Tom Clever-Ley

[Davefevs]

His team got bummed first half, we were excellent bar the final execution (deja vu).

20:22 (37min into the game)

.

Made his change at h-t, took off his right-forward (Baah) and went from a fluid 343 to something more like 3511, Sissoko adding an extra man into midfield.

We didn’t win anywhere near as many loose balls, we found it harder to break the lines.

And ironically, it’s Andrews (son of ex-City loanee Wayne) without a right-forward in-front of him who is galloping forward to receive the pass from Chak to drive in the goal.  Now don’t get me wrong, that wasn’t the plan, but the stuff about blocking us up was down to him.  And with the lead, they earn the right to get men behind the ball and waste time.

Credit to Manning for the first half game plan, almost perfect in some respects.

But what the reaction from Manning second half, especially after going behind?  Same set up.  I’m not sure Haydon Roberts as a hybrid RWB / RM was the “modern progressive” thinking I expected.

Anyway, credit to Clever Tom.  Turned a like 0 points into 3 points.

[sh1t_ref_again]

Not sure the change at half time made any difference as we were still on top and dominating them, the goal against the run of play changed the game and game plan for them.

Agree about Roberts 

[Mr Popodopolous]

Even then post the goal We had a well whether it was a big chance it would've been a wonder goal who knows but Twine nearly pulled something out.

Roberts at RWB is..different.

[Silvio Dante]

14 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

His team got bummed first half, we were excellent bar the final execution (deja vu).

20:22 (37min into the game)

.

Made his change at h-t, took off his right-forward (Baah) and went from a fluid 343 to something more like 3511, Sissoko adding an extra man into midfield.

We didn’t win anywhere near as many loose balls, we found it harder to break the lines.

And ironically, it’s Andrews (son of ex-City loanee Wayne) without a right-forward in-front of him who is galloping forward to receive the pass from Chak to drive in the goal.  Now don’t get me wrong, that wasn’t the plan, but the stuff about blocking us up was down to him.  And with the lead, they earn the right to get men behind the ball and waste time.

Credit to Manning for the first half game plan, almost perfect in some respects.

But what the reaction from Manning second half, especially after going behind?  Same set up.  I’m not sure Haydon Roberts as a hybrid RWB / RM was the “modern progressive” thinking I expected.

Anyway, credit to Clever Tom.  Turned a like 0 points into 3 points.

Said similar on another thread. For me, that game was won and lost in the dugout. Firstly in the Sissoko sub and then the Roberts sub. The former did exactly what you say, the latter had the impact of effectively “closing off” our right side as an attacking force, meaning Watford had opportunity to shut down easier the left side which was the most effective outlet in the first half.

The change then got exaggerated when Twine came on. We had Roberts pulling in (naturally) and then Twine also looking inside, destroying width and playing into the packed CM that Sissoko as you say shored up (NB not a Twine criticism in isolation - although outside of the shot he was ineffective - more about the overall tactical impact).

Liams tactics first half led to us being by far the better side. But Toms tactics in game, aided by Liams poor tactics that half (which I do think is a fair criticism today), meant as we didn’t capitalise first half, Tom won the day.

[Malago]

Game of fine margins.  Two pieces of quality.  Andrew’s shot goes in off the post.  Twine’s rebounds off the bar.

[bcfcredandwhite]

They had some luck too. They should have seen red for 2 yellow card offences. 
It wasn’t our day - but we played well. Even the Watford fans acknowledge their team was given a stern test tonight. 
When we play like that it makes the defeat more palatable. It’s still horrible but at least you know we gave it a good go. 

[Davefevs]

48 minutes ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

Not sure the change at half time made any difference as we were still on top and dominating them, the goal against the run of play changed the game and game plan for them.

Agree about Roberts 

It can sometimes take a few minutes to take effect, but it did impact.  It matters not whether the goal was against the run of play.  It opened up different spaces for them, and closed up spaces for us.

[Charlie BCFC]

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

Said similar on another thread. For me, that game was won and lost in the dugout. Firstly in the Sissoko sub and then the Roberts sub. The former did exactly what you say, the latter had the impact of effectively “closing off” our right side as an attacking force, meaning Watford had opportunity to shut down easier the left side which was the most effective outlet in the first half.

