Gino Pozzo - Owner

I would vote for dropping the Hart in favour of a Hornet.. for several reasons.

The Only reason we changed to a Hart was because we were Hertfordshire's only football league club.. which of course we are not anymore.
Nobody knows what a Hart is.. well very few do.. and very few know the significance of why its on our badge. Furthermore.. well its not a Hart is it?! I think what was mentioned earlier is correct.. someone ballsed up and nobody cared to mention it at the time.

Lastly.. We are Hornets.. we really should have one of them on our badge.

PS Why havent we got a Hornet smiley? :badge:

 

I don't think we can take any design by a company called BM FART, seriously.

I think a hornet would be a good change from that stupid hart/moose thingy.

I also really like our current shirt design, I think it looks real classy!

 

This?

 

Been commissioned.

 

Gino - we need a culture change and quick.

Today we see comments from QSF that he cannot understand the negativity around following the semi, and from Watson who says “There is not much more we could do” this season.

That is after an absolute pathetic effort in the Semi Final of a Cup run which (let us be honest) we have only had one good performance and which follows a League run since Christmas Day of 3 wins, 4 draws and 10 losses which meant that, for a week or two, we had to take some serious worried glances over our shoulder at the relegation battle.

They should not be so content with such mediocrity. Fans have an excuse, we have no direct influence and fans come from a cross section of society, part of which will always be pleased with achieving slightly more than abject failure and others will never be satisfied with anything other than above average performance – the full range. But hearing the coach and one of our most experienced players (probably on about £3k or £4k a day) being so defeatist, is soul destroying. What chance do we have? Make no mistake those comments, although they may sound positive, are in reality terribly defeatist.

In my view, this is almost certainly down to this stupid target we have of escaping relegation.

That is not how you set targets as anybody that has run successful teams, whether in sport or business, knows.

You set aspirational targets, that are attainable, stretching, tough and carefully timed. If you achieve, or come close, to achieving the target early, then you pay the bonuses, take ‘em out to dinner, or whatever it is, and create another higher target.

If it becomes clear that a target will be missed then it has to be lowered. You cannot do that if your target is already the rock bottom acceptable result, like 17th place.

It is a fundamental fact that people try harder when the target is attainable and tough and it follows that performance will drop off when it will be obviously reached with time to spare.

That is what happened, we dropped off, we stopped being aspirational, we settled for what we had, we just sat on our wallets in self congratulatory mode and gave up trying to win games.

Then you have the ridiculous QSF concept that we will get more points if we don’t bother to try and score goals. No movement up front and no urgency to get it up there anyway. If we have any shooting prowess we don’t see it and I reckon that 95% of our set plays into the mixer have failed.

As I have already said, we can understand the some of the continued content amongst some fans, after all we still have next season in the Prem to look forward to. But blimey, a thread has now appeared asking if it is our defences fault for our recent results. Heavens above! It must be catching.

Come on Gino, if what we are hearing is correct, then the culture at Watford is not a winning culture. It needs to be changed drastically before next season.

But I expect you already know that.

PS Gissa job, Gino. I’ll sort it out!

 

The aspiration for the season was to stay up. Next year it'll be top half finish. The year after top 10 and so on. Get it?

 

spot on, it's really not hard to understand. It's laughable how entitled people become so quickly.

I guess it's a sign of the times, everyone wants everything immediately.

We are awful to watch, mind.

 

It's the awfulness to watch which is the issue. No one at the start of the se4ason expected us to be where we are and get an FA cup semi final. However team performances at the start of the year showed us what was possible. Performances have got worse, it's relegation form. 3 wins this year. The worry is that at the moment there is no prospect or attempt to turn things around or learn from our mistakes.

Nothing about being entitled. I would be happy with the losses, if we looked like we had at least tried to win.

 

Just because I've criticized the defence's performance in recent weeks (who have otherwise been excellent) doesn't mean I'm a firm advocate of this style of play. I'm just trying to point out that recent results have proved our defenders aren't as infallible as we've liked to think, and many of the mistakes have come from unforced errors under little pressure rather than the ball constantly coming back on us when our attacks break down.

If anything it shows I agree with you that we can't keep relying on these tactics to win games, it's worked up to a point, but a greater attacking mentality would put less pressure on the defense to perform, or at least a chance to win more games even if it means outscoring the opposition.

Obviously I wouldn't be very happy if it means getting a few more tonkings a la Bournemouth and recently Stoke, but it could be a relatively small trade off if it gets us more points.

 

Yes it is dire to watch and we are now ****. But I'm just prepared to make allowances considering it's our first season back. We would all have taken staying up in this manner at the start of the season. Getting relegated by losing every game 4-3 would be worse wouldnt it?

