Pozzo Out

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by RookeryLad, Sep 21, 2019.

  1. El distraído

    El distraído Johnny Foreigner

    If the Watford supporters had known at the time of the signing of said players that these clauses weren't in their contracts, the signing of said players would not have had as much support as they did at the time. Rightly so. (I'm not suggesting that should have been made public, I'm just making a point).

    Let's not forget, our owners thought it would be a good idea to put Deeney on a long term £100k a week deal and without a relegation clause if The Athletic is to be believed. That to me is ludicrous, especially as he has been on the decline for 18/24 months now.

    And by the way, there is a way for you to make your point without resorting to insults.
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  2. davisp2

    davisp2 Reservist

    But most supporters, last year, have been saying we need to invest more, and buy better players. Whilst, no doubt there are players where a relegation clause could be added e.g players coming up from the championship, most would not. I am sure the owners of every club in the bottom 10 of the PL would want a relegation clause in every contract, but if you want to keep/ add quality players, often that is not possible.
     
  3. Loyalhornet

    Loyalhornet Reservist

    Exactly . I’m sure player contract negotiations are quite a complex affair . Balancing attracting player and offering a decent package whilst considering the finances . This is obviously save in any business . Getting the balance right between risk and reward . Football is a bit more unpredictable though .
     
  4. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    Our numpty supporters who saw all the failings of the transfer model and the long contracts to ageing, failing players years ago, and called it? Those idiot supporters? Yes. They probably do think they know more than our owners because they've been proven right.
     
    HELGO, Burnsy, RookeryLad and 2 others like this.
  5. RookeryLad

    RookeryLad Reservist

    Correct, totally this.

    We have been calling them out on this for years only to be shouted down by the happy clappers.
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  6. El distraído

    El distraído Johnny Foreigner

    Well in my opinion, those supporters were/are wrong. Pozzo didn't need to invest more £ last year, he should have scrapped the idea of signing Sarr and instead invested that £35m in our backline. Why? It's been our achilles heel for god knows how long yet what do we get? ******* Craig Dawson, the serial relegation specialist.

    Don't get me wrong. Sarr is an absolutely cracking player but he's not what we needed. For my first reason above, but for my second as well which is why spend so much £ on him as well if you don't have a decent centre forward to play alongside him? He was wasted next to Deeney. Sarr made some incredible runs last season and his crossing ability was largely very good, but Deeney was too physically slow to keep up and has poor intelligence off the ball therefore could never anticipate where the ball was going to end up. That money on Sarr should have been spent elsewhere.

    Was it arrogance or delusion on Pozzo's part? I asked the same question of him last year that I did of my former boss who is the owner of a sinking ship of a company.

    Re your second point, maybe so. However, I never want to see our ambitions to become a stable PL club mess with our long term finances. Clubs like Bury and Macclesfield Town are on (or on their way to) the scrapheap because they lived beyond their means.

    Who's to say we're going to be able to get the likes of Deeney, Pereyra etc. off our books? This concerns me. I would seriously question any club that agreed to take on Deeney at this stage of his career and on the wages he's on. Pereyra may be a more attractive proposition but there is absolutely no guarantee we'll be able to get this disinterested bloke off to another club, especially after the stinker of a season he's had.

    I know I'm rambling in my second point, but I think Pozzo gets far a free pass on here by too many people. Happy to give him time to rectify his mistakes though, and by that I don't mean promotion this season, the next or even the one after that. What I do want to see is a squad of young and hungry players on sensible and sound contracts with the appropriate clauses written in and who will bust a ******* gut for their team. I am not interested in seeing any more fancy dans like Pereyra or stupid transfers like Dawson. As I mentioned though, Pozzo deserves time to sort this out.
     
    HELGO and The girl in row H like this.
  7. Shaun

    Shaun Academy Graduate

    Yes we all Saw it but no one listened we could have told owners if they were interested . I could do a better job running this club
     
  8. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Soooo, you're saying we shouldn't have signed Sarr...because he's too good? It is true to say that we needed a better defence, Dawson was at best a sticking plaster over a gaping wound, but we all saw how toothless we looked without Sarr and Deulofeu together, and how much potential was there when we had both of them
     
    dynamo380 likes this.
  9. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    As an aside, with the transfer news coming from Udinese about their non-EU contingent, does that mean there's genuine interest in Pereyra from outside of the Pozzo network?
     
  10. El distraído

    El distraído Johnny Foreigner

    Hmm, not quite. Read my post again.

    The money was spent badly. We should have invested the bulk of the Sarr money in our backline and kept 25% of it for example on a young loanee from somewhere in Europe. Someone who could have added quality and depth to the right wing but without costing the earth.

