Watford vs Sheffield United

vs.

Championship Week 1 - Monday 1st August 2022 - 20:00 - Vicarage Road
Please keep all discussion related to the match within this thread.


Matchday Stats/Player Ratings - https://www.s24su.com/forum/match-day/match/watford-vs-sheffield-united.604/

Officials:

Referee: Josh Smith
Assistant Referee: Matthew Jones
Assistant Referee: Akil Howson
Fourth Official: Gavin Ward

Coverage:

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Need a VPN? - https://www.s24su.com/forum/threads/vpn-usage.87094/

Live TV Coverage:




SUTV Live - https://live.sufc.co.uk/

 

[haich1889]

Jebbison will never be a footballer, ran around for 60 waisted! minutes but never got on the ball, We could all see it wasn’t working up front, and the defending was poor, but Hecky couldn’t see it until it was 1-0

That was absolute dog shit!!! Can't pass, control a ball, looked disinterested. They need a rocket up their arse in training, and go back to the basics, else I can only see another defeat on Saturday!!!!!

Don't think this Manager has a rocket in him. Every interview is boring, uninspiring, monotone & passionless whether we win, draw or lose.

 

[haich1889]

I do wonder what we do in preseason compared to every other club we seem to play at the start of seasons. We always look so slow and weak. Doesn't help that our midfield  is slow and weak...

Couple of positives, the players have got some minutes into their legs. Oh, and the kits finally arrived.

We accumulate injuries pre-season.

 

[Blade56]

On paper Watford should have stuffed us rotten given the shambles of a team we put out and a poor performance by nearly every play except IN.
Berge not involved and too slow when he was, Fleck and Norwood, we’ll, what can you say. Max Lowe in the headlights,
And them scoring from our corner ffs. Just hope McAtee wasn’t watching.
Would have got a point tonight if we had VAR

 

[skyjam]

yoonited made them look like barcelona

 

[ShropsBlade]

Are people really questioning heckingbottoms position after one narrow defeat against a team most likely a shoe in for promotion.We played square pegs round holes in defence too.

One thing I can’t argue with is fleck constantly getting away with one performance every five f*****ng games.My word I hope Doyle is fit soon an proves an upgrade.Baldock and stevens aren’t far behind either.Some of the old guard look exactly that “old”

 

[ChezVegasBlade]

Dreadful team selection, dreadful performance, not much else to say.

 

[Blade56]

How unprofessional as a club not to know Abel was on a one match ban.
But, surely the player was aware?

 

[Mark F]

Tight game - got scrappy at times:

Particularly 2nd half - not many chances .

Bit unfortunate for the goal from your POV maybe but good break by us .

Hope whoever was in trouble at the top of the stand in your end is ok .

 

[Sheffsteel]

Watched it on Sky.....such a disappointing result.
The Watford goal was so so avoidable but I think they edged it in a tight game with few chances.
Watford had bigger more athletic players and that was the difference.

Positives: We look solid and don't look like we'll concede many. Watford have one of the best attacks in this league but didn't create much.

Negatives: We never really looked like scoring and conceded a very avoidable goal. What was John Fleck doing...he could have stuck his leg put and stopped the pass.
It reminded me of many PL matches in the season we went down.
We looked decent overall but never looked like scoring and predictably lost by ONE goal.
Also our passing wasn't there, too many long passes, quite disjointed.

 

[FinBlade]

We didn't have our pack together and we gave away easy, stupid goal.
I hope we don't repeat last season and just force same players game after game expecting different result.

 

[Mendi]

Shambles

 

[Bladesman98]

Take comfort knowing that tonight’s back line is far from first choice and we have the likes of Khadra/Doyle/McAtee* to integrate.

 

[Keen Blade]

That was absolute dog shit!!! Can't pass, control a ball, looked disinterested. They need a rocket up their arse in training, and go back to the basics, else I can only see another defeat on Saturday!!!!!

Jake Cooper header , no doubt

 

[Keen Blade]

I don’t want to see fleck stevens or Norwood or lowe play for this club again

Tough shit , they have contracts

 

[Keen Blade]

Never let John Fleck pull on a Blades shirt ever again. He has been garbage since the restart in our first top flight season. Used to be my favourite player, now he can fuck off!

