verlaine1979

Long showed why he'll never be good enough - first touch for his chance was just so poor. Hope him, Stephens and FF are gone next season (along with Ely who has surely proven himself deadwood already).

Even the Dortmund/Atletico models seem to require more money than we are comfortable spending (though this might also be a function of being in the PL where the table stakes of having a competitive team are just a lot higher). But to play the reinvestment game with any confidence you have to be looking to sell one star and buy two or three prospects every time. One for one replacement leaves you one dud away from an empty cupboard, as we're likely to discover quite soon if we have to sell yet again before buying over the summer. It's a shame really, as I think the stepping stone model can be quite exciting to watch. You get the enjoyment of seeing new talent emerge, rather than just watching the same old names week in, week out.

Ings has missed 10 games through injury this season, and been benched for two games where he clearly hasn't been up to playing twice in quick succession. That's just a hair under a third of the season unavailable. I really hope whoever we bring in is an absolute nailed-on starter, otherwise that's a lot of slack for the unreliable finishing of Long and Obafemi to pick up.

He was only supposed to be a bench striker this season, but Ings and Austin are injured so often we've ended up relying on him. Sure, keep Long if he genuinely would just be sitting here as a fourth or fifth choice with Obafemi, but if we have to ship him out to give us a chance of landing a genuine starter, then I'd sell in a heartbeat.

Just to reaffirm that he's not very good, really. He did his best to waste that chance by aiming straight at Boruc, but the defender did him a solid.

Without the nick off the defender, Boruc would've saved the shot for his goal easily - wasn't actually a good finish at all.

He's absolutely right. We need a massive upgrade at CB, otherwise we can look forward to another season of throwing away record numbers of points. JB is worth keeping, but the rest are pretty toss.

We're well organised now, but you can see why we were so useless under Hughes - we're really lacking some fundamental areas like passing and control. To take even the most basic care of the ball we have to slow the game right down and rely on the CBs to circulate it. After spurning a couple of good chances in the first half, we barely managed to string two passes together in the second, and gave Watford every opportunity to try and kick their misfiring attack back into gear, which they duly did. We'll stay up, but the squad needs a complete overhaul that we almost certainly can't afford.

We take so little care of the ball. Invited that whole spell leading to the goal by not having a clue how to keep hold of it around their box.

This. Our passing is so sloppy, especially when we insist on using our three clumsy centre backs as playmakers.

So is Wilson now officially our DoF?

I think it's because, hand on heart, I think he is a much better player than Redmond, who has many of Boufal's flaws and nowhere near the same level of natural ability.

He hasn't even seen Boufal train yet. All anyone is saying is that they hope he'll be given a chance to impress in pre-season, rather than being judged prematurely surplus to requirements. Why wouldn't we?

Indeed - are we really debating whether raising the overall quality of a team generally raises the performance level of individuals within it? It's not complicated - if the players around you start finding space more easily, either because they themselves have become better at it or because the team now has a strategy that increases work rate and movement - it will be easier for creative players to find open passes and create chances. This is true even for players like Messi and Ronaldo, whose achievements over the past decade have been significantly magnified by having the likes of Xavi, Iniesta and Modric alongside them.

Eh? You see him beating his man and moving the ball on over and over against arguably the best defense European football has had over the past five years or so. Sure, a couple of moves end up in wayward shots, but what were you expecting? No one is claiming he's up there with the likes of Hazard, but in terms of his ability to create space all by himself we have absolutely no one who can do what he does.

Redmond's decision-making has improved under RH, so no reason why Boufal's couldn't too. Another thing to consider is that creative players (particularly immature ones) often tend to exhibit that trying-to-do-it-all behaviour when playing in struggling teams. But as we've seen, once the team starts to play with more of an identity, and with more of a sense that the 10 other people on your side can be trusted with the ball, there's less of a need to try and single-handedly win the game every time you get the ball. Put another way, you can only make creative/unpredictable players conform to the team system and ethic if the team actually has a system and ethic for them to conform to.

Ralph's preferred system needs players who are able to carry the ball and break between the lines. I'd be surprised if Boufal wasn't reintegrated, as he's pretty much tailor-made for the system.

Well, this aged well.

We're carrying zero threat now. Will be pretty miraculous if we hold out for another 20+ minutes.

JWP simply awful. Doesn't look like he can handle the responsibility of seeing so much of the ball so deep.

Looks like a corner that an attacker gets their head on will count as a key pass under the opta stats as long as it heads towards goal. So not a hugely useful stat in comparing the contributions of Redmond and JWP since the latter gets about 4 or 5 uncontested opportunities to 'create' a key pass more per game. Truth of the matter is they're both probably in the form of their lives right now, which says quite a lot about the baseline of mediocrity they're springing from.

That's fine. If it ever happens to you, feel free to acquiesce with nary a whimper.

Eh, it seems pretty likely that VVD knew his transfer was being blocked in order to facilitate the sale of the club. Under those circumstances, I'd probably have been pretty narked too if I felt that a significant period of my relatively short career was being used as a bargaining chip.

Hard to say whether we were about to fall apart before he came on or because he came on - either way, unlike Sims' cameo against Spurs, there was nothing today to make you excited about Gallagher's next appearance in the side.

Great finish.