[jjamez]

Vs

I mean seriously, come on, which one do you really want? are you the moosemen or the hornets, cannae be both!  

So we are nearing the home stretch and at the moment we are just about keeping our heads above water, which in all seriousness is probably what most people would have longed for at the start of the season, with arguably the vast majority of fans probably fearing that at this part of the season would have seen us cut adrift from the rest of the league, much like west brom at present. The pundits definetly expected us to have gone by now, but hey ho, we are still here fighting away, as steve mounie has said the whole side will continue to do so and as we enter one of our final home games, also one of what could be described as a final winnable game. dont get me wrong, every game is winnable, its just the odds are very much against it when you look at the other games that we have got left.

Following on from last weekend, in a game that before kickoff we would have been very happy with a point, considering that our previous record there hasnt been great, not since one of the final games of a league one campaign where danny ward scored to keep us in with a chance of getting promoted.

With brighton going down to 10 men, you can understand where some fans and 'experts' are coming from in regards to town being brave and trying to take the whole three points and make the most of the numerical advantage. it would have helped no end thats for sure but, you can see it from wagners point of view in that we would have taken a point at the start and despite the numerical difference, they still had a fair bit of pace of the pitch and could quite easily hit us on the break, they didnt drop back into out and out defence like swansea did up at our spot.

But moving onto saturdays game, where we welcome watford to town. Its been a bit of an odd season down hertfordshire, they started the season fairly well, nothing spectacular, a fair few draws, couple of wins, a heavy defeat against man city. After that defeat they had a bit of a jump start with a few more wins including one against arsenal and a defeat against chelsea. Everything seemed rather rosey at vicarage road, they were going pretty much how they expected, they were competing by en large with the bigger teams, but off the pitch there was a bit of a disturbance. Everton had parted ways with ronald koeman and were ruthlessly courting the highly rated marco silva, who on his part didnt do much to douse the flames. Watford were asking for over £10 million if some reports are to be believed, and silva seemed fairly inclined to have talks and possibly end his tenure at the hornets. To their credit watford held firm and stuck to their guns, but silve seemed distracted and results started to waine. This included a 4-1 defeat at home against town in the reverse fixture. town were 2-0 up come half time thanks to goals from kachunga and mooy, with watford captain troy deeney sent off for a foul on super col. After half time lolo put town a lofty 3 goals up, before hogg saw red after a second yellow card. Watford pulled one back thanks to a hefty strike from doucoure, before mooy grabbed his second of the game from the penalty spot late in the game.

After that the slump pretty much continued, with watford finally parting ways with Silva, citing an unwarranted approach being a mjor factor in their derailment, with current manager javi gracia appointed almost instantly afterwards. The new manager syndrome didnt really kick in, although they did get a big win at home over chelsea, but away from home, they have not had a great deal of success of late, with them winless in the last 9, losing 8 drawing 1, whilst they have failed to score in their previous 5. Their home form has seen a slight improvement and the hornets sit 12th in the table, which is probably where they probably expected to be, they just havent got their how they would have liked one would imagine.



So with the game just over horizon and the end of the season looming, town have decided to announce the makers of next seasons kit. This time, we are going back to umbro after a few seasons with puma, now both brands have made some nice kits for us but both have made some questionable ones too, in my opinion, will umbro make anything better than what we have had before, you would hope so, but providing they stick with blue and white stripes on the home kit without any bubbles then its fine by me, the away kits to me are supposed to be unique and rather more distinct, but with umbro we will probably have black and red stripes as an away kit, which is probably what suits us in all fairness.



Looking at our recent head to heads, so since we returned to the championship, Watford have won 4 games against us, with town winning 3, no draws. Having a trip down memory lane sees me begin with the game held home. Oliver norwood put us ahead, before our favourite player fernando forestierri equalised. One size Fitz Hall put watford ahead before a fully of changes saw the greatest ever player to represent football come on to the field in alan lee. he must have been great, he scored! but our favourite little diver earned the hornets a penalty, which deeney put away late on in to injury time. cue disgust at the ref and the diver...

The second game that season was what turned out to be simon grayson last game in charge of the terriers, two goals from now derby attacker matej vydra plus goals from battocchio and deeney saw town go down 4-0.

Moving forward and the next time the two sides met was back on home turf where danny ward gave town an early lead, only to see it cancelled out by forestierri moments later, before another sheffield wednesday player in danil pudil grabbed the winner just before half time.

