Ricardo's report v Watford

[ricardo 7,395]

A damp drizzly day here in Norwich with a heavy burst around tea time that meant it wasn't the sort of night for biking. I have almost given up trying to predict the team and am even more convinced that Wagner has either a Tombola machine or chucks darts at a wheel of fortune. Either way he doesn't seem fazed to ring the changes.

City came forward early does and Kenny had a speculative shot well over the bar then Watford came back with a bit of possession but did nothing with it. It was the home side however that looked the more positive as Barnes tested Hamer with a snap shot from a quick pass inside. Then Gianoullis might have done better when receiving a pass inside the area but his first touch was poor.

City were certainly looking the brighter with some decent passing movements and it wasn't a surprise when they took the lead mid way through the half. A neat pass from Kenny started a thrust down the left then the ball was switched to the right where Hernandez beat his man to the line and hung a cross that Barnes nodded home despite Hamer trying to scramble it away. The rain had eased a bit at kick off time but now became quite heavy again.

There wasn't much coming back from The Hornets until the ball was needlessly given away and Gunn was well placed to collect a deflected effort. Still it was the home side calling the tune and after another spell of pressure with Watford struggling to clear their lines Kenny was clipped in the box for an obvious penalty. Sarge stepped up and hit a fairly straight shot that Hamer did well to keep out but the ball looped up kindly for the City striker and his header from about eight yards was too strong for the keeper.

It all looked like plain sailing at this stage as Watford had barely troubled Gunn but with five minutes of the half left, the City defence stood staring at one another as a Watford player found miles of space to turn the ball across goal where Rajovic had a simple tap in. It almost got worse when City again gave the ball away and it seemed the visitors must equalise until Gibson blocked a goalbound shot. Thankfully we held on until the whistle but it was once again frustrating to see the home side become their own worst enemy.

It needed a decent opening few minutes from City but we didn't get it as Watford dominated from the start and penned the home side in their own half. A couple of efforts were dragged wide as it became all hands to the pump in the City rearguard and things began to look very nervy. If City had been calmer in a decent break on 52 minutes it might have settled things but they made a right mess of the final pass and Watford again assumed control.

Wagner made his subs early and the crowd gave vent to their disapproval as Sargent and Hernandez departed to be replaced by Fassnacht and Nunez. It now became very disjointed with City trying to play safety first and still committing silly mistakes. Sainz was guilty of a ludicrous back pass from the halfway line that I thought might sail over Gunn's head but it came off the City keepers head and out for a corner. Oh deary me it wasn't fun watching the confidence drain out of the team and you didn't need Mystic Meg to tell you what was coming.

With twenty minutes left Asprilla found acres of room 30 yards out and unleashed a superb strike that gave Gunn no chance. A world class goal no doubt and from here it looked like City were staring down the barrel. To their credit the home side refused to die, fought their way out of trouble and gradually began to find their passing game again. On seventy seven minutes Nunez persisted long enough to slide a ball up to Barnes who quickly fond Sara in space wide left. He has been without a goal for a while but made it look easy when he cut across a defender and stroke a low shot across Hamer and into the far corner.

This revived the crowd and the home side now regained the upper hand as Watford began to fade. Gibbs and Hooijdonk now came on for Barnes and Sainz and within another couple of minutes all cares went out of the window as Fassnacht bundled in Stacey's cross to seal the points. In the remainng minutes and added time it was plain to see that Watford had shot their bolt but midway through the half it didn't look like being such a happy ending.

Football is a funny old game. Kenny my MOM, Barnes also decent and Nunez seemed to steady the ship once he got to grips with the game.

 

 

Edited February 13 by ricardo

[The Raptor 1,211]

Have you ever had training in journalism Ricardo? Your match reports are much better than most I read. You even get the players correct.

'john sergeants penalty was saved by Angus Gunn in the Watford goal' was my favourite gem from the BBC half time report!

[ricardo 7,395]

1 minute ago, The Raptor said:

Have you ever had training in journalism Ricardo? Your match reports are much better than most I read. You even get the players correct.

