Yep, nothing against Kayembe. In fact I'd be starting him ahead of Cleverley until Etebo is fit enough.
Jesus, some of the quotes coming out of Roy's postgame interview with the Saunderino seem almost deluded: > 'I can't ask much more of the players than what they gave me, and the club, today... I thought we really worked very, very hard' > 'It's one of those sad days where, y'know, but for a couple of mistakes, for which we paid a high price, we might have been very, very satisfied with our work' > 'I thought he (Louza) was looking a little bit tired, and I thought maybe the fresh legs of Kayembe, who plays in the same position, is a very similar sort of player, might help us, to get back into the game' > 'But I mean, we do have one or two players in our group, in our squad, that the fans don't seem to take to, but unfortunately they're the ones who are keeping our heads above water'.
This is what happens when owners appoint a retired 75 year old man as the manager of a club he dislikes. A madness.
He also suggested than the ones who aren’t fan favourites are the ones playing best - I thought he was a clueless doddery old fool before. But that doesn’t come close to doing him justice if he’s talking about Cathcart and Cleverley in that comment.
The most annoying thing about the match was Alan Smith's commentary. Saying Ramsdale was using time management wisely and stuff. Just so sh!t and biased.
Burnsy my old friend! I hope you’re well too. I was writing from my perspective. Part of my season died when he was fired, because I liked him and I liked the positive team spirit he encouraged. The 7 points in his 7 games looks impressive too now when compared to the 11 in the 20 matches since. When he left, yes I admit I reluctantly supported the decision because I felt that it would probably be for the best as we’d be sure to get in a better replacement and start to go places. As you rightly say in your post, sadly that wasn’t the case. No sensible club with any sort of plan replaces a promotion winning manager so soon into a new season with a 70 year old and then replaces him with a 74 year old retiree. You reap what you sew. We’ve gone from winning ten in a row at home to now losing eight on the bounce. I’m sure I’m not the only one here who wishes we could turn back to the clock to when we led Villa 3-0 under sunny warm skies in August and just very briefly the Watford world looked a lovely happy place.
There was no positive team spirit on show beyond the first game with Munoz though. The Leeds and Newcastle games in particular were absolutely horrendous. Ranieri got 6 points in his first 5 games anyway, so there isn’t much relevance to his 7 in 7.
got on the train to london. Arrived at the show only to be told the matinee we’d booked for had been cancelled. Grabbed a quick bite to eat in China town and came home and still had a better day than if I’d attended the Vic
Glad I missed his comments by being at the game. Arsenal's time wasting and play acting suck all of the enjoyment out of watching football. Exaggerated by the ref letting them get away with it.
Minor point, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an away side anywhere bring their own towels to dry the ball off before throwing it - Arsenal had one on each side in the half of the pitch they were attacking. Why on earth was no one at the club savvy enough to just pick them up and hide them? All it needed was a ball boy to grab one and lob it over the side wall by the Lower GT. Small thing but just shows how passive we are as a club.
If we were mid table I would have been relatively happy with that. Arsenal were good to be fair , far more clinical than Man U last week and we only lost by 1 goal, we had some good performances , a great goal from cucho and another from sissoko. We seemed faster than previous performances , even things like throw ins were being taken quickly and the general tempo was good. Dennis is however starting to irritate me , good in front of goal , but **** in possession anywhere else(or he helped with our first goal) , and he falls over a lot. Well worth what we paid for him , but doesn’t have the mentality to be a great player. however we are not mid table and need to be winning games. We will obviously lose Sarr when we go down, but if we can keep the majority of this squad I think we will yo yo back up again
I agree with this on the condition we get rid of the deadwood. Cathcart, Cleverley and Masina are the three imo, we need to shed. We won't have Foster either I would guess so that would mean 46 games of Flapmann in goal unless we get our loanee back. We might have Zinc back, TDB and maybe Hungbo. So we do have replacements. I'm not entirely sure Kiko will last another season either, he's made of glass as it is.
Christ-on-a-bike, first day of the season, doesn't that seem an awfully long time ago ? It'll be the season with the best home record in the Club's history followed by the season with the worst. And guess which one we didn't bloody get to see !!! The frustrating thing was we could have got something out of that today, there's nothing particularly special about that Arsenal team. Careless individual errors again. And as for 'our friend' Mr. Pawson's performance today, and his non-interest in acting over their time-wasting - should have been a good eight minutes added at the end of the second half, never mind five. Another of the "look at me, look at how important I am" referees I could gladly see the back of. Naturally we would be considered one of the stronger set-ups next season once we're back in the Championship - just as Fulham have been this season, and they have responded in some style. But will our mindset have changed if we're back in the top flight come August 2023 ???
The annoying thing about today is that in isolation that kind of performance is fine and we were just beaten by better quality. But we didn't put that performance in against Norwich, Brighton, West Ham, Palace and countless others where we just didn't turn up at all so it makes a plucky defeat like today even more galling. Liked the look of Kalu when he came on. What a ******* waste those games against Burnley, West Ham and Brighton were where we didn't even try to win.
You weren't in the One Crown after the game were you? There was an Irish bloke in a Watford away shirt in there (sweeping generalisation alert).
As games go, I actually really enjoyed that. I could even appreciate the quality of the Arsenal goals. I thought we played with a lot more attacking intent and really gave Arsenal some problems. We are our own worst enemy at times though with the tendency to mess up when in possession with relatively little pressure. The second goal came about because Cleverley dithered on the ball needlessly and invited pressure on himself, and he wasn't able to play out of it. We have far too many moments like that in games, especially at home. Away, we don't seem to do that quite so often. Away we are actually a solid Premier League side. At home we are a mid-table Championship side. The difference in the way we play home and away is stark. After over 40 years in the game, you'd think Hodgson would have learned a thing or two about a charm offensive.........but it's rather just offensive towards his own supporters. He should just admit he f&cked up with the substitution of Louza, rather than attacking his own fans at the decision. He's not going to get an easy ride if he continues like that. Great goal from Cucho but now it's on to the next. We are a much stronger team on the road, so Wolves and Southampton should present an opportunity for some points.
An arrogant team who time wasted and dived for ninety minutes. And they think they are doing us a favour to set up a partnership as we are neighbors. They can do one. I'd like to see the replays of the thuggish White's elbow on Cucho and Odegaard's tackle from behind on Pedro after he danced through their right hand side.
Also great to see the Arsenal fans booted out from the rookery after Arsenal had scored their first. More scenes like that please, shame the stewarding was so laxidaiscial.
I think he meant Sema, Cleverley and Kucko keeping our heads above water. Sent from my TECNO P701 using Tapatalk
What I don't understand is that if you have acquired tickets for the home end then why don't you just keep quiet rather than get kicked out after 4 minutes. I do know how hard it is tho as I had tickets in the seats behind the goal for the Woking cup match
I know, it's not hard to be respectful. They did realize the error quite quickly and left without fuss.
