You're coming across as a bit of a twunt. Whatever arguments you have, sound or not, will be viewed through that lens. Glad to be of help.
Incorrect. We lost 1-2 at home last season. They were by far the better team for 75 mins and were two up then Doucoure bundled one in and we could have snuck a point. In our first season back in the Prem. we also lost 1-2 at home, were one up with 15 to go and then Touré and Aguero got two good goals.
Look at the happy clappers now, all getting brave and abusive. All soft and too scared to call the owners out. Keep on sucking you lot. Keep on sucking and be complicit in the mess that is Watford FC.
To be give balance, it wouldn’t be fair to name names but there are a few on here who seem to revel in being living in blissful ignorance, just as much as some others seem to revel in dishing out vitriolic hyperbole. Of course being level headed is what is needed - it some seem to go too far either way. On one hand, some saying Gino should go (crazy) and others giving the impression that nothing’s wrong which is just as wrong in my opinion at this moment in time. If you can’t call out the clubs shortcomings the day after being 5-0 down after 18 minutes, when can you? Being mute about the issue gives the club fuel to continue down this path. Calling Gino out on certain issues at this point in his ownership is justified in my opinion. If the club want to show that it’s not acceptable, Giraldi should be handed his P45 at 9am tomorrow morning. And a statement released by the players apologising to those who traveled and the wider fan base for their lack of application and desire. I’m not really a huge fan of it normally as it’s the fans choice to go - but Manchester isn’t just up the road. The players should refund the costs of those who went yesterday. And the club have to get to the bottom of why they just roll over against Liverpool and City. Nobody expects us to beat them. But I expect us to show desire and the willingness to work. And lastly, I don’t ever want to see a lineup like yesterday’s - we waved the white flag as soon as the team sheet went in and QSF has to take full responsibility for that. Underperforming players MUST be dropped. And the young hungry players given more chances. Quina, Sarr, Chalobah...
Splitting hairs somewhat there Cley. We’ve largely been trounced by them, especially away and against Liverpool at Anfield too. They are top teams. But we make it far too easy for them. Teaterday has NO excuse, regardless of City’s ability. 5 goals in the opening 20 minutes is completely unacceptable. The club should be vocal about that.
I’m not going to name users. There are still several who would rather take issue with the likes of Nath than give Pozzo any criticism whatsoever for assembling a group of cowards who go 5-0 down inside 20 minutes. One of them will likely stroke his chin and talk solemnly about how antisocial and toxic the shoutbox is for daring to question Pozzo. Even a 0-8 result won’t shake the belief that these people have that Gino Pozzo is far superior to any other owner. It’s like a cult.
I believe it's always good to people choices. You can read my premium version, or your economy version. Both amount to much the same.
So let me get this straight. We were dragged into a 'mess' by the current owners from a place that presumably wasn't a mess! You are utterly deluded. Should be Sectioned.
Bonser out! It's just a little bit of history repeating.. Some of us on this forum are old enough to recall the club in the 1960's/70's. Those that do will remember a bloke called Jim Bonser who was club chairman and majority shareholder. By the mid 70's he'd been in that position for 18 years and had overseen a steady improvement in the club fortunes. Well in the 60's at least.. followed by a steady decline in the 70's. Anyway by 1976 supporters were calling for him to quit.. with demonstrations/placards at games etc. Eventually he did quit and a young guy who Bonser had invited on to the board bought him out and became chairman. Namely Elton John. One bit of the story i hadnt really appreciated until reading the club history piece linked below was that the decline in the clubs fortunes was in part attributed to the building of the old main stand extension in 1969. Spending more time and money on upgrading the stadium than the team.. history repeating? https://www.watfordfc.com/club/history/back-square-one
Come on mate that’s a bit strong. I think Watford are great and the sun shines out of Gino’s rear end. Should we not win all season I still think Watford, the players and board will have tried their best and are beyond reproach. Just the fact that the club exists means I don’t care how bad things get, it could be worse. Remember that.
I'm sure there has been a lot of discussion behind the scenes throughout the club over recent weeks. The (re)appointment of QSF and his 'team' does seem a bad decision - this is not a leader and a group of people that have proved themselves with results, nor in their ability to motivate and manage well paid footballers. This reeks of panic and desperation. At one time much was made of our infrastructure/ system (or whatever they called it) whereby a head coach could be replaced and there would be continuity - but, we've had Silva and his squad (a moment of optimism and vision that turned quickly sour), Gracia and his team (a stopgap that lasted longer than anyone thought) and now this (desperate measures) group of mediocrities and misfits led by QSF, who sounds much more incoherent than he did when he was here before. It's not just the players that are standing around with their hands on their hips, or with their eyes not looking at the ball, or simply staring as the disaster unfolds ... we could be standing on the edge of the cliff here. If we lose to Wolves and Sheff Utd then we have a full blown crisis. If we get some points out of these games we can bluff our way through it until ... until ... what? There needs to be some real leadership and vision in the club. Where are we heading?
The defence is a concern, of course it is and i've been saying since Mazzarri days we need to be investing in our back line as it was ageing and not particularly brilliant. That said, although we didn't invest in the defence we still competed for 7th place for the majority of the season. That came down to the element of surprise and set-up under Gracia with a compact 4-2-2-2 which was worked out by the opposition from March onwards and he couldn't combat it tactically. The personnel wasn't an issue then. So a good coach with tactical flexibility (QSF) can work with what he's got, he did it 4 years ago with a very average squad! My personal opinion is i'd have liked us to sign 2 or 3 decent defenders LAST SUMMER and that remains my opinion today. As for yesterday, you can't blame it entirely on the back four/five as the entire team were laughable and how well you defend comes from the top of the pitch where your strikers/Attacking players need to stop the opponents playing out. We didn't do that. Your midfielders then need to press and stop the opponents coming in between the lines, they didn't! Our defence was horribly exposed by the attackers and midfielders yesterday. This, for me, is down to players not caring or giving a sh*t. I hope that's clear. I think Quique CAN turn this defence around with what he's got BUT i've felt we needed to buy a new defence TWO YEARS AGO.
