BFT Cardiff iFollow

[Hound]

Cardiff were a basic but solid side. They've plenty of good players, but were very predictable.

If we want to do anything this year, you'd have to look at the Boro game as very winnable. Basically a shitter version of Cardiff. Watford will certainly be very tough - still nice to be looking forward to it rather than dreading it

[NewCorkSeth]

I dont want to see any write the term "Reality check" after this Watford game. Even if we lose there will be no reality check. We are in a good place and that sort of negative thinking will be punishable by death.

[Snowflake Royal]

I dont want to see any write the term "Reality check" after this Watford game. Even if we lose there will be no reality check. We are in a good place and that sort of negative thinking will be punishable by death.

Googles synonyms for reality check.



It's a test. If we fail it, it's just one game. It tells us something but depending on the performance probably not a huge amount in isolation.

[Hendo]

I dont want to see any write the term "Reality check" after this Watford game. Even if we lose there will be no reality check. We are in a good place and that sort of negative thinking will be punishable by death.

I guess the only reality check will be if we get thrashed 5 or 6-0.

I never want us to lose, obviously, but if we got beat but played well, I certainly won't be criticising the team and going overboard with the negatives.

9 points from 4 games would be a good return.

[Snowflake Royal]

I dont want to see any write the term "Reality check" after this Watford game. Even if we lose there will be no reality check. We are in a good place and that sort of negative thinking will be punishable by death.

I guess the only reality check will be if we get thrashed 5 or 6-0.

I never want us to lose, obviously, but if we got beat but played well, I certainly won't be criticising the team and going overboard with the negatives.

9 points from 4 games would be a good return.

I think the performance is probably more important than the result.

A good showing and a loss is fine. A totally bad day at the office is probably fine if we recover next game.

But a sub par and uninspiring performance where we're just second best but no individual howlers would be a bit more troublesome.

Key questions
How does Puscas (or whoever) cope in Joao's role
What happens at RB
No more injuries please

[URZZZZ]

Cardiff were a basic but solid side. They've plenty of good players, but were very predictable.

If we want to do anything this year, you'd have to look at the Boro game as very winnable. Basically a shitter version of Cardiff. Watford will certainly be very tough - still nice to be looking forward to it rather than dreading it

Hope that they don’t have Sarr back in the squad by then, cracking player

[Hendo]

I dont want to see any write the term "Reality check" after this Watford game. Even if we lose there will be no reality check. We are in a good place and that sort of negative thinking will be punishable by death.

I guess the only reality check will be if we get thrashed 5 or 6-0.

I never want us to lose, obviously, but if we got beat but played well, I certainly won't be criticising the team and going overboard with the negatives.

9 points from 4 games would be a good return.

I think the performance is probably more important than the result.

A good showing and a loss is fine. A totally bad day at the office is probably fine if we recover next game.

But a sub par and uninspiring performance where we're just second best but no individual howlers would be a bit more troublesome.

Key questions
How does Puscas (or whoever) cope in Joao's role
What happens at RB
No more injuries please

Yeah, I'll agree with that.

With regards to your questions:

- I think Puscas will be fine, as long as Meite gets a bit closer to him and we don't ask him to hold up the ball every time we go forward.
- Didn't watch it but it sounded like Holmes did ok when he came on at RB on Saturday.
- Yes, no more injuries would be nice!

[Millsy]

I dont want to see any write the term "Reality check" after this Watford game. Even if we lose there will be no reality check. We are in a good place and that sort of negative thinking will be punishable by death.

Exactly this.

It's only a reality check for anyone who genuinely believes that this team is for some reason going to win every game. And anyone who thinks like that needs a general reality check anyway, Watford defeat or not. Good teams lose.

It works both ways too, because I also don't want to read "we're definitely going up" if we beat Watford because again there are so many confounders and it's a long season.

All it will be is another game, as valid as the first 3, and it will just give us another 90mins of information and show us what we can do against an in-from side.

I think most people start taking the table seriously at about 10-12 games, not a single "test" game.

[Snowflake Royal]

I predict Puscas will look isolated and drift in and out of the game, we'll struggle to create chances and our conversion rate will go down. But Watford will struggle to break us down.

0-0 or 1-1 I reckon. Which I would take in an nanosecond.

[Millsy]

- Didn't watch it but it sounded like Holmes did ok when he came on at RB on Saturday.

Holmes was alright form the little I saw of him.

Certainly one fantastic last minute interception to block a certain goal.

No Osho though from what I've seen so far, but it's early.

[Pepe the Horseman]

- Didn't watch it but it sounded like Holmes did ok when he came on at RB on Saturday.

Holmes was alright form the little I saw of him.

Certainly one fantastic last minute interception to block a certain goal.

No Osho though from what I've seen so far, but it's early.

How many times did Osho actually play RB for us? Twice?

[Snowflake Royal]

- Didn't watch it but it sounded like Holmes did ok when he came on at RB on Saturday.

Holmes was alright form the little I saw of him.

Certainly one fantastic last minute interception to block a certain goal.

No Osho though from what I've seen so far, but it's early.

How many times did Osho actually play RB for us? Twice?

For some reason Millsy thinks he was the best crossed at the club.

[Snowball]

Before the season, I seem to remember this board talking about how difficult our first X games were.


A very high percentage of times when we beat another team
it always seems to be because they were crap, not because
we were good. Funny that.

