Watford (H) 25 Nov - Post-Match Thread

[Bablemikey]

I’m enjoying this season immensely. It’s far better when you go into the game feeling that you’re more than likely going to win rather than the struggles of the last season.

I appreciate we’re playing a different way & I can see the tactics playing out on the field, it maybe different for those watching on tv where the focus is on the ball, but I can see us moving teams around whilst looking for the openings to appear.  When they do though we could definitely improve in playing the ball to the player making the run. 
Im going to enjoy it & appreciate it while we are here in this league as a top dog. Next season we will be back in the prem but it will again be very very tough.

 

[Lillehamring]

3 hours ago, Fox92 said:

First half was awful. Not sure why people are pretending otherwise. Everything went back and generally we were very slow. It felt like the players thought they could turn up and win. Far to many players were miscontrolling the ball, I lost count of how many times Ndidi fell over his own feet, and to many times simple balls were misplaced.

 

Second half better. Hopefully Enzo had a word with them, looked like it. Pleased for Vardy though he should have had a hat trick! Much better than Iheanacho, even at 35/36. 

I think you also have to factor in that, coming off two straight losses, under sky high expectations, the players were probably a bit nervous and a bit damaged in their confidence.

I'm not sure it was significantly slower or more negative than any of the other games where teams have come to us and parked the bus.  I think fans just need to get used to the Slowly, slowly Catchee monkey approach that this system relies on.

 

It seems that people are mistaking patient, considered football for negative, uninspired football.  As mentioned elsewhere, we had 11 shots in the first half - so we must have been doing something creative and attacking.

[Lillehamring]

2 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

Not going to disagree with any of that but more clarify that although it makes me cringe a little, if Enzo is in the same mould as Pep and we are the Manchester City of the Championship, then Pep tweaks and progresses Man City despite very little challenge from below. He does it in order to prevent them from ever being caught. 

 

I hope that's how Maresca views the evolution and progression of his sides.

 

As I've said, my perfect football sits somewhere between being able to control possession but take risks and set patterns of play that opens up teams for fast and exciting football. That can at times lead to being open yourselves but then death by football can lead to over playing and making mistakes in your own half and being punished, so to me there's always risks you have to be willing to take.

The difference is, Enzo still hasn't reached a point where all it needs is tweaks, as Pep is.  We're still trying to apply the fundamentals, once he feels were up to speed, then well probably see more tweaks.

 

Which isn't, it's worth adding, to say he doesn't make tweaks - he makes them constantly - yesterday for example in the first half, he had ricardo pushing wide and forward with nacho acting as the 2nd pivot.  Other games, late and chasing, he's brought a second striker on for the #8 rather than a straight swap - to name just two incidents.

[Fox92]

19 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

I think you also have to factor in that, coming off two straight losses, under sky high expectations, the players were probably a bit nervous and a bit damaged in their confidence.

I'm not sure it was significantly slower or more negative than any of the other games where teams have come to us and parked the bus.  I think fans just need to get used to the Slowly, slowly Catchee monkey approach that this system relies on.

 

It seems that people are mistaking patient, considered football for negative, uninspired football.  As mentioned elsewhere, we had 11 shots in the first half - so we must have been doing something creative and attacking.

There is a difference between negative uninspiring football and patient considered football. Yesterday first half was uninspiring, but the second half was considered and patient.

 

Yes we had 11 shots first half but how many were on target? You can shoot from 40 yards and it count as a shot.

[Guppys Love Child]

27 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

I think you also have to factor in that, coming off two straight losses, under sky high expectations, the players were probably a bit nervous and a bit damaged in their confidence.

I'm not sure it was significantly slower or more negative than any of the other games where teams have come to us and parked the bus.  I think fans just need to get used to the Slowly, slowly Catchee monkey approach that this system relies on.

 

It seems that people are mistaking patient, considered football for negative, uninspired football.  As mentioned elsewhere, we had 11 shots in the first half - so we must have been doing something creative and attacking.

Good post.