The rest of this season is a write off and that pisses me off because it's already been paid for, but there is a prospect for the future and it's called the transfer window in the summer. It's certain things will be different once we've bought some new players.

But none of this really matters anyway seeing as it looks like he's a goner anyway!

 

And that's the point. Nobody would mind brave little Watford escaping relegation by one place if we were playing traditional (mostly) attacking football and working harder and being fitter than almost all our opponents, but if the powers-that-be are going to say that we should be grateful for avoiding relegation with this dross then I'm not buying it.

Of course, now that we have nothing to play for (other than bonus money for position in the table) I expect Florrie to play Berghuis and Anya on the wings against Villa, with Gueds and Watson/Berhami in the centre of midfield and Jakubiak alongside Troy up front. On second thoughts, maybe I don't.

 

It's a simple question of work ethic. When you achieve a minimum target with plenty to spare, you don't slob about calling the people who pay your wages 'entitled' when they quite rightly expect you to kick on from there.

I wouldn't expect to keep my job in such circumstances. If you don't want to do it for your employer, then at least do it for your own sense of pride.

What happened to coaches who aim to get the best out of players and squads? When did people suddenly become satisfied with: "Ci ci. We've achieved the minimum. Success. Time for siesta."

 

As mentioned on another thread, someone asked if QSF needs to go, then should Eddie Howe go too, as he has done a similar job at Bournemouth ( albeit without a cup run).
And as Hornmeister says, it is the awfulness to watch that is the issue.

Since Christmas, barring the odd couple of performances, we look dull, uninspired, slow, and bereft of ideas.

If we had played like Bournemouth since Christmas and got the same results, i don't think anyone would have a problem right now.
I'm not entirely suprised to hear these comments from QSF and Watson, because it shows in our play.
We have acheived our aim this season, that is true, but we have not done it very convincingly.
We play like a team that has gone stale, after having the same manager for season after season and the same squad. But we're not, it's a new manager who should have more ideas about him than just defending.
If you don't score, you can't win. That's the basic of football. And we don't score. (enough).
We have two quality strikers in Deeney and Ighalo, ( and QSF had the option of Vydra who i think a lot of us have a sneaking suspicion could've worked well with Deeney this season) the team should be set up around them. Big changes need to made, and soon.

 

Yep, things were certainly different once we swapped Berghuis and Oulare for Vydra and FF. New signings will always be better, won't they, stands to reason.

 

We don't need a culture change. The Pozzos have been here for four years and in that time have created a phenomenal, well-oiled structure and put us in a position that we could have only dreamed of before. To make wholesale changes to that now would be moronic.

Anyone who's problem is us only being 12th in the league and getting to a cup semi in our first season back is utterly deluded and totally spoiled. For our first season back in the PL that is an absolutely superb effort and Quique and the players deserve a huge amount of credit for all they've done to achieve that. Complaining that we've gone on a poor run since Christmas is a bit strange as well. With clubs of our size and with most of our players' limited experience of the division it is always going to be the case that we go on good runs and poor runs, I honestly don't know what people were expecting really. It's also worth noting that during this run we only really lost one or two games that we should have expected to either win or get a point from - Stoke at home and Swansea away.

The football has been poor and I hope we don't see the same sort of tactics from the new head coach next season, but in terms of results there is absolutely nothing to complain about this season. I never for one minute believed we would be relegated, but to have a realistic chance of a top half finish in our first season back in the PL is an outstanding achievement and in that sense the players and the head coach have exceeded my expectations massively even if I'm not a great fan of the way that we have gone about it.

 

You have to believe that now we've had a season in the premier league the player recruiters will have a much better idea of the sort of player required. They obviously bought that dross in the summer without really knowing what was needed for this league and took a punt which failed miserably.

It's pretty unlikely that they'll buy 3 such ineffective players this time round.

 

well I dunno about you but I'm a right lazy ****

 

The Pozzos got us into the Premier League exactly by making wholesale changes that many considered moronic at the time.

 

ZZ's right in the OP. Once we had managed near safety by Christmas, the target should have been re-assessed. I'm guessing it probably wasn't, the alarm bells should have been ringing after the poor performances at Southampton and Swansea way back in January. Since then our best performances have been against Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal (cup), i.e. teams who most probably just wanted to play their own game and hope to sweep us aside; all of the other teams in order to get precious points would have done their homework on us and worked out that if you drive a wedge between the midfield and the front two and stifle one of Deeney and Ighalo then we would struggle to beat them. I find it worrying that QSF hasn't worked that out and provided a credible plan B.

 

So you think they'd never seen English football before they went on their buying spree? I'd like to think they were a bit more professional than that.

