Why would you want to be in the Premiership? It is a division where Keiran Dyer earns £83,000 a week, and where your biggest hope for the season can be finishing 15th. Even with £100m behind you you could not break into the top 4. Give me 10 years in the Championship with a side composed of academy kids, playing great football, being entertained and enjoying ourselves any day. The Premiershyte almost killed our club twice, as it has done to many others and will continue to do. Success is not how much money you have, it is how much you enjoy following your club, and both seasons in the Premiership have been the most miserable, expensive, unrewarding experiences of my time as a Watford fan. Wigan, Bolton, Fulham, Birmingham, West Brom etc are welcome to their pointless existences paying average mercenaries £30k/week in exchange for the possibility of not being relegated, and a season of 1-0 losses to boring clubs. Give me honest, Championship football at a club run by honest people and with academy kids improving themselves over the pile of over hyped, uninteresting, expensive, biased, miserable league above us any day of the week.
You telling me you don't want to be of the same level as WBA? Teams like stoke have done very well since going up and look at Blackpool. I have every faith that if Malky leads us there with the Watford way and this current squad we can stay there. There is no point in staying still, im pessimistic about going up in case we come back down. But we should aim for the Premier League in the next 2 years, especially if new board come in and have a bit of cash to build stand/ give money for players. The one thing I would want tho is the wage cap to remain at its level or raised ever so slightly.
I like competition. The Premier League is no longer a competition for clubs like ours. I too would also love to see us challenging at the top level but I'm also realistic enough to know that won't happen again. Why do we want to spend stupid money on transfers and wages on someone who has probably never even heard of Watford? I would hate to see the days we sign some African unknown from a club in France for £5m, paying him £40k a week just in the hope we might stay up. As PG says, give me honest football at a club that gives kids a chance in a league which is competitive. The Premier League can continue to disapear up it's own arse for all I care.
People seem to be stating their views very black and white here... I would take one more season in the Prem, even if we have to take the unwanted record from Derby. Third time will hopefully be a charm and with the right people at the club, we can build a new stand, invest a lot of money into the academy and something that doesn't seem to be suggested too often and that is marketing and bringing young support through the turnstiles.
Trouble is it also raises peoples expectations. I can still remember people booing when we were top of the league. I would take one more season IF we used the money wisely. It wouldn't happen though.
hmmm scary stuff i find myself in total agreement with potguy not something i ever envisaged. if anyone thinks our promising youngsters will flourish as a team in the prem then they are deluded it will merely trigger another cycle of huge wages on contracts that will be running long after we are back in the championship. this is the best division of all for the true football fan and not the inflated egos and pay packets of the premiership.
It would be nice to get to the premiership, definitely. That means either being the best or second best club in the league for a season, or winning the playoffs - all incredibly great achievements which would be made better by the fact that we'd have done it with homegrown talent, none of whom are on megabucks, etc etc. But once we get there, should it happen, we have lots of money. I'd love to see it spent primarily on relaying the pitch, a new stand, and improving and expanding Harefield. Then we can give the players that got us promoted wage increases and the agreement that if we were to go back down these wages would have to follow suit and decrease. Give the players that got us up a fair crack at it (a great experience for them), and sign enough decent players to give ourselves a larger squad. But we'd have to sign these players carefully, not offering anyone more money than our top earner. Chances are we'd go back down again, but with a better infrastructure, and, one would hope, our heads held high because we tried to do it using OUR players that have been with us through their best years. BUT that won't happen. No way. Players would want more money, because the going rate is so high in the Prem. Fans would criticize the club for not being ambitious enough... and i'm sure there's a long list of other things that would stand in the way of anything that looks remotely like the above ever happening. I assume the pitch would get relayed, but can't see any of the other things being at all certainties. Just the way it is. I'd love to top the Championship, but I really hate the Prem.
I don't like the idea of a wage increase if we go up. Maybe a squad bonus to say well done. But I think I increase if they stay up would be worthy
An increase is fine but they should revert back to their original wages if we go down. Unfortunately this is highly unlikely to happen.
