Both with Billionaire owners and one with links to super agent Mendes. The only way we start aspiring to being like Leicester or Wolves is when Billionaire buys out the Pozzo’s. Either that or a Billionaire becomes a partner/investor with a 40-49% stake in the club, to inject cash into the club.
That's always the dream, to get a billionaire Watford nut running the club, who knows his way around the murky world of football. Not going to happen, but a big investor adding to the Pozzo empire could. But we'll always be limited with FFP rules though, so it's limited as to how much they can invest.
Although actually winning the league was a huge bonus, their success was due to the recruitment of the likes of Mahrez and Kante and keeping faith with Vardy. This is the way clubs used to be successful in the past when the playing field was more level: essentially by being well run. So, yes, I think they would have become established. West Ham is an example of a poorly run club with a scattergun approach to recruitment and if they continue with it I expect them to be relegated eventually. Southampton had a policy of consistently selling the good players they discovered so, while they are better run, that policy will have a cycle in which sometimes the good discoveries will run out.
Wolves, Leicester, WHU and Soton are the clubs to aspire to but they are all much bigger clubs with, in most part, wealthier backers. We are in reality more like a Norwich, Swansea, QPR, Cardiff, WBA, Stoke, Middlesbro. We just need to hope we get back and have another crack at the prem and enjoy the few seasons before we are relegated again rather than spending the time whining when bigger clubs with deeper pockets beat us and why the Pozzos seem incapable of keeping us there....
But Leicester would have had similar struggles holding onto their best players had they not won the league (maybe if they had made the top 4 it would have been easier, I don't know), so may have ended up like a Southampton (who, in fairness, managed to escape relegation during the two years they were **** and are now on the way back up under Ralph). It's all well and good to have a solid model, but you need everything to just fall into place for it to 'work'. Hey, who knows, as shambolic as we were last season, if some of those VAR calls go our way and we stay up, maybe we would have learned our lesson and become a 'well-run club' again
Not to get all happy-clapper about it, but 8 years ago if you'd said to us that we'd be in a bracket with a group of clubs like that who are still bigger than us, we'd have been delighted
Quite. I distinctly remember a number of fans saying we'd go down again at some point because we're just too small to compete , and eventually we'd inevitably have a bad season. For a club of our size, top flight membership will always have a shelf life on it unless we have a cash-splashing billionaire propping us up. Given that I don't really want to see the club become a billionaire's plaything, I suspect it'll be a case of getting used to the best case scenario being spells in the top flight being interspersed with the occasional relegation campaign.
Cucho's picture has been released by his captors! He's ALIVE!! It looks like he's now being held in the Getafe C.F. S.A.D. (Getafe Confinement Facility, Short Adult Department). He is stood next to Enes Unal, a Greenpeace activist last seen handcuffed to a radiator alongside Terry Waite in 1987. I'm sure you'll all join me in prayer and hope his (& Unal's) January release isn't just another ruse by those who kidnapped him in 2017. #PrayForCucho
Look in their eyes. Unal has given up, he's been in this situation too long but Cucho is pleading to be released. It wouldn't surprise me to see him send a coded message through a series of blinks if they release a video at any point. I'll load up the Datsun with Panda Pop, Sherbert Fountains and some clean socks for when I work out the coordinates.
Can't wait for us to effectively kidnap him by force after half a year where he bangs them in left right and centre
We have no funds to pay the usual hostage fee but would they be interested in a hostage exchange for Andre Gray and Issac Success ?
I think we could probably just give them to them as a gesture of goodwill. It's important to build rapport with hostage takers.
Remember when the club announced his departure and said that Getafe have an option to buy him but then suddenly changed the statement? Anyone else now thinking the original was actually the truth but it was just changed to save an early meltdown? Bet he’s as good as gone.
Doubt that tbf, otherwise Getafe probably would have piped up. Think it's genuine, but it's unlikely he plays for us either way, unless he's nothing more than a moderate success and we get promoted, then there's a slight chance of him appearing for us
You’ve got more faith in them than me, kudos. I currently don’t trust a word that comes from the club sadly.
No point even thinking about him anymore. Just think of him as €15m that we might be able to cash in on. Will never play for us, and certainly not when he sees that Estupinan and Suarez can say they don't fancy the Championship and we let them go.
Readers will be cheered to note that fee may just about cover the awesome VFM offered by a four year contract for Andre Gray.
http://sportwitness.co.uk/would-lik...ee-wants-to-have-stability-and-not-move-much/ This article suggests his contract runs out in 2021. That’s not good news if true.
http://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/loaned-out-cucho-hernandez.53503/page-10#post-2919282 We've been discussing that article here and don't think that's true. Most likely taken from his transfermarkt page which displays his Getafe contract as expiring next summer rather than his Watford one. He only signed a new contract a year ago so would be odd for it to only be a 2 year deal.
Suarez is more of a CF. Cucho favours the same areas of the pitch as JP, as either a left-sided forward or second striker. Were Cucho to ever come back here they'd be in direct competition for minutes. On the subject of Suarez though, it seems he's currently 3rd choice striker at Granada with them playing a 1 striker system. Early days for him there though still.
That’s about the same as looking at our season so far, ignoring circumstances, and surmising that Sarr isn’t first choice here.