    As for the signing of Dawson, that was just poor business.
     
  11. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    Clearly, GP got a lot of it wrong. The stupid "best of the rest" hype after the FA Cup SF, followed by the immediate slump, when all the other teams we played had clearly sussed Gracia's 4-2-2-2 & he had no idea what to do.
    The arrogant feeling we no longer had to play any "robust" pre-season friendlies, cos we were going to push for Europa League, so that's the sort of teams we lined up...hence the awful level of non-preparedness for the 1st game.
    The poor transfer window.

    I really believe they thought we had enough to get through last season & then this season we would be able to upgrade with Estupinan, Suarez & Sarr ready from week 1. And hopefully some proper CBs. And, for all the mistakes & angst, they SHOULD have been correct...with only a modicum of even refereeing, if we accept that crass player errors such as Deeney missing the pen vs Spurs, Mariappa smashing the ball into his own net for no reason were inevitable due to their poor quality.

    Not subscribing to HB1's full list born of paranoia, but the following errors, mostly with VAR, really screwed us:

    Newcastle equaliser....VAR said he "did not look at all angles"...the only time that happened, I would think
    Saints equaliser....VAR said they "decided not to delay the game too much"....when there had been an occasion when they spent 5 minutes deciding to disallow a goal because it hit Laporte's fingernail
    Not giving us a penalty at Spurs when Vertonghen fouled Del 3 times & then not ruling out the equaliser despite a clear foul by Kane on Kabs & then Alli controlling the ball with part of his arm...compare to the Palace "handball goal" vs Villa!
    Atkinson not giving Mings a 2nd yellow for no discernible reason...

    I think we were the ONLY side to concede a "new rule" handball goal & not have it overturned by VAR...& it happened to us three times.
    Even if only 50% of the "impacted points" in those 4 results accrued to us, we would have stayed up...

    I am not particularly happy with the Pozzo model in the way it leads to no real "buy-in" to the club from most players who come to us, but I also do not see how we would have stayed in the PL for 5 seasons without attracting the players we did, but where we are now is the consequence of GP striving to stay in the PL with seriously limited resources.

    Yes, big mistakes have been made & also the "model" is uncomfortable to say the least, but it would be interesting what other achievable modus operandi people could present as a viable alternative.

    Or maybe it would have been better for the long term if we'd gone down under Mazzari & look to bounce back from a less dire financial black hole.

    In anticipation of some incoherent "happy clapper" shots, I am not & never have been one, but I get the feeling many of our (understandably gutted) supporters think staying in the PL for 5 years is anything other than fuc51ng difficult for a club like ours. So difficult, that to do so seems to have left us facing some sort of financial meltdown.
     
  12. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    Always good to place an HB1 disclaimer before you then become paranoid, just to make others aware of your level of paranoia.
     
    Steve Leo Beleck and Chiswell like this.
  13. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    Haha, but you did tend to itemise a lot longer list of "obvious" travesties...such as Mina on Del at Everton, his 1st goal at the Vic & others.
    The point I was trying to make was not that there was a "conspiracy" against us, but that the club's gamble on survival last season would have paid off if only half of those VERY obviously incorrect decisions had been overturned by VAR.
     
  14. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    It also would of helped our cause if the players lack of motivation after stuffing Klopp's lot didn't generate into our eventual relegation.

    @Since63 you made some great points. All we had to do was hang on at Viila when we lead, but then again none of us can or could of said for certain results after that game went how they did. Looking back, the Spam away game killed us. We were coming off the back of two wins against admittedly lucky wins, and how many times had we the chance to pull away from Muff and Viila after they lost? I do agree VAR had a major role, but our inability to take command and play to the required level in most games got us eventually what we deserved.
     
    Chiswell likes this.
  15. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    True, the players have to take most of the blame, despite the bad luck we suffered.
    The main gist of my post was that, for all the complacency & errors of judgement made by the hierarchy, we almost survived. A large body of posters on here seem to portray relegation as "inevitable". It clearly was not.
     
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  16. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    I have said it before and apparently need to say it again.

    If Mariappa had not scored that "comical" OG vs Brighton, we would have stayed up. There is no need to go through a list of decisions against us.
     
  17. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    Agreed. I completely disagree with those who have defended our relegation as 'always going to happen' because of their perceived size of our club.
     
  18. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Yes, despite the poor decisions off the field, and the poor displays on the field effectively over the whole season it still came to a tiny margin.

    Arsenal v Watford on Sky Football, 15th Sept.

    Scenario One;

    Jeff Stelling "And it's over to Vicarage Road where there has been a goal!"
    Chris Kamara "Unbelievable, Jeff, it's gone to Arsenal!"