What a f**king grim, negative outlook some of you have. I'm sure if we were to go up, you'd all be complaining once we'd won the play-off final or lifted the league trophy. Promotion to the top league doesn't and shouldn't have to be a bad thing. It all depends how it's dealt with and who's in charge. None of you can sit here and tell me you wouldn't want there to be a time when we didn't have to sell our fans favourite/best players, Harefield could really be built upon and highly funded and The Vic could be renovated and expanded, and the only way any of those things could be possible is through being promoted at some point, and being wise with the money we'd make in the Premier League. Trust me, I'd hate if we went up, bought a load of overpaid foreingers, gave up on Harefield and went back down and ended up **** creek again, but I would love for all of the above in the last paragraph to be able to come true some day and for to us really grow as a club and compete, in the right way, at a higher level.
Exactly, that's my point. Everyone's banging on about how they hate the Premier League and wouldn't even want promotion, but if it were to happen, I'm sure their tunes would change very quickly.
Not everyone is banging on about it It's just a dose of realism. Have you forgotten what a negaitve, fake, soul destroying experience the PL is? I want what's best for my club. The past two promotions to the PL have proved to be nearly the death for us. In an ideal world we will win the league, get a lot of money, ensure Harefield is one of the best academies in the world, we would have a squad of honest players, we would maybe push for a UEFA cup place and have a stadium to be proud of. We can but dream
You dont like the premiership? - Is it because we (as fans) spend alot of money losing every week? Come on....this is how it stands at the moment. You've got Michelle Pratini in charge of UEFA making noises about clubs spending too much.... Give it a few years and hopefully clubs will only be able to spend money as per their income.... And yes this will in turn mean that the great gloryhunter clubs get better, and yes, there will probably be a European breakaway league.... Leaving the premier league.......It'll still be big, it'll still command a huge following.....sky will still be paying the huge sponsorship. (The prem is massive - and if UEFA had any vision or nouse for a super league they would sort their own TV production company out -and completely sweep up on worldwide TV subscriptions themselves) BUT, with a structured salary cap, meaning Dyer will not be on £83k a week.... Meaning that the not so followed prem teams will have to start to produce at Youth level. Who has the finest youth set up in the country? We do....... Who will be ten years ahead of everyone else? We will. With GT as chairman, the money gained will go on the ground, and more importantly Harefield........not in his back pocket or on stupid wages...... The game will change - we need to be in the mix when it does..... Take the top 5 or 6 teams out the prem (euro super league) and the FA Cup can be won....... We have an excellent set-up for the future........the only thing we do not have is money.......premiership = money. Yo-yo(ing) for five years = good financial standing, and when it does happen..... BANG! Watford are well set to stay there. Im saying 10-20 years time..........but that gents is (if i cut down on the beers) is in our lifetime. Our academy is quality.......in 5 years its gonna be better..........we go prem, and i think after a few years (Let the Geordies and Villa spend the money on African or Europeans not good enough for the breakaway league........) the champ & prem standard will get closer....... the timing of our academy, the new rules, us being contenders for promotion or yo-yo club is coming together nicely...... Call me a dreamer but that could be the future.
This is how football should be. For too long the big clubs have been killing the game. I just hope the suits in charge have the balls to make changes and to follow those changes through.
Am I reading this correctly? I think I might have a new ally! Welcome to the boards CM... I 100 billion % concur with everything above. WORD FOR WORD!! :sign15:
I'd LOVE to gain promotion, just want us to do the right things if we do. I would be very, very optimistic of our chances with the players that got us there too, and go into every game thinking we could win it, I'm sure.
In twenty years time I want every one to hate us, just like all the ABU's hate United now, why? Because we will be so successful that we will be the team that everyone wants to beat :sign15:
dont care where we play so long as we continue to bring through academy players and give those worthy of an opportunity at a higher level a chance. the championship is a brilliant division, but i certainly would not be averse to spending time in the premiership. still thats a long way off.
Boro really don't have that much money. If they make a reasonable offer to Taylor he'll stay though. And I wouldn't blame him, either.
i agree with you luther. unfortunately love for a club will often perhaps prevent a player from moving on, its a shame but its not like we havnt benefitted from such things in the past. im sure malky is on the phone to him a lot, trying to turn his head. still he is not the only left back out there.