'john sergeants penalty was saved by Angus Gunn in the Watford goal' was my favourite gem from the BBC half time report!

They aren't at the game mate, probably sitting in a pub on the phone.😀

[Badger 2,406]

16 minutes ago, The Raptor said:

Have you ever had training in journalism Ricardo? Your match reports are much better than most I read. You even get the players correct.

'john sergeants penalty was saved by Angus Gunn in the Watford goal' was my favourite gem from the BBC half time report!

Agree - definitely better than any press reports!

Thanks Ricardo 

[Helsinki canary 242]

18 minutes ago, ricardo said:

A damp drizzly day here in Norwich with a heavy burst around tea time that meant it wasn't the sort of night for biking. I have almost given up trying to predict the team and am even more convinced that Wagner has either a Tombola machine or chucks darts at a wheel of fortune. Either way he doesn't seem fazed to ring the changes.

City came forward early does and Kenny had a speculative shot well over the bar then Watford came back with a bit of possession but did nothing with it. It was the home side however that looked the more positive as Barnes tested Hamer with a snap shot from a quick pass inside. Then Gianoullis might have done better when receiving a pass inside the area but his first touch was poor.

City were certainly looking the brighter with some decent passing movements and it wasn't a surprise when they took the lead mid way through the half. A neat pass from Kenny started a thrust down the left then the ball was switched to the right where Hernandez beat his man to the line and hung a cross that Barnes nodded home despite Hamer trying to scramble it away. The rain had eased a bit at kick off time but now became quite heavy again.

There wasn't much coming back from The Hornets until the ball was needlessly given away and Gunn was well placed to collect a deflected effort. Still it was the home side calling the tune and after another spell of pressure with Watford struggling to clear their lines Kenny was clipped in the box for an obvious penalty. Sarge stepped up and hit a fairly straight shot that Hamer did well to keep out but the ball looped up kindly for the City striker and his header from about eight yards was too strong for the keeper.

It all looked like plain sailing at this stage as Watford had barely troubled Gunn but with five minutes of the half left, the City defence stood staring at one another as a Watford player found miles of space to turn the ball across goal where Rajovic had a simple tap in. It almost got worse when City again gave the ball away and it seemed the visitors must equalise until Gibson blocked a goalbound shot. Thankfully we held on until the whistle but it was once again frustrating to see the home side become their own worst enemy.

It needed a decent opening few minutes from City but we didn't get it as Watford dominated from the start and penned the home side in their own half. A couple of efforts were dragged wide as it became all hands to the pump in the City rearguard and things began to look very nervy. If City had been calmer in a decent break on 52 minutes it might have settled things but they made a right mess of the final pass and Watford again assumed control.

Wagner made his subs early and the crowd gave vent to their disapproval as Sargent and Hernandez departed to be replaced by Fassnacht and Nunez. It now became very disjointed with City trying to play safety first and still committing silly mistakes. Sainz was guilty of a ludicrous back pass from the halfway line that I thought might sail over Gunn's head but it came off the City keepers head and out for a corner. Oh deary me it wasn't fun watching the confidence drain out of the team and you didn't need Mystic Meg to tell you what was coming.

With twenty minutes left Asprilla found acres of room 30 yards out and unleashed a superb strike that gave Gunn no chance. A world class goal no doubt and from here it looked like City were staring down the barrel. To their credit the home side refused to die, fought their way out of trouble and gradually began to find their passing game again. On seventy seven minutes Nunez persisted long enough to slide a ball up to Barnes who quickly fond Sara in space wide left. He has been without a goal for a while but made it look easy when he cut across a defender and stroke a low shot across Hamer and into the far corner.

This revived the crowd and the home side now regained the upper hand as Watford began to fade. Gibbs and Hooijdonk now came on for Barnes and Sainz and within another couple of minutes all cares went out of the window as Fassnacht bundled in Stacey's cross to seal the points. In the remainng minutes and added time it was plain to see that Watford had shot their bolt but midway through the half it didn't look like being such a happy ending.

Football is a funny old game. Kenny my MOM, Barnes also decent and Nunez seemed to steady the ship once he got to grips with the game.

