Some encouragement from that second half but overall dispiriting

I find it depressing that we are now three months into the season and our team still look like they’ve hardly ever played together before. There seems little understanding, few patterns of play. It’s like we are trying a new formation every game.

I’m not a “smith out” brigade member but by the same token I don’t feel he’s doing a very good job. He hasn’t cracked our best team, formation or how to deal with the Sargent and Pukki conundrum. Some credit for the way he makes changes in games to try and improve things but then how long can you keep giving a manager credit for making changes to address performances that are under par from the outset?

Hayden obviously a positive tonight. I saw glimpses of how he can improve us significantly just through his positional discipline and organisation. I thought Sara did quite well again and also Dowell.

On the flip side Byram was sh*t, Nunez was sh*t and Onel was several layers worse than sh*t when he came on. I couldn’t work out the lack of urgency at the end and although we improved second half it was still highly frustrating.

Awful ref who allowed the Watford players (who are a particularly odious bunch it seems to me, nothing likeable about them at all) to completely ruin the last half of the second half with their okay acting, time wasting and general s**thousing. That sort of thing seems to be getting worse in the champ and whilst I know we do it as well sometimes they were the worst I’ve seen in a long time. Must have wasted 15 - 20 minutes.

Posted By: Jim, Oct 15, 23:59:45