(Bold bit) I think if we upped the tempo a smidge it would benefit in many ways, it would pull the opposition around the bit faster, it would also give the receiving player a moment extra with the ball to assess the best option and make sure the pass is the best possible. Hopefully this would bring the needed 'pass count' down a bit. ( We do look a bit over- coached and pass for the sake of it) and finally anything played at pace looks better and more entertaining 

[The Guvnor]

19 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

What a bizarre analysis.

Apart from the fact that winks isn't really a creative player, certainly not in the context of the system we play, today we had 23 shots - I suspect that's more than we've had in any game this season.  I mean TWENTY THREE shots - how much more creative do you expect us to be?

I went to the match yesterday and nearly fell asleep in the first half. The second half started pretty much the same as the first.

I’ve been super impressed with HW, he’s busy, reads the game exceptionally well, has bucketfuls of energy and can pick out a pass.

not surprised about the amount of shots, does that include shots where the ball nearly cleared the stands and the ones that barely reached the keeper.

Seriously, we only started to show any endeavour in the last 15-20 mins shots 23 on target 8 and half of them we were lucky to have them counted as shots.

Abdul coming on made a big difference to the game.

[Stevosevic]

Generally feel like Leicester people moan more than other parts of the country 😂 

 

The woman next to me yesterday was unbearable. 

[Chelmofox]

9 minutes ago, The Guvnor said:

I went to the match yesterday and nearly fell asleep in the first half. The second half started pretty much the same as the first.

I’ve been super impressed with HW, he’s busy, reads the game exceptionally well, has bucketfuls of energy and can pick out a pass.

not surprised about the amount of shots, does that include shots where the ball nearly cleared the stands and the ones that barely reached the keeper.

Seriously, we only started to show any endeavour in the last 15-20 mins shots 23 on target 8 and half of them we were lucky to have them counted as shots.

Abdul coming on made a big difference to the game.

The 2nd half started with an immediate goal scoring chance! We turned it up pretty quickly when Vardy came on. 

[fuchsntf]

8 hours ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Ok, so I was that angered by what happened last season that I genuinely haven’t watched one second of our matches this season. I’ve not seen any of our games live. I’ve not seen a single second of ANY highlights (other than our goals on Twitter) 

 

Up until yesterday- 

 

I tell you now, that style of football is horrendous. 
 

Yesterday was no better at all than Rodgers’ shite 

 

If I was to get a ban for 10 years, I wouldn’t miss one second of that. 
 

I’m expecting lots of laughter and possibly a bit of sarcasm or abuse. However, just remember, I had all that on here over 2 years ago when I called out Rodgers’ football becoming very very naff too. %

If Rodgers had even  40% of Enzo success, his plaudits would abound.. 

[DerbyshireFox]

2 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

I'm not sure how there is even a question here - i don't see how you can be lauding the merits of something that never happened.

It was a great ball into the box, that's it, nothing else happened, the striker could have been tying his shoe lace for the impact he had on creating any kind of goal bound shot!

Like I said, just my view on it. Sat in line with it, majority of us felt it was a lucky escape. Happy with 3 points and another win. If you want to keep on about it feel free  

[orangecity23]

Watford being so passive had quite an effect on the first half being slow going IMO. They dropped off very quickly whenever we had the ball in our own half. At one stage, they let Hermanson slowly walk 30 yards out of goal with the ball while they just retreated. We were slow to begin with, but it did feel like the tempo was slowly but surely increasing as the half wore on.

 

Ineterstingly, in the second half it looked like Watford were still backing off at first, but they also started playing a high defensive line as well, perhaps in an attempt to compress the play, so suddenly there was also some space to get into behind as well, if you could play through the cramped centre of the pitch, and quite a lot of our second half chances (KDH hitting post, Vardy penalty etc) involved breaking into some space behind their defensive line.

[Guppys Love Child]

1 hour ago, Stevosevic said:

Generally feel like Leicester people moan more than other parts of the country 😂 

 

The woman next to me yesterday was unbearable. 

What was she saying?