The change then got exaggerated when Twine came on. We had Roberts pulling in (naturally) and then Twine also looking inside, destroying width and playing into the packed CM that Sissoko as you say shored up (NB not a Twine criticism in isolation - although outside of the shot he was ineffective - more about the overall tactical impact).

Liams tactics first half led to us being by far the better side. But Toms tactics in game, aided by Liams poor tactics that half (which I do think is a fair criticism today), meant as we didn’t capitalise first half, Tom won the day.

Wouldn’t have gone to a back 5 personally but that’s on the players for me. We created plenty of chances in both halves yet Watford have one and take it. If we are clinical in the first half then the game is put to bed

[Red Skin]

Personally, I couldn't see how we would ever be able to keep up that pressing and effort expended by the players in the first half.  

Bird was fantastic first half, but understandably just could not keep making those runs to find space. 

You need to score when you are in the ascendency and we didn't. We either make a poor final ball, fail to shoot, pull shots wide and just aren't lethal enough.  But everything up to that point is really good, so I am baffles why some fans can't see progress.

Had we scored, we would have seen a completely different game play out.

Roberts for Yu was a strange one, but I have no idea if Yu was injured or just tiring.  LM had no natural right footed player to replace him with really.  

The difference was as much to do with who was on the bench as who was in the dugout.   Cleverley had options to change the game, and LM had very little on the bench to counter it when exhausted players needed replacing. 

 

[Markthehorn]

2 hours ago, bcfcredandwhite said:

They had some luck too. They should have seen red for 2 yellow card offences. 
It wasn’t our day - but we played well. Even the Watford fans acknowledge their team was given a stern test tonight. 
When we play like that it makes the defeat more palatable. It’s still horrible but at least you know we gave it a good go. 

I agree on the red card - and the player involved quickly got taken off.

We did make a change at half time - could have made a few tbh which helped us a bit but you still had more of the ball albeit maybe as we sat back holding onto the lead.

Our issue was you dominated the midfield and particularity down our left got in behind us a lot.

Will be frustrating for you but probably cannot complain about the general performance. 

[MarcusX]

6 hours ago, Charlie BCFC said:

Wouldn’t have gone to a back 5 personally but that’s on the players for me. We created plenty of chances in both halves yet Watford have one and take it. If we are clinical in the first half then the game is put to bed

Seem a couple say this, what do you mean go to a back 5?

It was a back 3 all night, I don’t think Robert’s was brought on to sit any deeper it was just a change that didn’t really work.

I don’t think it was about being clinical either as such, we didn’t create any good chances. We had plenty of the ball in and around the box but very few clear chances to shoot - and the ones we did get away were tame efforts but generally from distance too I think? (Hard to tell it was opposite end of the ground)

We lost it in the final third last night but that was down to not actually creating many decent chances, what was our xg? Flash says 0.5, it was higher against Burnley. Keeper made one good save from McNally header and then from his own defender and otherwise we didn’t really test him.

[sh1t_ref_again]

8 hours ago, Malago said:

Game of fine margins.  Two pieces of quality.  Andrew’s shot goes in off the post.  Twine’s rebounds off the bar.

Can add the 2 saves their keeper made

[Super]

We played ok second half but nowhere near as good as first half. Watford definitely changed 2nd half and closed us down so much quicker. 

[Rob k]

1 hour ago, MarcusX said:

Seem a couple say this, what do you mean go to a back 5?

It was a back 3 all night, I don’t think Robert’s was brought on to sit any deeper it was just a change that didn’t really work.

I don’t think it was about being clinical either as such, we didn’t create any good chances. We had plenty of the ball in and around the box but very few clear chances to shoot - and the ones we did get away were tame efforts but generally from distance too I think? (Hard to tell it was opposite end of the ground)

We lost it in the final third last night but that was down to not actually creating many decent chances, what was our xg? Flash says 0.5, it was higher against Burnley. Keeper made one good save from McNally header and then from his own defender and otherwise we didn’t really test him.

