I apologise Joka as I may well have been too hasty with my opinions on your abilities. My wish to see 3.5 sides of the ground bouncing actually happened I too feel sorry for the Pool fans. Not one of their players went to applaud them for making the trip That game sums up our season - wrong formations, playing way below our capabilities, fans against Vydra through to playing sme of the best footy we've seen for a number of years, passion and a great atmosphere
I must confess to being a little frustrated that Joka seems to be constantly tinkering with systems and line-ups, but I suppose he's got to experiment.
3-4-3 is not something I would think we will play again but maybe lack of available midfielders forced his hand. Munari and Watson on the bench but one has struggled with injury recently and the other has only just arrived. It certainly looked a little disjointed at times but definitely did not deserve to be 2 down. We weren't great but neither were we rubbish. I still thought we would get something from the game but I admit that I did attempt to sell my Bournemouth ticket to the guy behind me in the the queue for a beer at half time. I was still walking back to my seat for the first goal but I felt it gave the whole stadium a lift. After that was just simply incredible. Chuffed for Vydra, worked hard all game and thouroghly deserved his goal. Back to 3-5-2 at Bournemouth so he will probably be on the bench but at least he will be more confident when he does come on. Ighalo is exactly the sort of striker we need. A striker that runs down the channels, chases lost causes and makes sure he's in the right positions to get his goals. Seems to get a lot of tap ins, but like Lineker used to and something Deeney and Vydra don't get a lot of. Good debut for Watson and Layun impressed again. Excellently formation switch at half time. Much tougher run of games coming up against sides in top half. Can we improve our results against the better sides? I'm pretty confident we can. Roll on Friday Great to see all sides bouncing. I've been a little critical of the 1881 sometimes but yesterday I thought they were excellent.
I quite enjoyed Mark Robins' dig at Claridge about the goal that ricocheted off the post and into Igloo's face - typical Claridge finish - knew very little about it!
Good post. I wonder about the Bournemouth game. I think you may be right about reverting to 352, and maybe that is the sensible route. But I hope he sticks with the 2nd half set-up. I know that Bournemouth is miles away from Blackpool, but the Cherries have had a little wobble, and they will be aware that it is harder to defend a top position, once the expectation sets in, than it is to get there in the first place. I think the pressure is on them, not us. Vydra, Deeney and Ighalo all now have a bit of collective confidence and I'd cant see the point in dabbing at the brakes, in fear of Bournemouth. Let them do the worrying!
He's more than that. An older version of Ched Evans. I don't feel sorry for them. I remember them giving it large after they beat us 1-0 at theirs last season . We should have had 7 that day.
Oyston is taking fans to court over comments made on a football forum, claiming (amongst other things) that they are affecting ticket sales. Unbelievable and a little scary. Just shows how careful everyone has to be when expressing their opinions. We can't take for granted that our anonymity is guaranteed because we've all got usernames. http://www.backhenrystreet.co.uk/thread-23518.html#.VMSxsEesX7U
Seeing as I couldn't go, my question to the ones who went is this: was our first half performance due to our defence being shaky (like it usually is) or was it more down to the different formation which meant we were losing the midfield battle? Watson's introduction for Hoban seems to imply the latter but our defence is (like I've said) usually shaky to start off with
Although it's not his 'first team', Mr HH has a soft spot for Wigan due to family ties so when we signed Watson I asked him what he thought. His response was that he thought it was a great signing for us and that he was a 'Eustace-type' player that we'd been missing in our current set up. I had my doubts after reading on here what Wigan fans had been saying on their forums. Pleased to hear that, from yesterday's performance at least, it seems as though Mr HH may be right.
See our first goal - I would have disallowed that if I were the ref. Clear foot high in winning the ball. Free kick to them.
It was a bit of both, Blackpool were playing a high pressing game which put our midfield two pressure and our defense on the back foot. Paredes misjudged a lofted ball for the first and no one followed Davies in for his goal, everyone stood still. I believe it was Toszer's man.
You have a good point, however the ref was very lenient in the first half could have booked a couple but let everything go
First half to me was a case of where he was trying but was misreading the game. So when he had the ball, for example, he tried to make things work with tried a backheel to set a run off when there wasn't one.
Also, both players had their feet up. I think some refs let the game flow in this situation if there is no contact. It's just out of shot on TV, but Ighalo's breakaway from the last defender must have been superbly timed.......
I'm pretty sure Ighalo is offside when he taps it in too. I think two of his goals could have been offside looking at the highlights, but i also think Blackpool's second was offside - basically that linesman had a mare.
The big test is next Friday imo. If we can come away with a positive result be it a draw or win I think people will be slightly more confident of us finishing in or around automatic come May. Beers are already in cooling....UUOORRNNNSS!!