[Lillehamring]

2 hours ago, Fox92 said:

There is a difference between negative uninspiring football and patient considered football. Yesterday first half was uninspiring, but the second half was considered and patient.

 

Yes we had 11 shots first half but how many were on target? You can shoot from 40 yards and it count as a shot.

The point is that without the possession work they put in in the first half it isn't possible to then have the energy to play the way we played in the second.

If we go crazy in the first half,  we aren't necessarily going to generate more chances than we did playing slowly, but we'd certainly be knackered by the 80th minute when watford started to attack.

We've seen how these teams sit deep and then have a go for the last 10, 20, 30 minutes - by conserving energy first half we're able to deal with these surges, and of course, reserve energy to throw everything at the opposition if we're still chasing a goal ourselves.

 

For what it's worth of those 11 shots, 3 forced saves, 4 were blocked, one was KDHs free kick that almost went in. 6 of them were from inside the box, the longest shot was the free kick 

[Lillehamring]

2 hours ago, Guppys Love Child said:

Good post.

(Bold bit) I think if we upped the tempo a smidge it would benefit in many ways, it would pull the opposition around the bit faster, it would also give the receiving player a moment extra with the ball to assess the best option and make sure the pass is the best possible. Hopefully this would bring the needed 'pass count' down a bit. ( We do look a bit over- coached and pass for the sake of it) and finally anything played at pace looks better and more entertaining 

But the flip side of that is that the faster we pass the higher the propensity to misplace a pass - and we know we don't have the defenders to risk getting caught on the counter.

It's a balancing act between control/losing control - and given our results, it's clear that 14 out of 17 times we've got it right, and even in those losses, especially hull, it was really down to finishing rather than game management that cost us.

[Raj]

2 hours ago, The Guvnor said:

I went to the match yesterday and nearly fell asleep in the first half. The second half started pretty much the same as the first.

I’ve been super impressed with HW, he’s busy, reads the game exceptionally well, has bucketfuls of energy and can pick out a pass.

not surprised about the amount of shots, does that include shots where the ball nearly cleared the stands and the ones that barely reached the keeper.

Seriously, we only started to show any endeavour in the last 15-20 mins shots 23 on target 8 and half of them we were lucky to have them counted as shots.

Abdul coming on made a big difference to the game.

Sums it up about right for me too.

Cant just say we had loads of shots and possession in the first half where for 90% of it the Watford gk may as well have sat on a stool.

Much better 2nd half👍🏾

Edited 26 November 2023 by Raj

[adejo92]

3 hours ago, two8two said:

'All because won the FA Cup' - you just destroyed your own argument.

Think you might have quoted the wrong person here?

[westernpark]

One thing that frustrated me yesterday was how often their RCB Porteous would clip the ball into the middle of the park, we hardly did anything to intercept it. Must have been 6/7 times in the first half!

Edited 26 November 2023 by westernpark

[sacreblueits442]

52 minutes ago, Guppys Love Child said:

What was she saying?

...Domino oh hoo!!!

[Ric Flair]

3 hours ago, The_77 said:

C’mon, Ric. How many goals should we score a game to satisfy everyone? The retirement for us to rip apart teams on a regular basis is a completely unfair standard for Enzo and the state of our rebuild. 
 

Yesterday could have easily been 4- or 5-nil if we had more composure in the box and it was an obviously dominant performance. We completely outclassed Watford. 

In 9 games at home this season we've scored 3 goals or more once. I'd expect more than that. We've done pretty well in that regard away from home.

 

Yesterday was very encouraging from a chance creation point of view, keep doing that and it'll come. That's what we need to do. I do think if we're as good as some claim we are, we should score more. Nothing wrong with thst statement or ask.

[The Doctor]

1 hour ago, fuchsntf said:

If Rodgers had even  40% of Enzo success, his plaudits would abound.. 

