Watford 3-2 Aston Villa 15/16 tribute act post match thread.

[Matt C]

Amongst several things that perplexed me I didn’t understand why in the first half, especially when Targett was so obviously struggling is why Young (who did well at left back second half) didn’t drop deeper to help him out.

[aj2k77]

A central midfield of McGinn, Nakamba and/or Luiz just isn't good enough for where we are aiming to be.

[rob_bridge]

The writing was on the wall with the selection. El Ghazi can’t play right wing, that’s been obvious whenever we’ve tried him there before. Nakamba’s limitations are always exposed against teams we expect to be on the front foot against. Buendia recovering from injury. Young hasn’t played left wing for about six years? They must have been thrilled to see our lineup.

The Young selection in that position was utterly perplexing. Especially as not an area of the field where we don't have options

[London Villan]

Sometimes Dean's naivety does make me wonder. It was obvious Watford would be well up for it, have a great home record and knew we'd be fragile.

With our pre-season and the lack of key players we should have started more cautiously.

Back four obviously picks itself, but with the players we had available a midfield three of:

Marv (sitting)

SJM and Ramsey

Then a front three of

Buendia, Ings and one of AEG or Bert


Open the game up later - be I doubt we'd have been 2-0 at half time with that set up.

[VinnieChase84]

A central midfield of McGinn, Nakamba and/or Luiz just isn't good enough for where we are aiming to be.

This

[mallo]

We need yet another signing - a DM capable of protecting the defence. Nakamba isn’t going to make it. Only positives for me Ramsey and Bailey. Buendia I’m hoping wasn’t fit.

[Rudy65]

If I had a penny for every time "undercooked " is mentioned,I'd have 19p.

Agreed. Half baked sounds a lot better

[robbo1874]

A game where Targett and Cash looked like shadows of their former selves, a deflected goal, a player scoring a worldie with his first touch after not starting for 4 years, Mike Dean and playing a promoted club in the first game.
Throw in a half arsed performance and the result was inevitable.

i might be in a minority here, but I didn’t think Mike Dean was that shit, thought he did quite well. It’s just that we were pretty gash first half, really bad. Once we’d started to get our shit together, the third goal killed us and we never getting anything from the game after that. On the bright side, Ings can take a penalty, McGinn’s finish was top drawer and Traore and Bailey looked threatening when they were introduced. Ramsey looked decent also. Disappointing result and performance overall though. We either need to find a big hard DM with a bit of nous from the kids, or buy one quickly.

[ChicagoLion]

How long have we needed a defensive midfield player and we start ainother season without one.
We have bought 4 players this window and still so sign of one.
Inexplicable

[Steve67]

All three goals came about as we had players standing off their marker.   Konsa for the first goal, also no-one tracking from midfield.  The second goal, harshly, because he wasn't Tyrone's man, but Tyrone didn't get close enough.  Whilst the third Watford goal was a corker, Cash simply didn't get close enough.

[lukey27]

Just put myself through watching the full rerun on Sky having not seen it yesterday.

It just looked the wrong team. Far too passive, pedestrian in possession and both Cash and Targett far too high with no spare man in midfield to drop back in. Obviously this was more apparent on the left with the pace and power of Sarr.

On that evidence he can't play Buendia as a number 10, in a 4-3-3, we'll be overrun every week. I thought Bailey looked quite bright when we were in possession but tellingly his best moment came when he came over to the right. He'll want to play there I'd imagine.

It's going to be a conundrum fitting all these players in, but let's get Ollie fit and get Ings playing off him first. We missed him massively yesterday.

[Allan C]

Watched the game live in Senegal and pretty much agree with all that’s been said above. Lots going on about the amount of money spent and rightly so but after all that, we still started yesterday with AEG and Marv who were not PL class last season and are not now. When we stop having to depend on players such as this we will improve.

[olaftab]

All three goals came about as we had players standing off their marker.   Konsa for the first goal, also no-one tracking from midfield.  The second goal, harshly, because he wasn't Tyrone's man, but Tyrone didn't get close enough.  Whilst the third Watford goal was a corker, Cash simply didn't get close enough.

Buendia was totally at fault there regardless of where Cash was.

[The_ads]

One look at the bench tells you we are still way off it.

Three academy players, Wesley, Hause and Steer was the bulk of it.  The academy players have promise but we need players premier league ready now if we have any designs on breaking the door down of the top 6/7.  Wesley, Hause and Steer don’t get anywhere near the sides that finished in last years top 10.

Like others are saying, Nakamba is piss poor and always has been and if we can all see the fact we need a proper ball winning centre midfield player why can’t our recruitment team?  Big few weeks for Deano

[frank black]

Targett had a mare. I hope he’s not a player that prefers behind closed doors games. He did make a somewhat miraculous improvement last season compared to when we had crowds. I’m sure he’ll be fine, it’s just a thought.