    We go down.

    Or

    Scenario Two:

    Jeff Stelling "And it's over to Vicarage Road where there has been a goal!"
    Chris Kamara "Unbelievable, Jeff, it's gone to Watford!"

    We stay up.

    Such fine margins, after such a horrendously awful season.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2020
  19. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    It was at the VIc.
     
    GoingDown likes this.
  20. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Yes, I started off at the Vic, changed it incorrectly to the Emirates, and then changed back. Good, relevant point, well made.
     
    Forzainglese likes this.
  21. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    Why? Did they not have an impact?
    I also included that OG in my post, so I fail to see the relevance of you mentioning it as if it had been forgotten. And what's with the school-teacherish "and apparently need to say it again" tone.

    Anyway, I clearly was not bemoaning them as the reason for our relegation; I listed them as an argument against the viewpoints being put forward that the serious errors of the hierarchy made it "inevitable" we would be relegated last season, because it clearly was not inevitable.

    The wider point is, I fear, that by gambling on keeping us in the PL, we may be in a financial black hole now. Some of the money "frittered away" may have had to be spent to keep us up in previous seasons & we do not have the deeper resources to absorb all that because, you know, we're a small club with (very) limited funds in PL terms.
     
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  22. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    I think "very likely going to happen, someday" because of our low level of funds in PL terms is quite a valid viewpoint. But no way should it have been last season.
     
  23. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    It wasn't intended to be a crack at you personally and sorry if the tone came across as inappropriate. I must confess I looked at your 'bullet point list' more closely than the rest of the post.

    I just think it is odd that there has been much discussion over the past few months of matters over which we had no control when one moment of stupidity, over which we did have control, proved in the end to be enough to send us down. It feels like passing the buck to blame VAR, referees etc. Or perhaps suggests some people believe in conspiracy more than ****-up

    I take the general point you are making and fully agree with it.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2020
  24. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    Fair enough.
     
  25. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    And the fact remains that we simply weren't good enough to stay up overall, especially after the restart.
     
  26. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    We clearly did not, as a club, WANT the season to restart, hence the final result.
    My main point was to dispute that the hierarchy's errors meant relegation was inevitable last season.
    But that relegation has definitely meant the consequences of a lot of those errors have extremely worrying financial implications.
     
    Keighley likes this.
  27. Cassetti's Beard

    Cassetti's Beard First Team

    You guys clearly didn't type loud enough to get Gino to listen.
     
  28. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    Does he listen?
     
  29. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    The odd dodgy decision or the odd comical error shouldn't make the difference between staying up and going down. They happen to everyone. We were not good enough, simple as that.

    We had good enough players, but they didn't play well enough. Yes we should have had better players, yes they should have been managed and motivated better, but ultimately relegation comes down to the men on the pitch just not playing as well as we know they could, on a regular basis. It's the men on weekly salaries higher than most on here earn in a year that are 100% culpable for where we are. Whether they give a toss about that and bust a lung this year to compensate, or down tools, whine moan and complain to force a move is how they should be judged.
     
  30. Supertommymooney

    Supertommymooney Squad Player

    Lots of material here for my Magnum Opus 'Relegation 2020: The Perfect Storm'

    Available from all good bookshops not shut by Amazon's ubiquity.
     
    Forzainglese likes this.
  31. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    It was a perfect storm, when it came down to it.

    The squad was good enough to stay up, but they underperformed. We get a very, very short end of the stick with VAR,. QSF is reappointed, to the bemusement of many (although should be noted some of our fans were quite bafflingly calling for it). Deulofeu, arguably our best player on his day, gets a season ending injury. Right as we were finding some semblance of form under Pearson, the season gets paused for Covid-19 and the team looks far worse after the restart.

    I think it took all of those factors combined to see us narrowly relegated on the final day; you could probably add more to the list, too. Remove any one of them and it probably would have been a different outcome. It was just a very unfortunate case of everything aligning in the worst possible way.

    Our previous relegations from the Premier League were a case of just not being good enough. We were good enough last season on paper, but we absolutely failed to produce on the pitch.
     
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  32. folkestone orn

    folkestone orn Squad Player

    Good points. Half a season with neither of them and I doubt we'd have done any better!
     
    Hogg-DEENEY!!! likes this.
  33. Markoa$

    Markoa$ Squad Player

    The calls are getting louder. Suspect they will go into overdrive come the weekend when we get smashed 5-1 at home to Lut*n.
     
  34. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Yep. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
     
  35. NathWFC

    NathWFC First Team

    Quite clear at this point that he and the club have completely lost the plot and we have nothing but trouble heading our way.

    Cheers for the good times, but please do one now.
     

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