 

 

Spot on summary as usual - thanks! A real topsy turvy team we have , as Ashton said we seem to lose focus when defending a lead rather than managing the game and building on it - that has to come down to confusion and lack of coherent strategy - get ahead and then go into defensive mode - trouble is defensive mode is riddled with individual errors and sitting too deep - net result is conceding silly goals - although their second was sublime 

[The Raptor 1,211]

15 minutes ago, ricardo said:

They aren't at the game mate, probably sitting in a pub on the phone.😀

For a fair bit of that second half I wished I was!

[ricardo 7,395]

6 minutes ago, The Raptor said:

For a fair bit of that second half I wished I was!

Oh ye of little faith😁

[RobJames 881]

Well done for braving the elements (you were warned), a fair few ST holders didn't.  My mate and his daughter from Sherin'um didn't (I suspect it being on Sky helped their decision).

What stuck out tonight, among many odd things, was the resilience of the team. However, the bottom line is we will continue to concede if we don't close down the opposition when in our half - notably their second goal. Too many times I watched our players actually walking while they had the ball, and leaving opposition players unmarked. That and the suicidal lunacy of 'playing it out from the back'. Otherwise, that resilience will have us in the play offs. Perhaps not if we don't drop the stupid nonsense that is costing us goals.

(To others, if they could use the reply button NOT the quote button when there is a long post, as in the OP,  it would help)

[DraytonBoy 155]

If I had to use one word to describe last night it would be 'lucky'.

After the second goal went in I honestly thought it could be 4 or 5 as Watford were that bad and City had total control, a defensive error let them back in the game just before half time and after the break it was all Watford. The enforced subs meant a change of formation and when the equaliser came I thought City would be lucky to get a draw, Sara was about to be subbed before he scored as Wagner intended to protect a point but the goal killed Watford and the last 15 minutes were a breeze.

 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,220]

An odd game. 

I said to my brother before the game that it many ways it was the kind of game that could allow Wagner to present ‘Exhibit A’ in defense of his style and methodology. 

Powerful, dynamical, athletic Prem-lite teams like Watford - with certainly pockets of top level quality and know-how - were often the bete-noire for Farke teams. 

Should Wagner be able to demonstrate that we have developed a physicality, a resilience, a press and counter-press that upsets such sides, negates their approach and which still allows us to have good moments, then that would be a clear statement and a definable direction of travel. 

I think we saw quite a lot of that. I think we were better. I think we deserved to win. 

Though he can’t help himself but be a bit of a contrarian. A bit of a school teacher fiddler and tinkerer. 

I suppose you might make a (weak) case that that sounds a bit like Guardiola too. I’m afraid Wagner is a long way from that. 

I can increasingly see what he is asking the players to do and why. Though I am continually left with the feeling ‘why do it that way?’ …’why create your own structural problems to then be forced to solve them in contorted ways that require somewhat unnatural behaviors from the players? Why be forced to over-complicate to correct such an extent because of something that is flawed in the very set up of the way you want to play?

The concept of machine-like pressing out of possession and Litmanen-cool with the ball is not new. It is a utopia rather than an apotheosis. 

The staggering errors by MacClean and Barnes should have brought two goals against us. I must attribute both to the fact that those two players epitomize what Wagner does want. 

Farke would gleefully point out that that is your coaching trade-off. Pretending you can have it all is fool’s gold. They get physically tired and then they get mentally tired. Both errors were simple 5-10 yars passes under no pressure in a key defensive area of the pitch. There was absolutely no need to worry about the passes, they were both quite safe and sensible choices. ‘Messing around at the back’ or ‘across your own box’ is outdated nonsense. A 5 yard push pass is as simple a technique as it is possible to have in football. Easy. No risk. Play it every time.

But they both made horrible technical, tactical and strategic errors in single passes. Responsible, diligent, fit, hard-working senior professionals. Exactly the types Wagner wants to make his system work. 

Sorry David. There is a compromise.

Nevertheless you certainly argue that we looked superior because of the press. That it laid the foundation and wore them down, disrupted their fluency, disrupted their intended patterns. 

