Must say Watford were very poor, thought with a new manager they would cut out the nasty stuff but they most certainly haven’t. They love having a go at the Achilles area , but only after the ball has gone. Ref had a shocker

Watford really are a poor side. Heading straight back down, probably with fewer than 20 points.

We are still lacking need another striker and a winger. (even if loaning from abroad which we can do)

Positives are it does look like just based of a few of these pre season games we are going to use players strengths not play a system that expects anybody dropped in to change their natural game (this is what annoyed me about Roy his tactics can work but you need to change it for the players playing not putting in crosses etc made no sense with a guy like Benteke)

Still worried how bad we are at defending the likes of corners this showed under Roy last few seasons it needs fixing the same with use putting in better quality when we are having these other end

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Other than 10 minutes toward the end of the first half, we looked pretty much in control.

Ratings:

Ward - 6, perhaps could have been closer to Deeney
Kouyate - 6, a few last minute clearences
Guehi - 6, solid, but nothing spectacular
Mitchell - 7, was against Saar, who had a few crosses, but generally did okay
McArthur - 7, seemed to be in the right place a lot for Zaha
Riederwald - 7, probably one of his better performances
Schlupp - 5, not a bad game, just nothing too spectacular
Ayew - 5, same as schulupp
Mateta - 6, his best pre-season game so far
Zaha - 8, player of the match, had fouls not called and still managed to get 2 goals

Subs
Gallagher - 7, he looks class
Hannam - 4, I like him, but looked shell shocked a bit
Benteke - 7 (I guess), short spell on, but scored in both goals (although the OG was tough).
Rak-Sakyi, Banks, Tomkins - No rating - too short of a spell and not involved much

I have now returned from the good ship Selhurst and am some way into the important task of weekend-appropriate rehydration. Standby to receive the type of 'wisdom' that may contain spelling mistakes therefore.

1. Watford were s***. I know its only preseason, but I know s*** when I see it, and they were s***.

2. Palace were pretty good actually. How much to read into this I don't know. I thought playing our last preseason friendly against a team in our league one week before that league starts was: A. Unusual and possibly risky (it's just a free go at kicking Zaha surely?) but, B. A better gauge than normal of how we're measuring up. Watford were so bad though that I really don't know what to make of our performance. If we played like that in a league game we'd call it a very good performance, I think.

3. The system remains a twist on the classic Dutch 433. The twist is not so much that one of our wingers like to cut inside, but that both of our advanced midfielders are deliberately placed on their 'wrong' side. Dunno why. I'm sure the manager has his reasons, but I'm not sure it suits Schlupp.

4. Gallagher should be looking at McArthur and learning. The former has acceleration and energy the latter can no longer muster, but that's irrelevant if you don't know what you're doing. Mac picked up a booking for a counter-attack-preventing foul that was as cynical as it was necessary, whilst young Gallagher, determined to press to maximum effect at every turn, conceded a string of fouls that disrupted our rhythm, let Watford off the hook whenever they might have been making a mess of playing out, and would have picked up a totally unnecessary yellow of his own in a league game. Hopefully Gallagher will be brilliant for us, but I'm not up for us spending a year smoothing his rough edges for Chelsea's benefit.

5. For all the nice, neat and very patient football we played, our main goal-sources remain exactly the same. No manager in the world has a system that could offset the loss of Zaha.

6. I presume Tomkins is on the bench as Vieira wants the best passing centre backs in the side, and as a (mostly) midfielder, Kouyate perhaps fits the bill ahead of the best actual centre back we've got.

7. Mateta. No ta. If he's got what it takes he's hiding it well. Almost as well as he hid himself when his team sent in three or four good crosses in the second half. One peach from Mitchell in particular showed up how inadequate Mateta's anticipation, movement and determination appeared to be. He did so some good work clearing Watford corners though.

8. McArthur is brilliant. He can play any system, any style, any midfield position and never give less than a solid 7 every single time. He's a better deep midfielder than Riedewald. He's a better box to box midfielder than Schlupp and Gallagher. He's a better all round footballer than anyone else we've got, or have had that I can remember. If he had ever had pace and power he'd have played in the champions league.

9. Geuhi looks good. Not very tall though. He'll need to sort that out.

10. Ayew puts a proper shift in, but if Olise or Rak-Sahki can't get in ahead of him on the right wing by the end of the season then they ain't going to make it.

Cheers all!

Edited by TheBigToePunt (07 Aug 2021 8.23pm)

In the stand watching