When you think that most predictions have a degree of optimism, it's interesting to note that 9/25 36% of predictions were for a Cardiff win, 32% for a draw, 32% for a Reading win, seven of that eight thought we'd scrape home by a goal.

9 Nobbers Cardiff
8 Nobbers Draw
8 Nobbers Reading

Versus Derby we had predictions of Reading getting a 4-0, a 4-1 and a 3-1 thrashing

2-1
2-1
2-1
2-1
2-1
2-0
2-0
4-1
3-0
4-0

[Silver Fox]

Watford is clearly going to be a reality check





For all the idiots who still don't realise we're definitely winning the league

[Millsy]

Holmes was alright form the little I saw of him.

Certainly one fantastic last minute interception to block a certain goal.

No Osho though from what I've seen so far, but it's early.

How many times did Osho actually play RB for us? Twice?

For some reason Millsy thinks he was the best crossed at the club.

I like the fella alright?

I counted several good crosses from him when were putting roughly no good crosses in per game, so yeah the boy can cross. Some pointed out Obita or Blackett arguably better at crossing, but they've since gone.

I can't remember how many games it was - not many that's true.

But if we're asking for an opinion on Holmes' fullback ability after just a few mins, I think it's reasonable to compare to Osho who was also a young player breaking in to the first team and we got a much longer look at.

I do like Holmes too though, I just don't think I saw enough of him yet. What do others think? I'd take my patchy memory of his performance with a large pinch of salt.

[royalp-we]

I think I was that 1 of the 8 snowbz... was I being ‘too optimistic’

On another day with another ref my 1-3 predo would have materialised

[Snowflake Royal]

Before the season, I seem to remember this board talking about how difficult our first X games were.

That's not my recollection. Checked the thread where Sutekh posted up the fixtures and there were precisely two posts about how hard the start was in the first 5 or 6 pages.

With home games against Barnsley,Wycombe and Rotherham in the first 7 games, you would think there will be some pressure on Bowen if we don't have minimum 12 points on the board by then.

The start and finish look fairly kind at this point.
....
It doesn't look a very threatening division at the top or the bottom this season.

I do remember someone at some point saying it looked hard and thinking, 'you what?'

A very high percentage of times when we beat another team
it always seems to be because they were crap, not because
we were good. Funny that.

It might have something to do with us being towards the bottom of the table for most of the last decade, meaning the majority of teams we beat would be worse than us and therefore terrible.

[Franchise FC]

If you read any forums you'll get negativity, especially after a defeat or two.

This discussion after three legit wins proves it!

Many clubs have been facing player losses and uncertainty with covid, as have we.

It's easy to look back and make excuses for wins, but these wins were legit wins against decent opposition.

However you can easily say that this is due to a honeymoon period, strange covid situation with little pre-season break, effect of no crowds etc etc all mixing things up a bit so yeah I completely agree with your sentiment abotu goign overboard but there's no way playoff hopefuls Derby, PL-missing Cardiff and the in-form Barnsley (their fans were upset that we thought it'd be an easy game and they were right, they were good!) could be considered a subpar group of teams, just because their fans moan. Even if you really push it you would say at worst they're mreely representative of the championship.

Last season is irrelevant. i'm considering them sub par because they are not very good. Derby are a shambles, Barnsley cant score and Cardiff are a functional, one dimentional team in the process of sellling their most creative player to Sheffield Wednesday for £500,000. They have 4 points out of 9 games, scoring 4 and conceding 15 between the 3 of them.

Watford will be a big step up in quality from those 3, particularly because they are very solid defensively and will be a much better gauge of where we are.

Agreed Watford will be a step up because they're sitting 5th. Of course current form matters most.

But how on earth can last season be irrelevant? it's not perfect of course but it's the best indication we could possibly have. Surely this season is even more irrelevant because we're only 3 games in.... and if it's NOT irrelevant then hey presto - we know where we are! Circular argument to say they're crap when one of their defeats was against us. Expectation is very relevant, perhaps moreso than last season's finish, and both Cardiff and Derby were expecting to be up there.

Of course, more games generally will tell us where we are, that's obvious and obviously I'm looking forward to playing Watford for that reason but it doesn't mean I'm going to poo-poo those first three games. I maintain they are AT LEAST representative of the championship. And it's the championship we are up against to get promoted. We won't be playing 46 games against Watford, or whoever the best team is.

As I say though I do agree that we shouldn't get carried away but it's absolutely zero to do with the quality of the opposition, because they were representative enough, but just more because there are too many other factors at play and too few games played thus far to push luck out of the equation. Watford will help (especially without Joao to see how we cope there) but even that won't seal the dealas there will be some who will find a reason to poo-poo that game too in the same way you are poopooing Cardiff, the one game most of us felt would be the "real test" at the time.

It’s quite possible we never have to play the best team

[Lower West]

How many times did Osho actually play RB for us? Twice?

For some reason Millsy thinks he was the best crossed at the club.

I counted several good crosses from him when were putting roughly no good crosses in per game, so yeah the boy can cross. Some pointed out Obita or Blackett arguably better at crossing, but they've since gone.

Blackett could whip a good delivery in with pace. Crossing wise we are generally poor. Puscas needs the ball played in front him to attack. Not our style of football.

[Maneki Neko]

Watford is clearly going to be a reality check





For all the idiots who still don't realise we're definitely winning the league