VectisSaint

Embarrassing.

The 3 teams that go up this year are far better than the 3 last year. Burnley looked good last year but once they lost their loanees and failed to invest they were shown to be very poor. I'm sure Leicester (if they don't get a points deduction) and Leeds at least will be safe mid table next season. Ipswich might struggle but their team spirit might get them through. We would struggle for the same reason as Burnley. WBA/Norwich would be straight back down, but then that is WBA's modus operandi.

Thought Stu had let his run down because he was retiring from football to pursue a legal career, may have been just a rumour of course.

Moyes perhaps, but wait long enough and another manager will come along. In Moyes case that won't be too long. It will take a great deal to prise Downes from his beloved West Ham.

he missed most of the game v Huddersfield (subbed after 24 minutes, injury), we were 0-0 when he went off, we then went 3-1 down, but did remarkably pull it back and won 5-3. That was the start of our slump after the unbeaten run, I know we won it but conceded 3 goals soon after he went off. Downes is pivotal, and we don't have anyone who can replace him like-for-like, we have players that can play DM but need a different system to be effective. Shea Charles is the closest we have, but he was terrible early season, lost confidence and lost Martin's confidence, hence has hardly played since. He does have the makings of a very good player though, as I have always said (when he was getting abuse on here early season).

Just feel I need to say that all of the reasons that people come up with as to why we lost yesterday and why we keep throwing away leads are missing the point. Stephens shoehorning, Smallbone's shoehorning, Bazunu's inability to make saves, Mannings defensive woes, unable to hang on to a lead, don't score enough, concede too many, Martin can't manage subs etc etc. All have some merit, but in the end what has cost us this season is our inability to win games when Flynn Downes is not available. His injury near the start of the Huddersfield game (which we won but only after being 3-1 down) opened up the defence and made us really easy to score against. Unfortunately and this is not a criticism of Smallbone or Charles, we do not have a player who can match Downes' ability and influence in DM. We've had this before, like when we lost Romeu. It is a luxury to have 2 top class DMs but when one is so outstanding and is lost to injury it is a big problem. Unfortunately Downes is somewhat injury/illness prone as we have found to our cost, Smallbone, Charles, Rothwell are all decent midfielders and have other attributes but they cannot do the Downes job, especially when we play 4-3-3 as yesterday. OK, perhaps some blame on Martin for not recognising this and setting us up differently but to be honest yesterday at least we were so dominant first half and should have scored 4 or 5 by half-time if out forwards had not been so profligate (and a little nod to their keeper) you could see his thinking. Trouble is no team can keep that dominance up for 100 minutes. Don't know where we will go next season when Downes returns to his beloved West Ham.

Think we're going to need a lot more than that. About 9 players I would think.

Given he is supposedly retiring at end of season it would be career-ending.

Not sure if you are joking. Their best player (Ng) out for the season, 12 or more injured or ill, maybe up to 5 from the u21s to fill the squad according to their manager. I think it is safe to say they will no be putting out a full strength team, but probably not as bad as they are making out.

Experience in a difficult situation. That is all. I think Martin made a good decision. Lumley will be OK when he has prepared to play from the start. Will be interesting to see what Martin does tomorrow, McCarthy got a clean sheet (admittedly with very little to actually do) so might feel aggrieved to be dropped, but if he hadn't done that I feel pretty sure that Lumley would be selected to start.

Not surprised its been mooted for years. Thought the winter break was brought in by the big clubs, so not sure how scrapping that benefits them, though the way it was brought in was a nonsense, in any case other leagues that do have a winter break use it to arrange friendlies so it was always totally meaningless. I don't know why you are having a go at the EFL. Can't see this is anything to do with them, all down to the FA and the PL. The EFL looks to benefit as a whole, though individual teams will lose out, the EFL have no say on the FA Cup.

I believe it happened right at the end just before the 3rd goal went in. The Watford manager and players were complaining about it post match saying there should have been a red card and that Downes handled the ball, so were doubly incensed. Can't say I saw exactly what happened but a Watford player was flat out in the pen area. Some of our so called supporters are more than a bit odd, Mara hasn't been great recently but he was brought on to do a job (at set pieces, defensively) and we won the game after he came on so who is to say that was a mistake.

Who said anything about the 2nd half? We went 2 up after 20 minutes which is when Watford started playing and exposing us down the flanks. We actually had 2 on target 2nd half, 4 off.

Really not sure why improving our goal difference needs to be a target. Unlikely we are going to get better than Leeds or Leicester, the two teams we can actually do something about (because we have to play them). Winning 1-0 is just as good as winning 4-0. Seems to me that it was because we continued to look for goals after we went 2 up Saturday gave Watford the opportunity (once their defenders woke up) to get at us and get the panic stations going when they attacked. We should to.some extent have shut up shop and consolidated rather than go for goals.

Made one glaring mistake, but made amends immediately which launched an attack (may have been the Fraser one but not sure). Not his greatest fan but he did actually make a difference when he came on and of course his corner did lead to the goal. Surprised Stephens stayed on when Bednarek came on, Doddsy called it on the commentary, Stephens had been struggling with what looked like cramp just before the substitution, maybe they thought he would be less damaging in MF rather than CB.