they try to shut the game down, especially by wasting time. I think the League should really clamp down on time-wasting, it's not what we pay to see. Having said that, I don't think it comes naturally to Rovers and the match was by and large decent to watch. Watford should have won, against a decent side, but were too profligate in front of goal. Kone's miss from a yard being a classic, but also Martins, whose cocky style dissolves when a chance turns up on his left foot. He still looks like a pound-store Cucho to me, and Cucho wasn't all that great, was he? Kone has a nice touch to him, but he has to learn how to be less light-weight. (Also Araujo, but the game largely passed him by). I do think some people on here are too gloomy; this match left me more light-hearted than many I have watched recently. Three things are probably an explanation for this: Hoedt and Porteous look straight away like good defenders and players and either of them might be called m-o- m, but I will reserve that for Pedro - some of his control and skills were superb - a scented hanky dropped for a Premier club to pick up in the close season, I'm afraid. Making him captain was an interesting move - I can see he is fiery enough to get stuck in with the ref.. With injuries coming back on-stream we can now see if Bilic has a coherent plan for strategies and tactics.
Porto seems a classy buy so far, won everything in the air and drove the team forward. He even won the free kick that led to the equalizer by barrelling through Blackburn. He was lucky not to get a yellow in the first half after a late challenge on a Blackburn player. Luckily the ref was diabolical for both teams. Missed numerous tactical fouls, one over the top one from a Blackburn player and a blatant grab at Porto's leg from there little lad up top. Should have been a card all day long.
Porteus was excellent. If our forward players had 1% of his effort levels we would be higher in the league. Martins is crap - seen nothing good from him yet. Bin him off and get Sema up to speed. Sarr’s first half performance was as bad as it gets. Lazy, disinterested and dozy. The defending for the goal was crap and it all started with him being too lazy to track back. He clearly (and rightly) had a kick up the ass at half time as he showed some distant signs of a touch of effort in the second half. Positive to see Louza on the pitch by the end. Two bang average mid table teams on show.
Keeping is pretty atrocious, especially compared to the likes of Gomes, Almunia, Foster (pre-GoPro). Reflex shot stopping is great but papers over soooo many cracks, every week someone’s upset at him about his distribution, the save today he’s out into the most dangerous position, he can’t throw very well, he’s erratic and not at all a calming presence. Because he’s a goalkeeper he escapes criticism but it’s a major problem position for us IMO.
I actually thought the ref was the best we’ve had all season. Probably is a reflection on the abysmal standard of officiating more than anything else though.
6 separate occasions in the first half he was tapping his watch and hurrying Blackburn up because they were being so slow - yet he decided that with all that nonsense and a goal it was only worthy of 2 additional minutes. The World Cup approach to time keeping was much better.
There was a point late in the first where it looked like he was being bawled out by about 4 teammates at once after yet another hopeless hoof to no one immediately after a dodgy pass to Hoedt which came straight back to him.
Hoedt and Porteous are solid. Bachmann is erratic and can’t kick, Gaspar has no legs and Kamara is about as bad a left back as I’ve seen. I’m amazed we don’t concede a lot more than we do.
Choudhury has in back to back games taken an issue over something with Bachmann. The irony being HC is also a big problem for our build up play but yeah, that’s a different issue.
Stick someone creative alongside HC and he’s fine. He’s good at breaking up play but then needs someone to give it to. Unfortunately he’s surrounded by other players who are equally as clueless going forward.
Problem is even when he has someone to give it to, he thinks about it for about 10 seconds as if he's waiting for the opposition to get back in to their shape before actually going for the pass. We rarely seem to capitalise on opponents giving the ball away to the same extent opponents do to us, because we're often too ponderous in playing the ball up the pitch on the turnover, and Hamza is perhaps the worse culprit for it.
Find it hilarious that the decision was taken to end the game with Cleverley, Louza, Hoedt, Assombalonga, Sema on the pitch all of whom have played **** all football for months and we looked completely unhinged as a result as opposed to having intermittent 3 minute spells of looking like we’d score.
Think Bilic will be looking over his shoulder right now as Pozzo looms having bet the house on promotion at first attempt. Again.
If you look at the performance in isolation, there's not that much wrong with it. We were better than them until the goal, then were awful for ten minutes. Second half we battered them until Pedro ran out of gas. If we'd taken our chances, that would've been a routine win. Ok, not exactly fluid but we were much the better team. Anyone that watched that game and couldn't see an improvement in our attacking play leaves me scratching my head. The problem is that it's another game that we should've won but haven't and that feeds into a general lack of confidence/killer instinct. Louza didn't really look match fit, Pedro faded, they were good at killing the game after we'd equalised. Even so, Pedro, Koné and Sarr missed massive chances and had they finished them, suspect this thread would be very different. I'm actually a bit more positive after today, felt like one of those days. We got into a lot of good positions, could see what we were trying to do, the passing out from the back was much better and we actually managed to build some phases of play from back to front. Get our best team on the pitch regularly and we should make the play offs. Any more injuries to key players and it's not happening.