... Enzo hasn't even completed one season as a main man, Rodgers has two titles and five cups in Scotland and an FA cup here. Like I know things went really sour and he stayed long past his sell by date but Rodgers is a far more successful manager throughout his career than Enzo is at the moment 

[Mike Oxlong]

Nothing wrong with hoping for improvement and I believe it will come but football is not a game of perfect 

 

 

 

[The_77]

13 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

In 9 games at home this season we've scored 3 goals or more once. I'd expect more than that. We've done pretty well in that regard away from home.

 

Yesterday was very encouraging from a chance creation point of view, keep doing that and it'll come. That's what we need to do. I do think if we're as good as some claim we are, we should score more. Nothing wrong with thst statement or ask.

As some claim or as you’re claiming? 😜

We’re top of the division and 10 points clear of the playoff spots after only 17 games and still on pace to surpass the Championship’s points record.

 

We have the best goal difference in the division, by far, and have only conceded 4 goals at home.

 

And we’re still doing all of that with a few square pegs in round holes.

 

I do think your ask is unfair at this point. We’re the best side in our division but we’re not the Harlem Globetrotters.  
 

Did any of us really expect to start the season any better with an unproven manager, a squad that ended last season in total shambles, and a total revamp of our tactics and culture?

 

Our only task is to get promoted on our first attempt, not to cover the spread in every home game. 

[The_77]

4 minutes ago, The_77 said:

As some claim or as you’re claiming? 😜

We’re top of the division and 10 points clear of the playoff spots after only 17 games and still on pace to surpass the Championship’s points record.

 

We have the best goal difference in the division, by far, and have only conceded 4 goals at home.

 

And we’re still doing all of that with a few square pegs in round holes.

 

I do think your ask is unfair at this point. We’re the best side in our division but we’re not the Harlem Globetrotters.  
 

Did any of us really expect to start the season any better with an unproven manager, a squad that ended last season in total shambles, and a total revamp of our tactics and culture?

 

Our only task is to get promoted on our first attempt, not to cover the spread in every home game. 

What we would have done last year for a squad that scored a little less but could actually defend… 😂

[Chelmofox]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

In 9 games at home this season we've scored 3 goals or more once. I'd expect more than that. We've done pretty well in that regard away from home.

 

Yesterday was very encouraging from a chance creation point of view, keep doing that and it'll come. That's what we need to do. I do think if we're as good as some claim we are, we should score more. Nothing wrong with thst statement or ask.

Everything considered (last season shambles, last years defence, relegation, the shambolic preseason, losing our 2 main goal contributors in Madders and Barnes) measuring us on how many times we've scored 3 goals at home is some humongous goal post moving. 

 

But saying that, i am still expecting us to rip a few teams apart at some point. One of these days 3 or 4 of those good chances will find their way in and we will find ourselves 5-0 up. But i'm not upset it hasn't happened yet.

[fuchsntf]

1 hour ago, The Doctor said:

... Enzo hasn't even completed one season as a main man, Rodgers has two titles and five cups in Scotland and an FA cup here. Like I know things went really sour and he stayed long past his sell by date but Rodgers is a far more successful manager throughout his career than Enzo is at the moment 

I was talking more about the implementing of the system..Rodgers tactical change

was later,but Fair to say that encompassed the period /seasons around the 

FA.cup success..But also to be fair,without going OTT,Enzo is having more success

in putting his ideas across,and players willingly taking it on and so far seem to be making it work early into a league season..

 

Nothing yet to shout home  about yet, and Noway fans should really demean Rodgers attempt to promote a new system into the squad, the free style of that present squad for whatever reasons couldn’t break their own moulds,though they 

(IMO tried to adopt but for reasons,I doubt few can fathom,couldn’t hold or commit to the systemology)

Why most fans are still struggling to accept or get to grips with too often too slow a build up from the back. To be fair under Rodgers we didn’t have a consistent Bline,that could be consistently selected,injury or indifferent form being the irritant.

Amartey-Ndidi axis had no consisten release & support,Hence KDH/Thielemans/Maddisom were caught cold….& not always because of Amartey

Then Rodgers stayed stubborn…Whoops so is Enzo,but his product so far is showing results,with progress in different positions.

In 17 games,even in defeats he has often introduced new players,or tweaked it..