The reverse fixture came at the end of the season, town took a big win back to yorkshire thanks to a hattrick from danny ward and joe lolley bagging a fourth, deeney scored a late consolation goal for watford to prevent town coming back with a clean sheet to boot.

In watfords promotion season, a ten man watford came out 4-2 winners, a brace from almen abdi, and goals from deeney and andrews were enough to see off strikes from harry bunn and murray wallace

The last time the two sides met in yorkshire saw town upset the odds and come out 3-1 winners, wells and vaughan scored either side of an odion ighalo goal, but the show was stolen by a flying overhead kick from joel lynch, odds on an overhead kick goal from zanka, surely it must be on?



ok not quite cristiano ronaldo, but it was something for a large centre half

Words from above...well wagner


“The promotion last season was an unbelievable achievement. Now we are only a few steps away to secure a second consecutive season in the premier league; it’s unbelievable but it isn’t done and we are focused on our next game.”

“The game will be a big occasion, I’m sure it’ll be a great atmosphere and we are aware we can make a very big step on Saturday.”

“I am very excited for the game on Saturday. We have five important games to go but we have to take it game by game. Our next one is in front of our home crowd. Our supporters have to be there and on their best. I’m sure they will play their part.”

“You can take small margins from the Watford FC match earlier this season but they have a new system and a new Head Coach, so this game is in the past. We will try everything to play and fight on our highest level.”

“We want to win this football match, we want to perform at our best and we will need the supporters to be there like we’ve never been before; that’s the atmosphere we need in our Stadium.”

“Steve Mounié is a top class striker, I said this after pre-season. He is a threat; his link up play with pritchard gets better and better and hopefully he will score some more goals.”

“Hoggy is our proper Terrier; if you have to create a player to demonstrates what a Terrier player is all about, then it’s him. He has the passion and desire to make the hard yards and always changes his borderline. He’s a real leader on the grass.”

“If we stay up, then it’s even bigger than promotion. We are getting the maximum out of everyone at this football club, but it’s only successful if we get over the line.”

“Promotion was a fairytale but if we stay up this is bigger, that’s why I said it’s a miracle. The players know they can write another unbelievable chapter in our history, something no-one at this club has done for years.”

“We have the spirit, atmosphere and togetherness in the dressing room to be competitive; this is what gives me the confidence that we will get the points we need to survive.”

“We know we have to fight, we know we are in the fight, this is what we expected and what we do. So far the players have done this fantastically. Now it’s about seeing the chance and investing everything to get the job done.”



Whilst the aforemention hoggy also spoke to the media ahead of the game against his former side

"Our Head Coach gives us confidence; he’s a top manager. He’s drilled the work ethic into our team and he never leaves a stone unturned. He’s just as passionate as me!”

“Everything we’ve got in our dressing room needs to be on the pitch. It’s a massive game and a massive opportunity for us; one we need to grab with both hands.”

“Our fans give us that extra push and are our 12th man. We will need them again on Saturday.”

“I recovered quicker than I thought but I’m delighted to be back with the lads. I’m raring to go.”

“I can’t play with anymore pride or aggression than I do. I’d always give 110% whether I have the Captain’s armband or not.”



In regards to team news from a town perspective, kachunga, williams and hefele are all still out, turns out hef is due to a knee injury picked up somewhere, otherwise its a full squad for wagner to pick from. In my mind i dont see many changes if any at all going into the game against watford, the only changes could possibly come to the bench where we probably dont need two left backs on there.

As for watford it remains to be seen, but we will have to be weary about troy deeney who has made a mark in one way or another against town every time we have come up against him from way back in his league one days, another to look out for is pereyra who seems to have a bit of skill to open up defences should he be given an opportunity, whilst richarlison and doucoure also possess the quality to change a game.

But, hopefully this can be a game that sees town take a big three points from, i dont care if it is 5-0 or 1-0, just get a key three points on the board and hopefully we are well on the way to witnessing another season in the top flight

[theo_luddite]

Good effort and a fine read that jjamez

Boring stats of the day for those anonymous readers and former contributors of ours that like boring stats .....

In the last 5 games:
The teams currently in the bottom half of the table have won a phenominal 7 games between them - the bottom 3 don't have one between them.