Wells should really have done better with his chance in the first half after watching it again 

[OneTeamInBristol]

Not to take any credit away from Cleverley but being able to bring on a player like Sissoko who has 71 caps for France and nearly 300 Premier League appearances made a big difference. 

[TDarwall]

2 minutes ago, OneTeamInBristol said:

Not to take any credit away from Cleverley but being able to bring on a player like Sissoko who has 71 caps for France and nearly 300 Premier League appearances made a big difference. 

That's the point I've made elsewhere about the teams with better squads.

Manning's game mgmt gets stick, buts it's way easier to "out think" the opposition when you've got far better players to choose from.

[Davefevs]

7 hours ago, Red Skin said:

Personally, I couldn't see how we would ever be able to keep up that pressing and effort expended by the players in the first half.  

Bird was fantastic first half, but understandably just could not keep making those runs to find space.

I don’t think it’s energy or effort, purely Watford sacrificed a Right-Forward (Baah) for a central-midfielder (Sissoko) and closed the spaces  / condensed the centre of the pitch where Bird was operating.

How many times did Pring get the ball high and left, but rarely did we penetrate infield from there.  He got Mehmeti down the side a couple of times but crosses came from very wide.

Just like Burnley did on Saturday.

You need to score when you are in the ascendency and we didn't. We either make a poor final ball, fail to shoot, pull shots wide and just aren't lethal enough.  But everything up to that point is really good, so I am baffles why some fans can't see progress.

Similar story, in that split second where you need quality, we do seem to come up short too often.

Had we scored, we would have seen a completely different game play out.

Totally.  We played really well first half, we weren’t awful second half either, just that Watford controlled us.

Roberts for Yu was a strange one, but I have no idea if Yu was injured or just tiring.  LM had no natural right footed player to replace him with really.

Earthy, Cornick?

The difference was as much to do with who was on the bench as who was in the dugout.   Cleverley had options to change the game, and LM had very little on the bench to counter it when exhausted players needed replacing.

Blige!!!  A bench of Twine, Eathy, Morrison, Roberts, Cornick, Mayulu and Armstrong (I left out JCS and Bajic) is more than “very little”.  I’d say it was in his inflexibility to move away from a his starting game-plan / system that constrained him.

Whether it was 4231 / 3421 last night (imho it was a hybrid of both), he had a very good set of options on the bench.

 

39 minutes ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

Can add the 2 saves their keeper made

Yep, overall we didn’t get our rewards last night.  And it’s probably not the first time you or others have claimed that this season.  But there is a theme of “getting done tactically”in second halves and that is often the difference in result and performance.  Now that might be a case of opposition manager changes, but also resistance to change much himself.

Why not introduce “chaos” for 5-minutes and see what happens.

Why not simply swap Mehmeti and Hirakawa over for example in that second half, or even when Roberts comes on, play him left and push Pring onto Andrews?  It’s almost like he’s got his own 11th commandment - thou shall not deviate from the original gameplan…as if it’s a slight on his preparation.  Cleverley got it wrong first half, adapted.  Manning talks about adapting / flexibility during the game, but he doesn’t practice the preaching very often.

Don’t get me wrong, I generally enjoyed last nights performance, but I am left frustrated by the result.  And if you want to get plaudits for first half, you have to take the critique for the second.

[MarcusX]

24 minutes ago, OneTeamInBristol said:

Not to take any credit away from Cleverley but being able to bring on a player like Sissoko who has 71 caps for France and nearly 300 Premier League appearances made a big difference. 

This is a fair point, the difference in calibre of players sometimes in this league is huge

[sh1t_ref_again]

9 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, overall we didn’t get our rewards last night.  And it’s probably not the first time you or others have claimed that this season.  But there is a theme of “getting done tactically”in second halves and that is often the difference in result and performance.  Now that might be a case of opposition manager changes, but also resistance to change much himself.

Why not introduce “chaos” for 5-minutes and see what happens.

Why not simply swap Mehmeti and Hirakawa over for example in that second half, or even when Roberts comes on, play him left and push Pring onto Andrews?  It’s almost like he’s got his own 11th commandment - thou shall not deviate from the original gameplan…as if it’s a slight on his preparation.  Cleverley got it wrong first half, adapted.  Manning talks about adapting / flexibility during the game, but he doesn’t practice the preaching very often.