Eh? First season results with a woeful squad were well above par. And QSF has managed at a high level and won the Europa League elsewhere. You might think he’s not what we need right now but any doubt he can ‘motivate and manage well paid footballers’ is pretty silly.
Everyone on this ridiculous thread has argued reasonably. Excepting you who has shown every sign of frothing at the mouth and blowing a gasket ever since your o.p. You need to settle down mate. You'll do yourself an injury. At least when someone I used to know behaved similarly, he had the excuse of having had a scoopy. Maybe you have too.
So what have the Pozzos got wrong over the last seven years? 1. Eight days of Billy McKinlay. 2. By treating players as 'commodities' to secure the owners a profit and identifying attackers and midfielders as those most likely to make them that profit, they have woefully neglected to upgrade our defence for at least two seasons. That policy is fine in attack and midfield because quality 'commodities' have been secured for the head coach to work with. In defence some chickens are now coming home to roost and it's essential that we at least tread water until the New Year and then concentrate entirely on quality defensive recruitment in January to crawl our way out of the mire. Anything else? Gino may or not be thinking of selling the club or of a partnership with others with deep pockets. But whatever, he will not want the 'goose that lays the golden egg' to die. That would suit no-one.
Mistakes have been made over his 7 years, of course there have been, but the bigger picture has shown constant improvement. We could well be like Bury or Bolton without the Pozzo's by now. Are we ever going to be more than we are right now? Probably not, we've probably achieved all we can. All we can do from here is chip away at being a comfortable mid-table Premier League side with a shot of a domestic cup win. Maybe the odd foray into Europe. We can still improve of course and this season we're seeing what bad decisions can do. Being a club like Watford it's a fragile existence. I think they've gone down the route over the past couple of seasons as being stable, but stable can quickly turn into stale, and we're on the wrong side of stable now. It's a constant battle between stability and innovation. Get it wrong and it can all unravel very quickly. I think everyone would agree our midfield is good enough, and our strike force is potentially good enough for a mid-table side. Mistakes were made in the summer. Not so much in the players we signed, but the lack of awareness of how poor our defence has become. Right now we are in the eye of the storm, so it's hard to be reflective. If we did go down it would be a financial disaster, but not fatal. We'd still be a better club for the Pozzo's involvement, although I do recognise we could be saddled with crippling debt, which could finish us. That is the only big risk, and it's a precarious situation that relegation brings to any club.
Number (2) is a huge one and a fundamental weakness in their model. Other errors: 1) giving Deeney far too much influence to the extent he has more influence than some of our managers. 2)a paranoid fear of losing players on free transfers which drives long contracts for already declining players. (See Prodl, Cathcart, Marriapa extensions) 3) a bizarre sense of sentimentality to Gomes resulting in a catastrophic fa cup final performance and an extension that harms the development of our young keepers. 4) failure to arrange suitable loans (including evaluation of potential playing time) for some prospects who cannot get in the team. See peneranda, Quina, wilmot, Bachman and Dahlberg.
Nobody says the Pozzos are perfect Nobody says the Pozzos have not made mistakes Could someone please tell me which owners have been infallible?( I will not accept Man City of course because by their standards they have under-performed woefully in Europe) Could somebody realistically tell me the consortium or whoever they have in mind to take us on to the next stage of the Watford world dominance? I have to confess I thought the politics threads were fairly extreme and toxic on occasions but this one takes the biscuit for people overreacting to adversity. I agree the Pozzos need to wake up and make some pretty important changes and they need to stop thinking that just changing the manager will achieve that. However in their defence it has worked until now. If this is the reaction to half a dozen bad games at the start of a season I dread to be on here when we actually get relegated - which will happen because we are not one of the top six clubs in the country and never will be.
Your ***** says differently. If you believe an 8-0 defeat is when you change owners we can disagree. I have seen lots of your posts and know you think far more deeply than that though. There is room for differences of opinion and I am happy to listen to those who think the Pozzos can be bettered but not a single poster has enlightened me on where our mysterious saviour is to come from. Our WUM RL stands out as the one person on here who is abusive to everyone with a different opinion and his words are effectively we should shut our eyes and hope better things can come. I expect WUMs on political threads but to have one on a thread where we are all Hornet fans and all want the best for our club is simply disappointing. Still that is the way WUMs work - they repeat their single phrase and refuse to enter into dialogue to explain.
Completely different contexts on both posts. Just because the word Brexit is used does not mean the same. You should have paid attention at school.
What i find disturbing (more than this thread) is the recent disappearance of the mild humoured RookeryDad.. and the recent very visual appearance of the less so RookeryLad. A coincidence? Surely not.
Sting, we converse regularly and agree on all manner of things. But this isn’t the first post I’ve read today of yours where you seem to suggest that certain fans can’t air criticisms of the ownership of the club unless they can offer an alternative owner. That seems odd to me. That’s a way of dampening dissent that I can’t buy into. Liverpool have been amazing since the Fenway group came in - but when they had those two clueless Americans beforehand, did it mean the fans couldn’t air their grievances unless they could suggest the Fenway Group coming in? As I’ve said in many posts, suggesting Gino moves on is beyond ridiculous in my eyes. But he’s been at the club long enough to have certain aspects of his ownership questioned. Asking those questions and wanting him to sell aren’t mutually exclusive.
