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Pre Season 22/23


EBS1980
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2 hours ago, qwertyell said:

Not certain even one of our signings starts the first game. Perhaps Aribo.

It's nice to have some more very promising kids on board, but If we're not improving the absolutely dire first XI, it's just window dressing. IMHO.

We have Spurs away... not denting the morale of the noob youngsters right away might be a good thing! 😝

 

Seriously hopefully we sign a striker in the next week so they have a chance to bed in before the season begins. I think if we start Adams and Adam we'll struggle to score goals against the better sides.

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31 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

How about it boosting their confidence...

 

I think Spurs are a different beast even just a few months later. It's not impossible we won't win but they've made some very good signings. Mind you Kane usually starts slow so... 🤞

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9 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

A schnappy comeback indeed 

I'm glad you were im-pretzel-ed. 🙂

While pleaded to get to watch the preseason games, I'm trying not to read too much into what I see. There's plenty of sharpness to get back (or find considering the end of last season), and further personnel changes will alter the squad dynamics. As someone posted, great pre seasons can be followed by dismal seasons and vice versa.

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11 minutes ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

I'm glad you were im-pretzel-ed. 🙂

While pleaded to get to watch the preseason games, I'm trying not to read too much into what I see. There's plenty of sharpness to get back (or find considering the end of last season), and further personnel changes will alter the squad dynamics. As someone posted, great pre seasons can be followed by dismal seasons and vice versa.

Maybe “no holds barred” was a euphemism for “double dismal” ?

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3 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

How about it boosting their confidence...

 

I remember that game. Broja almost decapitated for Spurs' second - should never have been given.

Broja took his goal well in that, and great play from JWP for the two assists.

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21 minutes ago, Danbert said:

Fat Frank already blaming the players and talking them down, I'm glad he's not our manager. It's going to be a long hard season for them.

If he is as bad as predicted, he will be gone during the World Cup.

they have some good players and easily good enough to stay up with a decent manager

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18 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

If he is as bad as predicted, he will be gone during the World Cup.

they have some good players and easily good enough to stay up with a decent manager

They have some expensive and very well paid players, certainly, but Lampard isn't the first manager to struggle to get much out of them. They've strengthened defensively with Tarkowski, which will help, but they've lost a player who single-handedly won them games last season and don't appear to have the money to replace him. Relying pretty heavily on Calvert-Lewin to regain the spark he had a year ago. I do suspect you're right that they'll bin him off mid-season, though.

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Not really sure what their expectations are as a club. I’m pretty sure their fans expect them to be competing with top 6, but given they’re in such a mess financially they’ll do well to just stay in the league until they can start spending again. 

But I also don’t see Lampard as a very good manager, so will be interesting to see how much patience they’ll have with him, I thought he was lucky to keep his job last season tbh. 

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17 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

If he is as bad as predicted, he will be gone during the World Cup.

they have some good players and easily good enough to stay up with a decent manager

I hope he does just enough to ride it out until the end of the season, but not well enough to finish above us!

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37 minutes ago, spyinthesky said:

Of course it is wrong to read too much into pre season friendlies but this scoreline represents a comfortable win for Liverpool whereas we struggled against RBL

Strange, it's almost as if Liverpool are better than us.

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1 hour ago, cloggy saint said:

Strange, it's almost as if Liverpool are better than us.

I like to think that we softened up RBL. Did all the hard work, meaning they had an easier ride of it.

 A bit like when my wife loosens the pickled onion jar for me.

Edited by Suhari
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2 hours ago, spyinthesky said:

Of course it is wrong to read too much into pre season friendlies but this scoreline represents a comfortable win for Liverpool whereas we struggled against RBL

You can't read anything into it really. I wouldn't say we struggled in the first half, we were quite competitive. Then McCarthy came on.

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15 hours ago, spyinthesky said:

Of course it is wrong to read too much into pre season friendlies but this scoreline represents a comfortable win for Liverpool whereas we struggled against RBL

We know Liverpool are significantly better than us, we don't need to read into anything to know it.

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One thing that’s really noticeable in that video is how physically slight Adam Armstrong looks compared to the other players when they’re talking to him in those interview segments. It’s not meant as an insult, but his natural build means he looks like a child surrounded by men there. Given what an important attribute physical strength is to help create space and opportunities for a forward, he really looks like he needs to bulk up a bit. 

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18 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

One thing that’s really noticeable in that video is how physically slight Adam Armstrong looks compared to the other players when they’re talking to him in those interview segments. It’s not meant as an insult, but his natural build means he looks like a child surrounded by men there. Given what an important attribute physical strength is to help create space and opportunities for a forward, he really looks like he needs to bulk up a bit. 

Yeah, his frame is tiny. That's always going to hold him back at this level as he doesn't really have anything else about his game bar pace. In the Champ you can catch teams on the break with your pace, but at this level that doesn't happen as often so you need to have a bit of physicality to help build the game as well, otherwise it's very easy to become isolated with the attack/midfield so far apart, as we often saw when he played.

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15 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Yeah, his frame is tiny. That's always going to hold him back at this level as he doesn't really have anything else about his game bar pace. In the Champ you can catch teams on the break with your pace, but at this level that doesn't happen as often so you need to have a bit of physicality to help build the game as well, otherwise it's very easy to become isolated with the attack/midfield so far apart, as we often saw when he played.

Totally. That's why it seems odd that no-one appears to have worked on that with him. Height and frame are obviously what you're born with, but given that being short doesn't have to mean being skinny too - especially if you're a professional elite sportsman surrounded by facilities and conditioning coaches all day - you'd think that they would have helped him improve his bulk and upper body strength a bit by now. He still looks the same size and shape as he was when he first arrived. Maybe it's a deliberate thing, but if so I'd be interested to understand the thinking behind it. 

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6 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

you'd think that they would have helped him improve his bulk and upper body strength a bit by now.

Yep, you only have to look at Kante to see the difference, not many bully him off the ball and he's even shorter than AA.

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10 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

Totally. That's why it seems odd that no-one appears to have worked on that with him. Height and frame are obviously what you're born with, but given that being short doesn't have to mean being skinny too - especially if you're a professional elite sportsman surrounded by facilities and conditioning coaches all day - you'd think that they would have helped him improve his bulk and upper body strength a bit by now. He still looks the same size and shape as he was when he first arrived. Maybe it's a deliberate thing, but if so I'd be interested to understand the thinking behind it. 

Possibly deliberate if they want to keep him slight/nippy/able to turn quick etc. But I don't think that alone is enough to make you a success at this level if you're not particularly 'skilful'. He doesn't need to become hulk, but just a little bit of upper strength!

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1 hour ago, Convict Colony said:

yeah will check my regular places later

I can't believe some people on here are so bloody mean that they would rather search all day for a pirated stream when all they need to do is sign up and pay a fiver on the Watford website. If that option did not exist then OK but it does and those fivers will help Watford get their house in order and hopefully back to the PL.

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Presuming:

 

                       Bazunu

      Bednarek Salisu Bella-Kotchap

KWP                                               Djenepo

                   JWP        Lavia

        Aribo                      S Armstrong

                     A Armstrong

Edited by Nolan
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