Ok. Thread on #WatfordFC:
That was really poor today. Fair do’s to Cardiff - perfect away performance, and we barely laid a glove. There’s a lot of talk about how good this squad is, and that’s all valid. Yes, we’re short on left-footers, but we are head and shoulders (1/)

above most teams in this league in terms of talent - and we’re just not seeing it. We battered a severely depleted PNE, and we were convincing in all but the scoreline against L*t*n, but it really hasn’t clicked at all. So much less than the sum of our parts. (2/)

That can happen. It takes time. Some players haven’t been back long. But we are 16 games in now, and I really feel we should be seeing more than this. You can have a bad day - we saw that happen to the world champions at the end of Feb - but for us, so far the good days (3/)

are the exception. All is not lost: we’ve got away with it to the extent that we are only 3 points from the top 2. Despite ourselves, we have a platform to push on and take the division by the scruff of the neck. (4/)

People saying Vlad should go, or at least questioning his suitability. I want to say that the guy is a proven winner. I want to say that talk of him going is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But I am finding it hard to defend what we are seeing. (5/)

I also worry about what we’ve become as a club, and I’ll caveat that by making it clear that Gino and Scott will get no criticism from me - our club is immeasurably stronger than it was in 2012 and, crucially, than it would have become. (6/)

But “sack the manager” has become the go-to for many fans. I want us to get back to being a club that sticks with players and managers in adversity, that lifts them through. We’ve done it before. (7/)

So one of the saving graces of today has been the absence of scapegoating Chalobah. (Although I’m sure there are some who hold him responsible for today!) Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t all his fault. Why do we do that? Why must there be a fall guy? (8/)

Last season, for a while, it was Kiko - just about the only one coming out of the last few weeks in credit. In truth, there is a lot wrong, and singling Chalobah (who we know to be a very capable player) out is very unhelpful. (9/)

Is the squad just rotten? Last season there is no way we should have been in relegation trouble. Have we not moved on enough players? Are there bad apples? None of us knows what goes on behind the scenes, but I don’t see it. (10/)

The biggest thing, for me, is that there doesn’t seem to be any effective plan to score goals. And we are still largely awful at set pieces, so we don’t usually get away with it that way. (11/)

So to come to some sort of conclusion:
• Ivic in. Shouldn’t even be a question at this point.
• But we need to start seeing a plan in the final third very soon, and consistently.
• We need to get behind them, as the 2000 did superbly today, despite what they were seeing. (12/)

• We especially need to stop being Wolves or Villa and going after our own players. Leave Nate alone!

This is the only season we’ll be in The Championship with a squad this strong. If we don’t go up, we lose a lot of these players, and unless Gino has rabbits in hats (13/)

we quickly become just another Championship team. And that’s fine, I’ll still be there - I’ve spent most of my life watching football at this level. But what an opportunity this season is. How galling it will be to mess it up. (14/)

And finally... for goodness’ sake... COME ON YOU ORNS! (Ends)

Oh. There you go, @watfordpodcast @VoicesOfTheVic @secondtierpod - I’ve written you a script for this week!