Don’t get me wrong, I generally enjoyed last nights performance, but I am left frustrated by the result.  And if you want to get plaudits for first half, you have to take the critique for the second.

I guess when your the manager of a team, that has been totally outplayed for 45 minutes, you are going to get into your players and try to change something, conversely when you have been so dominant and should be in the lead bar some good saves or bad luck why would you change what you are doing. We were just as dominant in the first 8 minutes of the 2nd half, until Watford scored against the run of play, this gave them and their fans something to hold onto, in a game they had been 2nd best by a long way. They started pushing onto us more and dropping deep in numbers when necessary, I agree I did not get the Roberts on, apart from YU had been done for pace down that side and was not having a productive game, so maybe trying to protect against the counter attack. Its always easy to look back after something has not worked and say why not do this or that, but equally any of those changes may have been no better. The truth of this and other games is we need to find how we capitalise when on top

[Gillies Downs Leeds]

The changes made by Cleverly at half time included stopping us finding Bird in behind their midfield. First half he was playing in the space between their midfield and defence and we were finding him with ease in big pockets of space. This allowed us to dominate.

[Davefevs]

13 minutes ago, TDarwall said:

That's the point I've made elsewhere about the teams with better squads.

Manning's game mgmt gets stick, buts it's way easier to "out think" the opposition when you've got far better players to choose from.

Is Watford’s squad far better than ours?  Sissoko was a top player.  But he’s 35 now.

[TDarwall]

14 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Is Watford’s squad far better than ours?  Sissoko was a top player.  But he’s 35 now.

To be honest I don't know. My point is more about over the whole season rather than individual games. Unless LM is Paul McKenna good, we're still a middling team with a middling squad who will prob end up, in about the middle.

 

[Davefevs]

16 minutes ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

I guess when your the manager of a team, that has been totally outplayed for 45 minutes, you are going to get into your players and try to change something, conversely when you have been so dominant and should be in the lead bar some good saves or bad luck why would you change what you are doing. We were just as dominant in the first 8 minutes of the 2nd half, until Watford scored against the run of play, this gave them and their fans something to hold onto, in a game they had been 2nd best by a long way. They started pushing onto us more and dropping deep in numbers when necessary, I agree I did not get the Roberts on, apart from YU had been done for pace down that side and was not having a productive game, so maybe trying to protect against the counter attack. Its always easy to look back after something has not worked and say why not do this or that, but equally any of those changes may have been no better. The truth of this and other games is we need to find how we capitalise when on top

Re bold bit.  I couldn’t agree more. But…

…you should have your spidy-senses twitching, trying to see if Watford have changed anything, whether it impacts you or not.  At least have that awareness, the ability to analyse real-time if it’s making the game different or not.  Whatever you or I think changed the game or when it changed (that doesn’t matter), the game became different didn’t it? What does matter is the reaction…and there wasn’t really one apart from personnel.  That appears to be Manning’s method, change the personnel, not the gameplan.  But his gameplan was based on Watford doing x (and credit to him), now they are doing y.  Is the gameplan still fit for purpose?

FWIW I’m not looking back after the game, I’m calling stuff out during the game, as near to real time as my amateur football brain allows me.  Ask @Harry what kind of stuff goes on in our match day WhatsApp group.  We aren’t playing Captain Hindsight.  Posts on here are after the event, naturally, but they are from observations made at the time, and nor are we saying we are right, they are just our observations

Not from last night, but Preston (a) last season.  Admittedly we played better last night.  Manning got quite arsey with Piercy post-match back in January.

We do seem to have quite a blasé attitude to any critique of Manning.  We seem so accepting it is just “what it is”.  I want better.  I don’t want to walk away from games like last night with zero points.  We had 37 minutes plus injury time to change the outcome.  We largely carried on trying to do what we’d done before, and we didn’t fashion much did we?  Nowhere near the stuff we created first half.  So we lost.  That seems to be a-okay for some.

Back to your bit in bold.  Don’t expect you to watch the lot, but watch 23/24 minutes onwards at least and let me know what you think.