In the last 3 games:
The same 10 clubs only have 3 wins between them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/team...town/table

Newcastle have just escaped the bottom half (on goal difference) with 3 wins on the trot. Yup, as many as the bottom 10 put together. There's a few with 6 games left and a few with 5 games left but do we seriously see anyone else going on a Newcastle-esque run? Maybe Palace because out of all of us the highest placed club they have still to play is Leicester, otherwise it's everyone else around us for them?

There's always goals when we play this lot. The :cheatingdivinglitttleshit: who has contributed to many of these goals one way or another is now down the road at Wendies. Don't know if the new manager has a new version playing for them but given their away record since he took over it doesn't seem like it.

Go for it like we did down there Wagbo, we've got too much muck in our hands from the last two games and not enough of the nettles. Sting'em afore they sting us.

I was scouting next season's potential opposition on Tuesday night, apparently along with HRH Prince Baldy Billy, though he weren't in the same box as me.
Absolute garbage to watch until the goal went in in the last minute even with a fair smattering of former Town players and coaches on the pitch and the bench. I'm sure the top six matches I saw last season didn't involve a football coming down with snow on it at this time of the season. Colin doesn't change, I expected better from Fatpants Bruce but his lot played exactly the same style of hoofball. Nowt to fear from either of these if they come up - except we maybe have a problem with hoofball Colin from last season.
Good job the grub made up for the football as it also made up for missing the over-priced, over-paid Blue Mancs tanking it again.
Also invited apart from the odd Vanilla fan were a couple of deluded Leeds fans from darn sarf (where else? 1 game early, ) a glorious Leicester fan (actually he wasn't too glorious and he talked a lot of sense) and a Saints fan, both of who were not in the least bit deluded amongst others.

[Lord Snooty]

Nice one, jjamez.

Well one of my predictions looks like it could be coming true. When we were stuck in snow on the way home from the last home match, I said we'll be in shirt sleeves for the next home match.
Forecast for tomorrow.......sunny, 15 degrees.

[theo_luddite]

Speaking of our readers, and apologies in advance jjamez for a little hijacking of your excellent thread, but thanks to Town's efforts so far this season, and the few of us that have been involved for the season, we've raised £81 so far for our Players for Pounds efforts.

Link - http://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/thread-5640-page-4.html

Now it would be good to take that into 3 figures by the end of the season and it wouldn't take much more help from our generous readers and contributors to do it.

So here's the end of season sale deal.

Join in for THE LAST 5 GAMES of the season or less if you wish please, no back-dating to the start of the season will be involved and see if scoring goals, picking up points, winning, losing, drawing, staying up , going down , players making sub appearances, flashing the camera's while on the bench à la Williams, anything that can be verified just do it. It probably won't even cost you the price of a pint or a glass of wine and would be much appreciated by the Air Ambulance, The Kids who get a breakfast from the Foundation and the rest of us.

I realise some people maybe don't like the idea of their real name appearing on the What's Giving Pages. Well guess what? It doesn't have to. If you need to know how to use your Sports Babble ID or some other moniker instead, I'm only too happy to post a guide to it on the Players for Pounds thread. If you follow the links on the original Players for Pound post, you'll see I've generated my own. If I can do it, any techy luddite that can type on their laptop or mobile screen can do it.

Head over to the thread - http://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/thread-5640-page-4.html - and sign up. You know it makes sense.

This is the end of this unscheduled interuption to the thread. We'll now return you to the real world of HTAFC in the Premiership.

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It's gone 6:00pm on the Friday evening before the match and I don't see any sign of Watford sacking their manager (yet). Unusual for them given the usual turnaround and turmoil in the Manager's Office at The Sir Elton Taylor Stadium. Gives me a warm feeling we might come out on top in the latest goal fest between the sides, but that would be me making predicitions, and I don't do that (well, not very well anyway).

[ToonTerrier]

GET IN!!!!

[theo_luddite]

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy hay Incey, ooh, aaah

[Lord Snooty]

Worra match!

[Amelia Chaffinch]

That was exciting.

[theo_luddite]

Having had a tooth out yesterday I was advised not to drink for 48 hours. Fat chance of that tonight. Biggest grin on my face since Wemberleee.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

I had phase 2 of some heavy duty dental work yesterday, theo. Operation save my tooth. It meant that I couldn't grit my teeth.