Jol got it wrong today

[Lighthouse]

Really thought we had the point yesterday that would have taken us to the important 40 mark.

The late  substitution and tactical change didn't work. We should have learnt by now that the gamble of playing Rodders up front with Berbatov behind him is a gamble that doesn't pay off, it has been tried often enough without success. Berbatov has to stay as the main striker for all 95 minutes, he is the most likely to score.

The idea makes sense. At that point in the game they were open to the quick counter. But Rodallega just isn't quite good enough.

Yeah the sub was fine and made sense and caused problems when Rodders came on. But Berbatov just got deeper and Rodders decided not to push up to the defenders and hey ho. I like Rodders but he needs support and really time playing.

[MJG]

I think that Jol has made up his mind about our quick young wide players. I think he has no use for Frei, Kacaniklic, or Briggs.

I asked that question about Frei & Kaca yesterday. I'm not convinced he does see them in the team. Much happier with his 27 plus years olds in the team.

[TonyGilroy]

They need to be good enough though.

I watched Briggs play badly for Waford against Cardiff and Kakaniklic was barely noticeable in a Burnley game I saw a few weeks ago.


Briggs simply isn't tight enough as a defender and yet playing wing back for Watford he did nothing much coming forward.

Kaka and Frei offer nothing defensively whereas Duff and Dejagah do and the truth is that not conceding is more important than scoring.

We all want these guys to succeed but it does no one any favours if they play and fail.

[ffc73]

The players also got the stoppage time wrong. 

Against QPR we played keep ball in the opposition half, kept our shape (with 10-men) and ran the clock down. 

At Newcastle we failed to retain possession, ran around chasing shadows, dropped deeper and deeper into our own box and when we did clear our lines passed the ball straight to the opposition who immediately launched it back at us.