 

Clearly.

 

how do you explain it then brains?

 

At last people are agreeing with me :sign15:

 

if you chuck **** at a dartboard, some of it is bound to stick

 

Think how WBA fans must feel under Pulis

 

You could argue that, of the ones we haven't won (since Liverpool), a few games had half-decent performances:

Chelsea A
Spurs H
City H
Spurs A
United A
Leicester H (arguable)
Everton H
West Ham A

I realise that this lot have only resulted in 2 points, so my feeling that it's a combination - these few games with a poor points return, the other with poor performances.

I'm not really arguing with anyone btw, I tend to be fairly positive and optimistic regarding Watford but yesterday has left me pretty cold. I don't really know what I think about next season, other than I think I want QSF to stay, have a full pre-season and hopefully a chance to fully integrate his philosophy (which we may or may not have seen yet).

 

Who knows? Maybe they misjudged the players, or couldn't get the ones they really wanted. But your explanation looks implausible. If you're right, of course, they may not have learned anything, in which case this summer's recruits may be no better.

 

Whatever the reason it seems unlikely they will **** up quite so badly again. And if they do, who the manager is will be the least of our worries

 

I'd rather lose playing exciting football than win playing cr*p. Currently we're losing whilst playing cr*p which is even cr*ppier. It's not improving either which is the concern.

 

So you'd rather get relegated playing exciting football?

 

I don't completely disagree.

However our good performances against the good sides, resulting in a loss, and poor performances against the poor sides, resulting in further loss, is generally not the right way around to stay in this league.

The players need to motivate themselves for the smaller games, as well as the big ones.

The players were being cheered for pressing hard as a unit earlier in the season. Now, its all incredibly incoherent and inconsistent.

 

To paraphrase Etienne's song ; 'I just don't seem to understand' .
3 or 4 weeks ago, our second most successful 'Top Division' Manager was being linked to every job possible , and last week he was on the verge of being sacked.
Yesterday , and for a number of games since Christmas, we were outplayed, out fought and perhaps out coached.
30,000 Watford supporters turned up at Wembley, and we have a following evening and day of 'you didn't sing loud enough/stand up long enough' arguments ??

But , we are 12th in the Premier League ; we have £20K gates in effectively a re built stadium at home games ; we have 'atmosphere' at Vicarage Rd ; we sell out pretty much every away game ; and many people within football ( Pardew included) refer to us a ' Proper Football Club'.

And yet, we have page after page of people moaning ; I happen to have seen dark days , good days , days you'd rather forget, days you'll never forget , and days that are just forgotton , since the Seventies. Maybe, as somebody said in an earlier post, it's a sense of entitlement, but Jesus Christ , can we have some realism.
Let's not sit on our laurels, let's not get complacent, but let's also remember we have had a dream of a Season. Clubs many times bigger than us, sit in the relegation zone , who would swop places in a heartbeat. Maybe we were spoilt in November & December , but thjis year was a year to protect our Premier League status, so that we can push on and do what Southampton, West Brom, West Ham, Swansea & ( in terms of size) Leicester have done ; but no, that's not good enough for some of our fans ; the manger's crap, the players don't perform, the recruitment policy is hit and miss - if it was so easy to get into the top 10 playing free flowing attacking football , the Premier league would have 92 teams in it.
Maybe you have to live through the rubbish to enjoy what we are enjoying this year, and I do accept that games with 1 or 2 shots on target may not be the most exciting to watch , but if you want 10 goals a game, go and play FIFA whatever it's called - if you want to enjoy a Football (Community) Club, doing all that it can to deliver to us the supporters, start enjoying what is staring you in the face.

 

I'd rather stay up due to the financial possibilities, and for the general well-being of the club. But I also go to football to be entertained.

If I'm completely honest with myself, clinging on in a plastic league playing dire football is not really that inspiring an idea. It was when we were the most likely to go down, like under Boothroyd.

But not now. Not with the Pozzos.

It might be higher risk, but I'd rather gamble on a Ranieri/ Pocchetino than settle for Pullis or Allardyce.

 

Same for me.

I'm OK with crap football in a transition period following a new head coach coming in, because I know nothing happens overnight. When QSF first came in I gave him the benefit of the doubt because he'd clearly done great work with the defence, and I expected the offensive play to follow in due course.

...and I'm still waiting for it. Therein lies the problem. We may not have the best attacking players in the world, but neither do about 17 of the other teams in this league and they seem to be doing a better job of attacking than we are. We might do better with higher quality attacking players, but the lack of offensive ambition is quite plain to see in every game we play at the moment. At this point it's clearly not the players who are the problem.