I know its easy with hindsight but all he/we needed this year was a number 2 with championship experience.
I don't think you will find a classier manager in Football. Someone who is respected from all areas. What a guy.
This shows me his heart is truly in it here. I have complete faith in him, his team and the owners that we will come back much stronger next season. Thanks Gianfranco..
I would go further and say that I would rather stay in the Championship with Zola than be in the Premier managed by that worm Hollowhead.
Let's hope a few of the supporters with memories like goldfish actually go back and re-read the message during the summer. As said by a few over the years, at a club like Watford it's important to have patience. It doesn't matter if you're the chairman, manager, coach, first choice centre forward or left-back in one of the academy teams.. it takes time to build something long lasting. So while all the discussions are going on here when a fans favourite has left the club or a YouTube sensation is linked just sit back and take a moment and re-read that message. Have patience and understand that although the people currently in charge of all aspects of WFC may be doing things differently to how you may do them, they're doing it for the benefit of the club (and in turn for themselves) which will mean more days like the play-off second leg against Leicester for you, the supporter. It'll just take a little time.
I too am very happy to have Zola as our manager but right now I can't but help feel that if we had a more ruthless manager in charge of the side during the run in we wouldn't have found it necessary to go through the agony of the play offs.
Yes we were poor, but perhaps some of this is due to the way Palace set up to play against us. We need to learn from this, finding ways to beat clubs by having the options that can compensate for the various ways teams will approach playing against us.
when he says... "There will be lots of decisions to be made in the summer and we will take our time to make sure we are doing exactly the right thing for Watford." i hope one of them isnt that he leaves and joins a premiership club.
I don't think you can have it all. Zola is a nice guy and the players clearly respect and like him or else we wouldn't have got as close as we did. Not many managers would have got as much as he did from a group of loan players. He way they have integrated and harmonised the squad is a great tribute to him. In the wrong hands, this season could have been an absolute disaster. Zola stands for all that's good in the game. I'd rather fail with him and his ideologies than succeed with someone like Holloway.
Once the disappointment and pain of Wembley has subsided I genuinely believe we will enjoy next season more in the Championship than we would have done had we got promoted, even if that means playing Yeovil when we could have been playing Manchester United. Gianfranco's words have convinced me the right people are looking after our Club.
Zola has made mistakes, as can be expected with any young manager, but overall he has done a fantastic job with the squad. It isn't easy blending players of different nationalities and playing styles together, but he has done it with ease. The only thing lacking is a willingness or bravery to have a plan b, as I think our predictability and lack of width let us down in a few games this season. Hopefully this will come with time and experience, and then we will have ourselves a brilliant manager.
Been nice to pay money to see a team actually playing good football rather than the dross we have watched for god knows how many years