Yeah, I'm tempering my anger at his performance with concern over his wellbeing after some of the comments earlier. I don't read tabloids or follow sports media, so I'm not aware of Rose's history, but something appears to be very wrong with him and I desperately hope there's help for him.
Not match related but I was touched by the 6th minute applause as I had to explain to my girls why we were doing it, what had happened to that boy and why the message was 'somebody loves you.' Needless to say, they got extra love and cuddles at bed time.
Fyi, Sallai has still been playing pretty much entirely on the right wing for Freiburg. You're really clutching at straws if you think that you proved any kind of point with that one.
Spoiler https://twitter.com/bezzy1997/status/1456950563678134274?s=20 errr...der he plays for city er er er
Yeah, one of them threatened to smack my 14 year old daughter outside the ground when she shouted "oil money" in response. Real hero.
Well, when City turn up with their A game, god help you. I think that was tonight. No point in being too analytical. City spent £1bn to create that team. The only hope a side like Watford has is if they are not at it on the day. Same applies to Chelsea and Liverpool. These sides are light years ahead. That was probably the best performance I’ve ever seen from an opposition team. 8-0 at half time wouldn’t have flattered them. It was incredible to see a side like that. When every loose ball is seized upon. Every pass is perfect. Every decision is correct. The movement, pressing and overload play was amazing. The only thing that jet them down was their finishing and Bachmann had his best ever game in a Watford shirt. Tonight could have been double figures. But you’ve got to hold your hands up and say fair play. We can’t compete and have to accept it is what it is. We all know our defence is not up to the task of Premier League football, and if left unchanged it will relegate us. But I like the effort the players are putting in. They are not throwing in the towel. 3-1 massively flattered us, but I’ll take that. The GD has been left largely I damaged. Our season starts at Brentford.
Yeah, the futile financial gulf games are gone for a while, crack on. For me the main thing is to be last two games we've continued to battle right to the final whistle.
A horrible match. I don't like City. They were so wounded on their forum about our preview. They said we "don't know nowt!" and that they're "real" and of course, as they invariably do, gave lengthy and detailed descriptions of their lifelong love, nay passion, for City (by way of their grandfather who actually came from the Manchester area y'know). In my head, I always read their posts in the voice of Kevin and Perry when doing their fake Manc accents. Mad for it, right yeah, sorted. My only question is, that when we played them at the Vic in Division 2 and 3 back in the day, how come there were only about 50 or 60 of these lifelong lovers who could be bothered to make the journey? As I remember, I think Preston bloody North End brought more. The question of where they were when they were shyte has never been more pertinent. And what a dull, dull team to watch compadres. Mama mia! Robotic efficiency. They brought on De Bruyne (£55 million), Jesus (£27 million) and Mahrez (£60 million). We brought on old man Cucka (loan), little Jezza Ngakia (free) and Cucho (free). Talk about a mismatch. If they were in our position and found themselves a little light in the defensive department, you'd suppose they just have a look at the list of the top 5 world ranked players in the particular position they want and buy him. Easy. It's like when they have those USA professional NBA basketball players calling themselves 'the dream team' and hammering some poor victims like Latvia 188-22 in the final. Very entertaining, if you like that sort of thing. As for the match, I don't understand why we don't mark a little tighter. I know you have to keep the defensive line and all, but when they say "Oh look, there's Matey McMoneybags for City, playing in the space there in front of the defence", well why don't we try to do something about it? Push out a bit so those oh so simple passes to their forwards can't be completed so easily. In the first half, especially, Greasylish was in so much space right on our D over and over again. No wonder he got so many shots off. It reminded me of MOTD where they freeze it and show a massive great shaded circle around him with nobody in it. We seem to mark space, rather than opposing players, an awful lot. Finally, a word in defence of Craig Cathcart. As an internationalist, I'm hardly likely to stick up for him just because he's British. Considering the disaster show all around him and the opposition he was facing and his ageing legs, I thought he did as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Certainly in comparison with half-arsed Dan the gentle trot man and Crazy Calamity Billy TE.
That's all very well and I have the utmost sympathy for those will mental health issues (if this is the reason for Rose being unfit). There can be little room for sentiment, however, in football. It makes me question: 1) Why we signed a player without getting a good understanding of any personal issues? The risk was far too great. 2) Are the club offering him the appropriate help? Rose must be one of our highest earners and is looking like a disastrous signing. If it's simply a case that Rose no longer has the required desire, as others have suggested, then his contact should be terminated immediately.
As I said to my dad whilst watching the game, if that was Ronaldo or other similar big name, they would be going over that desperate to give a penalty.
Not sure I'd agree. Sounds like they missed numerous chances to score more. If they were on they A game we'd have conceded 5 or 6.
No matter what the official attendance figures are there were a lot of no-shows. Only the Rookery and City areas looked full(ish). Weather too cold, result too obvious for quite a few people I suppose.
Interesting to compare this game to the previous time we played this fixture. The stats possession and City shots-wise are almost identical but this time we created a lot more and won a fair few corners. Last time round we only had a grand total of two shots on goal (none of them on target) and zero corners! If we'd lost by the same scoreline in this fixture in 2019/20, it would've been in our hands to stay up (Villa might have even not beaten Arsenal, because I think it's likely our getting thrashed gave them the confidence to climb out of the relegation zone) and with a bit more confidence in the team Dawson might not have had such a 'mare and we wouldn't have given the Gunners such a head start.
I’ll admit this is quite a funny photo though. He’s not really covering either post or indeed any of the goal. He’s all in for blocking the cross…
Dan probably should have been better positioned for Silva's first goal but I'll let him off. He'd just got up from the previous save and only had a few seconds to get set again, plus he made plenty of saves tonight.
Sitting opposite in the Lower GT it’s depressingly the same most weeks. My daughter gave up her season ticket this year as travelling down from Nottingham is less appealing now she has her life up there. Her seat is never available when she has checked this year, but other than Man Utd it has been unoccupied every home game. I do think the club needs to really look at its strategy to attract and retain regular match attendees.
Unbelievably tragic story, isn't it. With two young boys myself it's just unfathomable that there's people like that in this world. Terrible. I was lost for words when I heard the story.
See, I saw him when the ball went out wide and he checked his post. He looked like he was prepping himself to avoid exactly what happened.
Done that in 6-a-side when tryong to anticipate an attacking move; looks great when it works but, yeah. Although it does ignore the superb save he made moments before which was partly why he was so out of position, that was not good positioning for the follow up. Even remotely. That isn't far off an open goal for PL standards. Even Championship and below. Still, Bachmann came out with a decent chunk of credit tonight. Was far too tentative with crosses early in the 1st half but he made some very high quality saves. He's roughly the same shot stopping level as Foster when up to speed, slightly less reach in a dive but parries and holds better, marginally. With a run of games like Foster got the benefit of, I can see him keeping his spot. I counted 2 (!) crosses claimed which is an improvement but like always he needs to learn how to push through a crowd. Ederson did that well.
Could be . We ve been close to signing him a couple of times before , so the rumours have stated . Not overly exciting prospect but I trust Ranieri.
My default goalkeeper would still be Foster. But I thought Bachmann was Man of the Match for Watford - and he had to be. If he keeps playing that well maybe I could change my mind.