Tubby Fleck is never fit till October

 

[Keen Blade]

I do wonder what we do in preseason compared to every other club we seem to play at the start of seasons. We always look so slow and weak. Doesn't help that our midfield  is slow and weak...

Couple of positives, the players have got some minutes into their legs. Oh, and the kits finally arrived.

Our players (except Ndiaye) are slow and weak ... What can you do ?
But we recruited them , so there you go.
Berge defending a cross allowed a player a foot shorter than him to win a header on goal .... That's what you're dealing with.
And he's just one example.
Two of ours actually run over the ball to allow Watford to break away + score.
Only Ndiaye & Wes should be paid tonight.

 

[Overthehills]

Can’t be arsed with reading all of the doom and gloom, world is ending bullsh*t…. So forgive me but I’m going straight in with my take as opposed to conforming to any sort of opinion.

For a “makeshift” set up, for whatever reason…..actually, we were reasonably drilled and dealt with most things.

The game itself had a massive ring of bore draw about it……and to be fair, I would have taken that for the season opener.

I’m not going to lie…. The goal was disappointing and amateurish. I say this because we knew how susceptible we would be that pace and directness of a counter attack. It wasn’t tactical adeptness either, it was simply playing to the strength of their assets.

It was never going to be a cup final….. it was never going to be an opener remembered for a long time……but I SHOULD probably have been an unspectacular foundation.

Saturday…… the shape will be different and we will do a job on Millwall, that I am sure.

Positives…. Ndiaye wants to be the pin up boy. Fair play to him, he’s got a bit between his teeth…..long may it last.

Jebbo put himself about a bit… albeit a little bit naive to certain things. Again, long may it last.

Negative…. Running a bit short for fleck these days and struggle to see why is a first on the team sheet. Hope this sorts itself out…… Khadra has to be before him now

Otherwise, a good run out for an opener really…. Barring a really predictable, susceptible mistake. But it’s not the end of the world at all…..


Chalk it off, brush it off and on to the next

 

[Edgar Allan Poo]

We passed a car accident on the way in to Watford (police were on the scene) involving Blades so their evening was much worse than ours.

Hope everyone is ok.

 

[haich1889]

Jebbison will never be a footballer, ran around for 60 waisted! minutes but never got on the ball, We could all see it wasn’t working up front, and the defending was poor, but Hecky couldn’t see it until it was 1-0

Thing is: when he changed it to Plan B , it was obvious, there is no Plan B. It was worse.

 

[SB_90]

So a point would result in a promising performance it was on the cards the whole game we did not have a clue how to score and they’d get one at some point
That performance from starts to finish was bad

it's the opening day & you have to take the opposition into a account this was Watford away not rotherham at home. we created chances. Watford wouldnt have scored until we laid on a plate for them. we created some good openings but the final ball was terrible

 

[munksyb]

We played probably the best team in the league, away.
We had to readjust our backs, and incredibly find out we couldn’t play Anel.
They had some good attacks which you would expect
Jebbo almost scored with his shot which was tipped over
We had some decent headers that they dealt with, and illy looked like a player
We fell to a bizarre goal with the ref impeding Flecks shot from a set piece corner the ball ricocheted directly to their forward, the pass to the winger who crossed the ball was 3 or 4 feet offside,
Even then Wes closed the final shot down but it happened to go straight between his legs
Other than that we would have got a creditable draw,
The shape & personnel will be different going forward
We are in good shape for this league

 

[ATL Recs]

it's the opening day & you have to take the opposition into a account this was Watford away not rotherham at home. we created chances. Watford wouldnt have scored until we laid on a plate for them. we created some good openings but the final ball was terrible

The only chances we made came from individuals not team ethic we never got behind them or opened them up
Sorry but bar there front three (two will be gone end August )they were average
We lacked cohesion and desire and we started with 6 PL experienced players (Jebbison cameos don’t count)
That performance was Derby Stoke Coventry Millwall Preston away last season

 

[St Albans Blade]

Mmm. If it's any consolation (and it isn't) that was a narrower defeat than I expected!

