Javi Gracia- Watford boss (again)

[CHAPELALLMAN]

On his decision to sit off
I know what happens when you press deep against this team. We prefer to wait for the right moment

Absolutely the right thing to do. Under marsch we'd have been passed through like knife through butter because of the gung-ho pressing.
Nice to see Gracia done his homework on them.

Sent from my moto g(9) plus using Tapatalk

TBF gung-ho pressing under another manager too. The all -out pressing game experiment since we got back to the PL is hopefully over now.

[Jaydog]

What’s the verdict after 3 PL games on Gracia?
W1 D1 L1
GF 3 GA 3
His brief was to beat the teams in the bottom 9. Something Marsch couldn’t do regularly.
So far he’s 100% on that.

[Cjay]

What’s the verdict after 3 PL games on Gracia?
W1 D1 L1
GF 3 GA 3
His brief was to beat the teams in the bottom 9. Something Marsch couldn’t do regularly.
So far he’s 100% on that.

[Jaydog]

Thanks
Lazy bugger aren’t I

[Cjay]

Thanks
Lazy bugger aren’t I

Yes

Now answer your own question

[Jaydog]

Yes

Now answer your own question

Think he’s done ok.
Some murmurings that perhaps we have more chance of beating a top 6 side with Marsch and his chaos but I’d prefer Gracia albeit 6 games before he actually arrived.
He’s taken on a misfiring side struggling to score. That’s not his fault. It is what it is as that annoying saying goes.
C+ from me so far

[weasel]

Thought h got his tactics pretty much spot on today and a draw was a fair result. We failed to capitalise on the parts of the match when we were on top but then showed good pateince and resilience to hang in and hit back. Got the balance of when to press fairly much spot on.

I have been impressed with him so far and hopefully now we have more attacking options we can eke out a few wins.

[BGwhite]

TBF gung-ho pressing under another manager too. The all -out pressing game experiment since we got back to the PL is hopefully over now.

Hope so, gung-ho pressing is nothing but schoolboy stuff .

Sent from my moto g(9) plus using Tapatalk

[CHAPELALLMAN]

Hope so, gung-ho pressing is nothing but schoolboy stuff .

Sent from my moto g(9) plus using Tapatalk

[Mountain]

Hope so, gung-ho pressing is nothing but schoolboy stuff .

Apart from promotion back to the top flight and finishing 9th with some if the most exciting football we've ever seen, it did absolutely nothing for us...

[Cjay]

Apart from promotion back to the top flight and finishing 9th with some if the most exciting football we've ever seen, it did absolutely nothing for us...

And seen us flirting with relegation for the last 18months

Was nice to see a manager sacrifice his style to try and help the team once he identified something in the opposition that may make his style struggle

And Gracia was spot on to the point Brighton fans on there forum hoped we would press pre match

We'd have been battered if we had adopted the pressing principles of our 2 previous managers.

Endless Pressing isn't the only way I'd think is the point rather than a dig at he who shall not be named and Marsch

Selective pressing was the right way today and it worked at times

Just didn't make the most of the chances it generated.

[Irish Ian]

4 points from 9 isn't the worst.


Keep that up and we have just about enough.

[Irish Ian]

TBF gung-ho pressing under another manager too. The all -out pressing game experiment since we got back to the PL is hopefully over now.

This post shows just how little you actually know about the game.

All out pressing

[weasel]

4 points from 9 isn't the worst.


Keep that up and we have just about enough.

Results so far, under Javi, are as I predicted but performances have been better and the team has a bit of fight about them - they didn't lack fight before but the way we played saw us being ripped open too easily. We now know we can be fairly strong defensively and also be able to get in good positions to create chances. We seem to have a good shape about us and Javi seems able to make subtle changes. Only gripe is him not starting Gnonto but perhaps he likes the idea of having really good options available from the bench so as to be able to impact the game by using subs.

[Mountain]

And seen us flirting with relegation for the last 18months .

I'd say the last year was more down to a bad manager rather than saying gung ho pressing can't work. It can. And we know that for certain because, done well, it worked better than anything else we did in 2 decades.

[1964white]

Results so far, under Javi, are as I predicted but performances have been better and the team has a bit of fight about them - they didn't lack fight before but the way we played saw us being ripped open too easily. We now know we can be fairly strong defensively and also be able to get in good positions to create chances. We seem to have a good shape about us and Javi seems able to make subtle changes. Only gripe is him not starting Gnonto but perhaps he likes the idea of having really good options available from the bench so as to be able to impact the game by using subs.

We didn't have a good shape today, we were all over the place at times!

And yes, Gnonto should start, more down the middle.

[weasel]

We didn't have a good shape today, we were all over the place at times!

And yes, Gnonto should start, more down the middle.

We had the shape where it matters and that is key. We were flexible and as you say at times Brighton were passing it around us etc but we had people in the right areas and that was the big difference to earlier in the season. Even for Brighton's goals we had players to be able to stop the goals. For the first goal Wober chose to go to the goal line anticipating a header towards goal instead of the header accross goal to MacAllister. For the second goal Harrison had got back into position. Yes Brighton had a couple of other chances but it wasn't like earlier in the season when opponents were simply queuing up to score.

The defensive structure was decent. Brighton have decent players and were able to hurt us but generally we looked secure.

[BGwhite]

Apart from promotion back to the top flight and finishing 9th with some if the most exciting football we've ever seen, it did absolutely nothing for us...

I dread to think what the result would have been today had we pressed like school kids. It was obvious what they wanted and also so obvious what they'd do to us if we fell into their trap but unlike what's gone previously Gracia saw sense .

Sent from my moto g(9) plus using Tapatalk

[Mountain]

I dread to think what the result would have been today had we pressed like school kids.

Well obviously if we had pressed "like school kids" it would have gone badly. That's pretty much the same for any tactics or system in the PL. If you do it badly, like "school kids" you get punished.

[BGwhite]

Well obviously if we had pressed "like school kids" it would have gone badly. That's pretty much the same for any tactics or system in the PL. If you do it badly, like "school kids" you get punished.

Exactly.

Sent from my moto g(9) plus using Tapatalk