Not sure that's totally accurate. After the GT Prem season we had not overspent, had saved some of the dosh, had kept a similar squad together and if we hadn't farked up a brilliant start, we would have become that yo-yo club. What screwed us up was the farcical appointment of Vialli who tried to "do a Prem" in the Championship, with the collusion of a board who decided to spend money we were due to get before we got it. The crux of the issue is whether the board has the real guts to tell players: "This is your Prem salary and this is your Championship salary", and then tell their agents to do one when they attempt to re-negotiate AFTER relegation back to the Championship (as happened with Shittu, for example, last time). You could even build in a guaranteed release clause in their contracts saying that if we get relegated, their wages WILL drop to whatever has been stipulated as their Championship level, but that they will be allowed to leave for any club that offers a certain % of their original transfer fee. Any player that is unwilling to agree to that isn't worth signing. It's pretty certain that we will get relegated immediately, but the players that agree to these terms will probably be those very academy graduates & lower-league signings who will have played a season in the Prem, will know they will be key members of the squad the next season with a very realistic expectation of going back up again for another season in the Prem. After which, they will be able secure a transfer to a club still in the Prem, we get some transfer funds, and we wheel the next lot of academy stars into the squad. On that basis, even 1 season in the Prem will allow us to clear all debts, redevelop the ground, relay the pitch, re-invest in the Academy and still have some left over. So I wouldn't care less if we hardly won a game and would love to make it obvious to Sky and all its sickening coterie that we really could not give a to55 about worshipping their rotten golden calf. It'll take nerve and a determination to stick to their guns on the part of the board, but it could work. Of course, there's the small matter of actually getting promoted first to consider!
Totally agree. Promotion to the Premiership for a small club like us is actually quite simple, yet boards and directors make a hash of it almost every time. When you're promoted you're guaranteed something like £50m of extra income over the next three years. Some of it is spent on increased day-to-day running costs and administration, the rest is left for player/staff wages, player transfers and investment in infrastructre. What most clubs do is spend £10m on transfers, increase their wage budget to £30m per year with contracts running 3-4 years, and start some development on their ground and training facilities, effectively commiting £100m+ without having guaranteed income for even half that. After relegation, some players may be possible to sell or loan out, but that is not always the case due to injuries (Williams, Francis) or because the player's ability does not match his wages (Ellington. Okay I know we got him loaned out for a big part of his contract, but still...). Even worse is when the board decides to gamble on an immediate promotion after relegation. We all know too well how that can go. Blackpool should be the role model for any small newly-promoted club. Play to your own strengths and don't spend more than you're guaranteed in income!
Spot on, brilliant post. Problem is I doubt that would ever happen. More like the fans would get on the backs of the board and club for not showing 'ambition', booing when we are relegated with £30m in the coffers.
Charlton is a standout example for me. Small club going up and performing brilliantly while keeping tight finances. But the natives (fans) grew restless and started complaining about always doing well early on only to fade away towards the end. So more money was spent and then some. And then they lost Curbs and all went t!ts up. Now they have restabilised somewhat in L1.
Record Attendance: 75,031 v Aston Villa FA Cup 5th Round, February 12th 1938. Modern All Seated Attendance Record: 27,111 v Chelsea Premier League, September 17th, 2005. (This record has subsequently been equalled). Average Attendance: 2009-2010: 17,606 (League One) 2008-2009: 20,894 (Championship League) 2007-2008: 23,159 (Championship League) Serems little ol charlton get 4k more a week in their lil ol stadium than wfc do and they are a league lower.
I didn't relate Charlton's size to Watford - my point was simply that a club which achieved prem status for a number of years will see it's supporters become increasing demanding in terms of on pitch performance - thus demanding greater and greater investment - bringing n "top players" who usually disrupt the chemistry of team and club which then results in relegation and because of larger investments in expensive players clubs like Charlton and ourselves are forced to sell any talent they may have to pay bills and subsequently relegation beckons...
Charlton were the model club to follow for promoted teams I remember...whilst Curbishley was there. As pointed out some fans fans wanted him out for "lack of progress" and now look at the Addicks albeit a change of ownership and management might well boost them.