Glad to see that our inability to deal with any low cross in to the middle of the penalty area, so clearly exposed by all the minnows we encountered in pre-season friendlies, has been sorted out in training sessions - NOT!

Seems all the opposition needs to do is send a low ball between the edge of the goal area and the penalty spot and we're exposed!

 

[Sheffsteel]

My observation apart from the massive difference in athleticism was our approach. We approached it like a play-off semi final 2 legged affair.

The 1st leg was away so we designed all our tactics to stay in the tie, hope for a 0-0 draw or keep the score down to a 0-1 loss.

My real disappointment was in the 2nd half. Watford seems quite happy leading 1-0 and, so they stopped attacking so much settling for the 1-0.
However amazingly we seemed happy with a 0-1 defeat and never showed much ambition pushing loads of players forward showing intent.

Suspect both managers were happy with the result.
Heggie's probably thinking, at least we weren't thrashed whilst playing an understrength weakened defence.

 

[blades14]

Coulibaly needs to play

It’s annoying because he played and scored against Rotherham in the behind closed door friendly so he’s clearly fit and he doesn’t even make the bench.

 

[haich1889]

it's the opening day & you have to take the opposition into a account this was Watford away not rotherham at home. we created chances. Watford wouldnt have scored until we laid on a plate for them. we created some good openings but the final ball was terrible

We were crap

 

[Chazzer]

One of the most disappointing things for me was Berge's performance. In view of his excellent form at the end of last season I was really excited that we had managed to keep him at the Lane and I expected that he would impose himself on this game. Instead he played as if he thought another season of Championship football was a bit beneath him.
When it looked last season as if we were in with a chance of a quick return to PL football Berge seemed to really up his game (he was even one of the scorers in the penalty shoot out at Forest!) He perhaps also had one eye on attracting a summer transfer. Now he just doesn't look as if he wants to be here at all.
I really hope I am wrong about this and thst he does have a good season but if there is a problem Hecky needs to sort it out quickly.

 

[St Albans Blade]

Frankly, activity in the transfer market underwhelming; selection of pre-season opposition underwhelming; performance in pre-season underwhelming; forward line underwhelming; squad underwhelming; team underwhelming; directorate underwhelming.

I’m not going to comment on Hecky as he outperformed all expectation last season and McCall is a shrewd appointment.

But their enthusiasm and ability is undermined by the capability at the directorate level.

Though it saddens me to say it, the 15 season nomadic meander to the Premier League is underway.

Hecky, finally waking up to the ludicrousness of the ‘treading water’ task in hand, will either be gone or dismissed around February.

A string of managerial blunder workers will ensue, one of which will condemn us to League 1 again.

We’ll then await a Porterfield-Bassett-Warner-Wilder-like Messiah to lead us back to the Premiership promised land!

Frighteningly predictable.

UTB

 

[haich1889]

Frankly, activity in the transfer market underwhelming; selection of pre-season opposition underwhelming; performance in pre-season underwhelming; forward line underwhelming; squad underwhelming; team underwhelming; directorate underwhelming.

I’m not going to comment on Hecky as he outperformed all expectation last season and McCall is a shrewd appointment.

But their enthusiasm and ability is undermined by the capability at the directorate level.

Though it saddens me to say it, the 15 season nomadic meander to the Premier League is underway.

Hecky, finally waking up to the ludicrousness of the ‘treading water’ task in hand, will either be gone or dismissed around February.

A string of managerial blunder workers will ensue, one of which will condemn us to League 1 again.

We’ll then await a Porterfield-Bassett-Warner-Wilder-like Messiah to lead us back to the Premiership promised land!

Frighteningly predictable.

UTB

This ain't your first rodeo then???

 

[St Albans Blade]

This ain't your first rodeo then???

Indeed, was rodeo-ing with the Blades before Woody even moved to Texas!



...and if anyone wants to watch a full Woody game vs New York Cosmos, enjoy...