A WATFORD FAN SAYS....

SouthCoast_Orns posted:

'What are your feelings/thoughts on the forthcoming game then?

I won't lie, it's been brilliant being a Watford fan living down on the South Coast in recent years. Plenty of bragging rights:

Our 5-2 win over you in the Carling Cup when you had that muppet in charge of your side...I forget his name now. Surname began with 'W'.

Our 3-0 boxing day win over you in our promotion season. The 3-1 win on our first visit to St.Mary's aswell on the sky game.

The cracking game down at our place last season when we won 3-2. Henderson came off the bench to win it for us after you took the lead through a fantastic goal by Dyer.

And then the 3-0 win at your place on New Years Day last season.

However, this season could be a lot different. We've sold most our best players (Shittu, Henderson, King), we've lost Damien Francis to injury...he was the number 7 that ran the game down at your place last season.

You've obviously lost a few key players aswell in recent times.

You've struggled to cope with our powerful style in recent years...Darius Henderson has enjoyed playing against your lot, scoring 6 goals in the last 4 encounters. We don't play that way anymore. We try to get the ball down and play a bit more, which could probably suit you, especially at home.

Watch out for Tommy Smith (21) on the right, and Will Hoskins (22) upfront. Both been in great form this season.

I predict a tight 1-1 draw.

Best of luck.'

And....

by Southcoast_orns Today at 11:49

'Saints fans are fairly confident then.

Yeah, we're struggling at the wrong end of the table, but we've been unlucky in quite a few games aswell. The Reading game for example. Not to mention the likes of Rasiak, Sadler, Demerit, Doyley, Priskin, Poom, Loach, Francis, Williams & Robinson being out injured at various parts of the early season. We've haven't managed to get a settled side out yet.

It's good to see both Watford and Southampton bringing through quality youngsters. Ours put up a great showing against West Ham in the Carling Cup, and we managed to beat the strong side they put out...5 of the players in our side were under 19.

Another thing, we're ALWAYS sh*t after international break.'

2 POSTS AND MAKES VERRY GOOD READING

And....:

Aidy's email about the game.



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Hi everyone,

It’s welcome back to the Championship fixture list this weekend as we gear up for a massive few weeks in our season, which will feature five games in just a fortnight as we head towards November.

We did ourselves a huge favour with the result against Preston before the break and we’ll be looking to pick up where we left off when we travel down to Southampton this weekend – a venue where we’ve had a decent record in recent times.

As I said after the Preston game, we’ve still got a lot of work to do on the training pitch and believe me we’ve been getting down to that over the spare days we’ve had because of the break.

That time has also allowed lads like Mark Tyler and Darren Ward to get to know their new team mates which won’t do them any harm at all.

They say that time is a great healer too, and there’s been plenty of that going on as well – freeing up some beds in the medical room!

The likes of Grzegorz Rasiak, Lloyd Doyley, John Eustace and the like are all getting that little bit closer to a resumption of duties for us although they’ll all be touch and go over the next few games as to whether they make it. That is something we’ll look at on a day-to-day basis.

And you wouldn’t believe that the injury curse has started striking the staff too – poor old Malky somehow managed to tear his cartilage in his knee last week. All those years of playing without such problem and he goes and does that stretching for another doughnut at the dinner table!

Back to the football and we can expect some really difficult tests over the next few games with a real assortment of teams to face. For those of you going to Southampton on Saturday, you have my thanks in advance and I’ll look forward to seeing you.

They’ve had their problems over the past few months but they’ve got a really youthful side with one or two wiser heads in amongst them. As we know only too well the one thing youthful zest gives you is unpredictability, so we’ll not be underestimating what they can do on their home patch.

Then it’s Cardiff and Wolves with their two wily old managers Dave Jones and Mick McCarthy – both well versed in what this division’s about. We’ll find out a lot about them in the next few games, and we’ll find out a lot about ourselves too. I can’t wait to get back to it and I hope you’re the same too.

Come on!

And...