You couldn't be more spot on about the Vydra comments, I heard ' he's been crap all season' , ' surely he won't come out second half', ' should let him go if anyone's interest' and then the goal goes in and these same people were singing ' super Matty Vydra' . It brought Fickle to a whole new meaning. Each to their own but as chairman of the MV appreciation society I wasn't really amused.
Odds for a Watford win on Friday 18/5. Might be time for a little speculation, especially on a -1 or -2 handicap.
Yesterday was a very good day to be a Watford fan. 12 goals in two home games back-to-back, for those paying £13 for those two games, surely they will/must come back for more? I know the first half didn't go according to plan, but we weren't as bad as some have made out - the booing at half-time was embarrassing. I liked hearing Jokanovic speaking after the game, saying that the break was not the time to get angry, he stayed calm, made the change and then reaped the rewards, very well done Sir. Odion is really starting to shine, you can see why he had such a great rapport with the Granada fans, he certainly gives it his everything. Funniest thing for me was when I got back to the pub after the game, there was a chap in there who'd walked out at half time. I bet he won't be doing that again in a hurry.... I really struggle to understand why people do that sort of thing after paying good money to go in the first place. Deeney was back to his old self in the second half, a superb performance by him. I thought Miguel played a good cameo role, a few passes went astray but he was always looking to put people in behind, he looks like a great acquisition. Liked what I saw from Watson too. All in all, a very good day at the office - That Huddersfield performance may actually be the catalyst to our season. What a great reaction! No idea what will happen on Friday, but the players will surely be going into the game full of confidence, Bournemouth are a footballing side, so we could do very well - here's hoping!
9 goals!!! Must have been great entertainment! Very much looking forward to my visit on 24 February. Hope to see similar result...
Fantastic 2nd half. Hopefully new fans tempted by the £13 entry for last 2 games will be hooked. Although it is impossible not to give MOM to a player that scores 4, I thought TD9 was immense. Fantastic goal but his set up play was not only brilliant but so unselfish. A real leader and he was so pleased for MV when he got his goal. Our defending still scares me at times but with our firepower I never lose faith in our ability to turn a game. Think Anya seems to be improving and Watson looked like he could be the answer in midfield battles to come. Well done Joka, Well done 1881 and well done Watford. COYH
Some thunks on the matter https://nathanlowndesfootballgenius.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/thoughts-watford-7-seven-2-blackpool/
A lot has been talked on this thread about Watson coming on and the change of formation at HT. What's not been mentioned is a change in attitude. OK, I wasn't there so others will correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like some sort of invincible Dunkirk spirit entered the dressing room at HT. We know Blackpool are cr.p, it's ridiculous we're 0-2 down, we're letting ourselves, the fans and the club down here. We're having nothing to do with that sort of sh.t second half so let's get out there and sort it. Oh, we've won 7-2! After Huddersfield, plenty on here identified a lack of collective spirit as a major problem and, in some cases, a lack of individual spirit too. I argued against that. I'm happy to admit I was largely wrong! The Joka certainly thought that was a major problem too which was why he took the actions and gave the interviews he did. So in three halves out of four since then we've been excellent (albeit against poor opposition), one not so. So the challenge for the Joka now is to bottle that never say die cup tie spirit and see it delivered on the pitch for 90 mins every game. Of course that's what every coach wants but the Joka's tactic of 'naming and shaming' does seem to have largely worked so far. We want to see that attitude delivered consistently at all times, starting minute 1, not 46, no matter who the opposition are.
As I stated in an earlier post, I thought we generally played ok in the first half. I don't think we were losing the midfield battle because both teams were bypassing it. Much of our play in the final third was pretty good, we were unfortunate we didn't score. The flicks, dummies and runs which came off in the second half, just didn't happen for us in the first 45 for some reason. I knew our wing backs were at fault for the goals we conceded. Seeing the goals on FLS, I was disgusted by Anya's cowardly turn away from the ball for their second. Our defensive problems have and continue to be in wide areas.
Yep. Agree with this. We were far more at it from the get go in the second half. I don't think we were *that* bad in the first half, but sloppy at the back. Second half, they essentially didn't get a chance to force us to make sloppy mistakes.
I think at half time I was annoyed, but felt if we could pull one back early, we'd have a huge momentum swing, and then if we could capitalise and equalise we'd go on and smash them. If we lost our momentum at 2-1 down and let them get a foot in the game to stabilise and re-compose, it probably would have fizzled out The fact that we had the siege mentality, nothing to lose and actually started playing like we wanted it, so went for the jugular right from the off paid dividends. In the first half I wouldn't say we were that bad, they had two chances from defensive mixups and took them, we controlled possession mainly in the first half but passes were going stray more than they should and we just couldn't carve an opening.
