Back From The Game - Watford (H)

[sandman]

yes i think he has had a injury BUT he must be ok to play or he would have been rested, the mistakes he makes shouldnt happen even if hes inured i.e spilling shots and not communicating and its not as if they are new players in our back four all experienced and can speak english so there no excuses.

As for people saying where would we be if we had the sig..... thats talking crap we lost him 3 games into the season which means more than long enough for someone to step up to the plate mcd has had time to spend money or get a loan player in with sigs quality im afraid next season will be worse for us we are sure to loose good players ! lets hope next year people arent saying where would we be if we had long karacan mills

What tree do you grow them from then?

[loyalroyal7]

what do you mean what tree?

[sandman]

what do you mean what tree?

Don't worry about it mate.

[floyd__streete]

This game was every bit as f*cking insipid as we dared fear, but that kind of thing happens between two midtable sides with nothing to play for. Sadly we have 14 such drab fixtures to sit through.

[Row Z Royal]

[

First half he was poor.

No communication, no presence at the back. Balls were flying into the box and defenders were putting it out of touch when Federici knew he could have got them. Number of shots were spilled in the 6 yard box.

Seriously, do you actually watch the game or just make up baseless criticism?

To be fair, zero is also a number.

[Jackson Corner]

Compared to previous Watford games yesterday was a classic!

[NR_Royal]

Ghost goal anyone?

[RoyalBlue]

Big giant surprise there..

Second half however he was miles better and played brilliantly balls across the park

He was fractionally better in the second half. Still got caught out far too often to be a Championship full back. Get Williams or Armstrong in.

The first half he had a shocker. Prime example was when Federici was running out to collect the ball and Harte put it over the ball with no Watford player within miles. No communication at all. Experienced

I'm normally one of Harte's fiercest critics and a staunch defended of Feds. However, the cock up you refer to was 100% down to Feds - no call whatsoever. Very poor. Also felt indecision on the part of Feds, coming for the cross then backing off and a mistake by Griffin led to their goal. No blame whatsoever attributable to Legs who, IIRC, with another defender threw himself in front of the player to block the first shot.

Returning to Harte, I felt he had one of his better games. Strong in the air, not too often beaten for pace or caught out of position and a great curled ball into Long's run in teh first half, which saw the latter head just wide.

Was speaking to a high name player after the game today, said he was disappointed with the performance but it wasn't through lack of effort, the team just have lost the winning touch. General consensus is the players really like BMD and want to play for him. A lot of the squad felt positive through the summer but the signals selling sig left and then failing to invest in the team has annoyed a lot of the more senior players and left the impression they were working against the board rather than with them to achieve the same goal.

Who says footballers are stupid?!

No doubt next season we will get told that the players we wanted to sign didn't want to join us. Little wonder. A player's career is relatively short and, as a consequence, any worth their salt are going to want to join a club where the chairman/board are displaying ambition, not just talking about it.

[SCIAG]

The defending is definitely a problem this year, often overshadowed by Long being the Lone Ranger up front. Not having Bertrand is showing and not having him created almost as big a hole as losing Sigs. I think we have a couple defenders whom are part of England's U-17(or U-19?) squad. Jack Mills is one and the name of the other lad escapes me. Point is we do have some good young talent in the system but how close are they to making an impact? But any player who represents their country at any level has to have talent.

Angus McDonald is the other one. They are frankly fairly awful, no concentration, not good enough in the air, not strong enough in the tackle. Mind you, I haven't seen either play since we scrapped the reserve team. I don't see a future in our team for either of them. Noel Blake is known to be clueless, so their England involvement means nothing. I'd much rather have Harte and Griffin at centre back than those two.

[RoyalBlue]

I've been playing the Hal Robson-Kanu game recently. You know when to leave and catch the bus; the moment HRK enters the playing field. Nothing ever happens when he is on the pitch.

Not HRK's fault (too much is being asked of him at this stage in his career) but the fact that we are looking upon him as a potential impact sub says everything about the lack of genuine Championship quality in depth that Madejski's manic cloth cutting has leg McD to work with.

Legs is now showing that he is one of our best, if not the best, players and he couldn't even get on the bench for QPR.

[Kitson12]

Harte had a much better game, and if he can produce those wonderful cross-field balls in every match it'd fantastic. I think Harte was only beaten for pace when Sordell came on, and I think Bertrand would have struggled to cope with Sordell's pace.

[Tilehurst End]

Harte had a much better game, and if he can produce those wonderful cross-field balls in every match it'd fantastic. I think Harte was only beaten for pace when Sordell came on, and I think Bertrand would have struggled to cope with Sordell's pace.

reading

Difference being Bertrand used to give us so much going forward.

Teams have sussed that if you stop Reading's wide men you stop Reading so you need delivery from the full backs. Our only real quality cross yesterday came from Griffin which was the sort of ball centre forwards dream of. Naturally we had nobody there.

[facaldaqui]

Is it just me or are Reading looking jaded? The present constipated inability to win games despite the fact that they're there for the taking reminds me of the condition of the side in the second half of Coppell's last season. For this reason I'd like to see changes, but not, as has been suggested, blindly towards youth. Players who've been mainly out of the team might be given a run (Tabb, Pearce, Cummings) because they should be less jaded and more motivated, while some of our regulars might benefit from being rested rather than played into the ground. Just trotting out much the same lineup for a series of largely meaningless games would seem unhelpful to me. It's not often a manager has a chance to experiment with his team without too much risk. Some of the new boys--Manset, Williams, Morrison--might benefit from a run out too.

[yappy]

I guess what worries me the most at the moment is, generally when our best 11 plays we're good, but the second one or two are missing no-one really seems to step up. IMO if we had Pearce and Karacan in the team yesterday, we probably would've played alot better. Without Karacan, no-one was really closing down Watfords midfield quick enough, which I also think left our defence a little exposed, and due to Ivar's lack of pace, it wouldn't surprise me if Maccy D instructed our defenders to step off a bit.

Generally when Federici, Griffin, Mills, Pearce and Harte have played we've looked sold.
Generally when McAnuff, Legiertwood, Karacan and Kebe have played we've created chances, and snuffed out the oppositon.
Shane Long has had a fantastic season, but unfortunately no-one has stepped up to the plate to partner him.

Some people are calling for 4,5,6 changes to the line up. For me its about getting Pearce and Karacan back in (once their available) and giving Manset a go up top.

[dantheloyalroyal]

I have a vague recollection of a quickly taken in-direct free-kick leading to a Watford goal in a 2-1 defeat at the Madejski some years back. That was a good game.

Boxing day 3-0 win was another.

[SpaceCruiser]

Since when has our games v Watford been highly entertaining, open, fast flowing, attacking football. They've always been boring, mediocre games ending in a draw, that I can remember.

Why start a new thread? You could have posted that on this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=104252

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

BVM has said in the past that he favours the Coppell way, play your best 11, rather than resting and using the squad.

Interesting that Coppells one failure was the ability to succeed in the one off games, beat Brum and make promotion, beat Wigan and make the play-offs, beat Watford for a chance of the play-off, beat Reading and get Brentford promoted. Perhaps that is why he hated the cup games so much?

[AthleticoSpizz]

Royals 0 Watford 3 (LC i think), entertaining in a Watford kind've way

[savage 4 england]

What about the 4-0 with Lita scoring at the end?

[yappy]

Royals 0 Watford 3 (LC i think), entertaining in a Watford kind've way

But only for us to beat them 4 days later at their place to go top of the second tier for the first time in our history...