 

[Davefevs]

37 minutes ago, TDarwall said:

To be honest I don't know. My point is more about over the whole season rather than individual games. Unless LM is Paul McKenna good, we're still a middling team with a middling squad who will prob end up, in about the middle.

 

How about if he was just “Tom Cleverly” good!!!  Wasn’t he appointed as being the one to make that difference?

I’m not sure the relevance of the Preston right-winger name check though!

[sh1t_ref_again]

"FWIW I’m not looking back after the game, I’m calling stuff out during the game, as near to real time as my amateur football brain allows me.  Ask @Harry what kind of stuff goes on in our match day WhatsApp group.  We aren’t playing Captain Hindsight.  Posts on here are after the event, naturally, but they are from observations made at the time, and nor are we saying we are right, they are just our observations"

In fairness I can only reply on what you have posted on here, not on a private chat group, my point was that Watford may have changed at half time, but it was still not effective until they went a goal up as we were still the dominant side (not just my opinion, but skys pundits as well), so was it the managers changes or scoring against the run of play that changed the game. 

We all have views during games, why has he done that, why did he not bring X on, that tends to only gets questioned afterwards when its not successful

Not trying to say LM gets it right, as like others I am left wondering why he makes certain decisions

[TDarwall]

42 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

How about if he was just “Tom Cleverly” good!!!  Wasn’t he appointed as being the one to make that difference?

I’m not sure the relevance of the Preston right-winger name check though!

You're assuming that i didnt mean the hypnotist!!   

 

[ProfitInMyPocket]

Andrews their goalscorer couldn't get out first half and was being pinned back by Pring and Mehmeti drifting inside into space.

Taking off Baah for Sissoko left that right side more open and Kayembe dropped into that inside right position packing up the midfield.

And boom Pring was less effective, Mehmeti was less effective.

Knight and McGuane were taking too many touches in the second half and not moving the ball quick enough (was screaming for them to use their left foot to pass but they don't - kills momentum constantly) and Sissoko, Louza and Kayembe won more of the ball in the second half.

Baah wasn't taking up the space in front of Andrews in that second half and he got more support from the midfield instead of being left alone to defend our left side.

And again we didn't react to the change well enough and didn't look like scoring after the goal. It's happened a handful of times this season already. Liam needs to improve on that as we're letting too many games drift away.

 

[Selred]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

It’s almost like he’s got his own 11th commandment - thou shall not deviate from the original gameplan…as if it’s a slight on his preparation

Spot on. Wells wasn't getting service, brings on Fally who equally had no service as the formation and style of play was the same. 

[Markthehorn]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Is Watford’s squad far better than ours?  Sissoko was a top player.  But he’s 35 now.

Not sure really .

We have good individuals  and for the first time in a while a decent team collective who work hard etc but certainly not a top 6 squad in reality .

Most expected a relegation battle and the NT20 predicted us to be bottom !

[Harry]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

 

FWIW I’m not looking back after the game, I’m calling stuff out during the game, as near to real time as my amateur football brain allows me.  Ask @Harry what kind of stuff goes on in our match day WhatsApp group.  We aren’t playing Captain Hindsight.  Posts on here are after the event, naturally, but they are from observations made at the time, and nor are we saying we are right, they are just our observations

Ha ha. Yeah. It can get pretty manic. 
 

One thing we did note, was 5 mins into the 2nd half, after the Watford change was this …….

Prophetic or what!!! Or just noticing the change and the impact …..

Edited Wednesday at 12:22 by Harry

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

so was it the managers changes or scoring against the run of play that changed the game. 

The point is, it doesn’t matter why.  What matters is we carried on trying to play the same way in what was a different game, whether that be 46 mins or 53 mins or any point after.  That’s the Head-Coach’s prerogative.  But we ended up losing, and we played worse compared to first 45 (or 53 if you like).

20 minutes ago, Harry said:

Ha ha. Yeah. It can get pretty manic. 
 

One thing we did note, was 5 mins into the 2nd half, after the Watford change was this …….

Prophetic or what!!! Or just noticing the change and the impact …..

i ignored that!