Re: WATFORD UP NEXT
by Southcoast_orns Today at 7:28 pm

I personally thought the bit about Malky Mackay was amusing.

I would imagine the team will look like this:

....................Lee......................

Mariappa...Ward...Demerit...Sadler

Smith...O'Toole....Williamson..Harley

..................Hoskins..................

...................Priskin...................

Subs: Tyler, Bromby, Eustace (if fit), L.Henderson (not Darius) & McAnuff.

And...

Re: WATFORD UP NEXT
by Southcoast_orns Today at 7:28 am

SFC Forever wrote:
'Looks like a similar formation to ours at the moment. Whatever the result Saturday I hope we meet again next season. Maybe a fight to go up next time around.Though to be fair a few good results can propel either side up the league. We need another season for the kids to learn their trade and get stronger. I think that with your injuries your lot will need to wait until next year as well.
How do you rate Aidy and the job he's done? Small club as is ours means you don't have as much dosh as some appear to have.'


SFC, we're going through a transitional period, very much like yourselves. The kids are gradually getting first team action. The likes of JJ O'Toole, Mariappa, Doyley, Lee, Bangura, L.Young (Ashley's brother), L.Henderson, Ross Jenkins & Jordan Parkes have all played some part of our 16 man squad this season, and the above mentioned players have all come up through our excellent youth set-up. The most exciting player in my opinion is Ross Jenkins. Central midfielder, 17, totally dominated Mark Noble when we played against West Ham.

Both our clubs may be skint at this moment in time, but we've both got a conveyour belt of talent coming through our set-ups, which is more than you can say about most clubs.

I feel the job Aidy has done here has been mixed. Much more good than bad. Outsiders like yourselves would look at that statement and say, 'mixed'? He got you promoted in his first season, got you to an FA Cup semi-final in his second, and last season into the play-offs.

Aidy came in at the back end of the 04/05 season. He had 7 games to keep us up. We won two and drew two (if memory serves me correctly) and it was enough to stay up. The away win at Stoke on the penultimate game of the season was what kept us up. I remember Ashley Young's performance in that game, and remember saying to my mates during the game, that's the best we've seen of him in a Watford shirt, and he'll be some player next season.

His first full season we went up through the play-offs, finishing in 3rd place. We scored a lot of goals that year. Marlon King scoring 22, Henderson 15, Young 15 and Matt Spring got 10 from midfield. (All four of these players have moved on since). He did a great job. He re-built the SQUAD with just £1,100,000 he raised from the sale of Heidar Helguson to Fulham. He signed King for 500k, Henderson for 400k, Spring for 100k, Carlisle for 100k, Mackay on a free, Foster on a season loan.

We were always going to go down in the Prem season. We started well, although we didn't win until November, we went to places like Wigan, Bolton and even Everton and dominated matches. We just lacked the quality at both ends of the pitch to stop the silly mistakes. We conceeded silly goals, and missed great chances. Then King got crocked for the season in the 3-0 lose at Arsenal back in October. Ashley Young left in January for £9,650,000 and we signed Championship standard players in the Jan transfer window.

Last season we spent a lot of money (wasted a lot of it) on crap like Nathan Ellington (£4,000,000), McAnuff (£2,000,000), Rinaldi (£250k...he didn't play one league game), Matt Jackson and Mart Poom (both free but on about 10k per week).