Personally I thought that they looked surprisingly passive, short of confidence and momentum from almost the first minute. They were a pale, timid shadow of previous iterations of Watford sides in recent years. 

This brings us to the booed substitutions. Like it or not striker Sargent and wide attacker Onel, for solid midfielder Fassnacht and deeper-lying Nunez, is very much a lurch to the defensive. 

I am not sure that I saw anything in the Watford side to justify such a large net switch to defensive. 

Except of course if you are recognizing that as Barnes and Sargent get tired, opposition players start to run past them - and in Watford’s case they started to let their left-sided Centre back roam and Lewis go higher and often tuck into an inside midfield role - which only serves to highlight the structural flaw in our set up from the outset: our key central midfield areas are too often vacated and exposed. It is a product of the initial set up, personnel and instructions. 

Wagner really is a bit of a contrarian.

Then he turns on the fans. Why? At perhaps his highest point -  great win, his system had merits, a game in previous years that would have shown up the compromises ‘of the other way’ - in contrarian fashion he then immediately burns up the goodwill he’d worked so hard to earn? Odd indeed. 

Why? Perhaps he is a bit school-teachery. Perhaps deep-down he doesn’t feel he commands full football respect, perhaps he doesn’t inherently feel like ‘one of us’ in football terms? 

So he tinkers. He holds players back. Leaves them out of the side. Makes them wait. Uses ‘injuries’ to get them begging. Uses erratic, random, changing team selections and pairings to keep them on their toes. To make them act in contorted ways on the pitch. 

To engender an authority that deep down he doesn’t really feel that he has?

Parma 

Edited February 14 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[ricardo 7,395]

16 minutes ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

 

Wagner really is a bit of a contrarian.

Why? Perhaps he is a bit school-teachery. Perhaps deep-down he doesn’t feel he commands full football respect, perhaps he doesn’t inherently feel like ‘one of us’ in football terms? 

So he tinkers. He holds players back. Leaves them out of the side. Makes them wait. Uses ‘injuries’ to get them begging. Uses erratic, random, changing team selections and pairings to keep them on their toes. To make them act in contorted ways on the pitch. 

To engender an authority that deep down he doesn’t really feel that he has?

Parma 

I think you have summed that up quite succinctly Parma.

On the balance of the game, I was expecting Watford to go on and take the points once they equalised but they seemed to fade badly and it was City who regained the initiative. Hard to complain that Wagner got his substitutions wrong.

[Drazen Muzinic 1,446]

13 hours ago, Badger said:

Agree - definitely better than any press reports!

Thanks Ricardo 

For me, Ricardo is a throwback to those halcyon days of the Pink 'Un reporting of Bruce Robinson and Keith Skipper. No coincidence he's one of our longest serving fans and no doubt devoured that wonderful local, skilled journalism every weekend pre-interwebs...

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

At the start of the game all the 'interest' was about Sorensen starting.

I assume because I've seen nothing critical (indeed some important tackles / headers / blocks) that he did well. Competent, unflappable (and unsung) as usual.

I do wonder if Wanger (yes a tinkerer and clearly not yet set on his 'best starting 11')  may yet be trying to shoehorn Sorensen in in some manner as defensively minded. Thoughts?

[ricardo 7,395]

44 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

At the start of the game all the 'interest' was about Sorensen starting.

I assume because I've seen nothing critical (indeed some important tackles / headers / blocks) that he did well. Competent, unflappable (and unsung) as usual.

I do wonder if Wanger (yes a tinkerer and clearly not yet set on his 'best starting 11')  may yet be trying to shoehorn Sorensen in in some manner as defensively minded. Thoughts?

I thought he was a bit static for Watfords opener but he wasn't alone in that. Otherwise I thought he looked  fairly comfortable.

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

30 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I thought he was a bit static for Watfords opener but he wasn't alone in that. Otherwise I thought he looked  fairly comfortable.

Thanks Ricardo - I know he gets used (abused) as Mr Versatile but having seen him two matches (and a starter) running I did wonder what Wagner's thoughts were.