We blew a 9 point lead in November. Marlon King spat his dummy out in December and allegedly handed in a transfer request (if it wasn't for us he'd still be sitting in the Forest ressies or playing league two football). Ellington wasn't getting a game, McAnuff was wasteful in possesion, we lost Adam Johnson back to Boro, he spent two months here and scored 5 goals from left-midfield. He was different class, and he'll play for the full England side before long, and Boothroyd's tactical abilities from his previous two seasons seemed to have desserted him. Losing games and leaving £6,000,000 worth of strikers on the bench The club was falling apart, a lot of unrest behind the scenes with player egos and a manager that had appeared to have lost the plot. We were playing some AWFUL football (if you can call it football, it was more Rugby)...very predictable, and that was the main problem). We somehow managed to scrape into the play-offs (we've only one once away from home since our win at St.Mary's on New Years Day, and that was taking Ipswich's unbeaten home record in Feb). For anyone that saw our play-off defeat against Hull last season may agree with me here, we were very unfortunate to lose 6-1 on agg. We lost the home leg 0-2. We had a perfectly good goal disallowed after 4 mins, and then it all fell apart. Gifted them two soft goals, and their keeper pulled off 5-6 stunning saves to keep us out. Eustace got sent-off (for nothing, it was later rescinded) and we lost our momentum in the last 30 minutes of the first leg. In the second leg we went 0-1 up after 9 minutes, but AGAIN gifted them a silly goal on the stroke of HT. 3-1 down on agg, and we went for it second half...we took off a defender and brought on Priskin who is a striker. We got overrun in our desperation to get back in the game and ended up conceeding 3 more goals second half. A very harsh overall scoreline, BUT, considering the way we played in the final half of the season, we didn't deserve to go up, and Hull did.

This season we've had to rectify last season's cock-ups financially by selling Ellington, Henderson and Shittu for £6,000,000 combined. Francis & Jackson retired, Poom is crocked for 6 months but on a 10k per week contract (cheers) and we may possibly be forced to sell Smith, McAnuff, Demerit & Hoskins in the january transfer window, UNLESS, we are brought out. Rumours going around a Hungarian and Romanian consortium are interested. On the field we've been very inconsistent...we've taken points off most the 'better' sides in the league like Reading, Ipswich, Charlton, PNE & Palace aswell as beating WHU in the cup...but yet we've lost to some poor sides like Sheff Weds, Plymouth & Forest.

We'll be ok this season, providing we can keep hold of our top players (the ones we have left anyway). Next season we'll hope to push on and see if we can gain some investment to compete in the market with everyone else.

Financially we've fu*ked up big time. We've had £45,000,000 come into the club from the Prem, and we've also sold £25,000,000 worth of players since leaving the Prem. Most of the expenditure has gone on paying Championship players Premiership wages!!

That's the histroy of my club since Aidy came in. Sorry it's long-winded, but I think you'll agree, it's been a roller-coaster last few seasons...and I also think there are similarities with yourselves.

Apert from the fact that we seem to have a different manager every other week we are in a similar position as you say. Money is tight and I am hoping some smaller clubs(if there are any) will be forced into letting players go on the cheap. Players good enough to strengthen us if not make us world beaters. I am looking forward even more to seeing the match now to see two young sides fight it out.
Thank you for an excellent post. Please keep in touch after the game because it is always interesting to hear the views of opponents fans.You could always leave the link to your favourite Watford site in case some of us would like to chat on yours. It's frightening really when you realise that their are even more clubs in the mire financially. Main difference seems to be that you have a board that stands by the main man and gives him time.

Admin wrote: by Southcoast_orns Today at 11:49: Another thing, we're ALWAYS sh*t after international break.'

Well you're better than us, we're shit full stop.

Sad but true.

yeah but we might get there in the end x

Get where exactly?

She doesn't know herself but is at least trying to speak the queens English. She is a lovely girl really and we are truly proud of the young woman that she has become. Apart from her language that is.

Sparkle wrote:Get where exactly?

You have started talking to yourself?? ;)

no i havnt hun lol x

obviously she has no one two talk but her self lvu u realy sis

Her phone was off for 20 minutes and she was getting withdrawal symptons.

SFC Forever wrote:Her phone was off for 20 minutes and she was getting withdrawal symptons.

y thank u but i cnt lve without my phone is just impossible 4 me x

I agree with u sis but i ate got my phone and i am very unhappy but i will just have to get over it sooner or later cause some poeple have not even got a phone!!!...

ahh never mind well it ur own falt init 4 not doing wot ur told lol xx

I see manager has gone. Who will be next I wonder?

It would be good if South Coast Orns joined us on here...

I'll second that

I've sent him an email asking if he'd like to come on and talk about the game.