At Our Place

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by 424TheBeautifulGame, Mar 13, 2018.

  1. Lol at the idea a player cant get into a side that was relegated because those playing did such a great job
     
  2. This
     
  3. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Who said they "did such a great job" ?
    All 3 managers last year clearly felt that they were a poorer option than the experienced players. OK so you, using the benefit of hindsight, know better. Quina, who you specifically suggested, is proving to be poor in the champ so far.
    I agree with ZZ's point though that the odd cameo from the bench now and again would have been useful for their development.
    I think our stay in the prem actually caused problems for the Pozzos as they couldn't showcase and develop youth for subsequent profitable sale, and indeed needed to spend heavily just to retain prem status. It should be easier to play the youngsters this year but if we were to get promoted I expect they would quickly be ditched for more experienced players with top flight knowhow.
     
  4. Relegation Certs

    Relegation Certs Squad Player

    What don't you understand? They tried to keep us up by spending as little money as possible, reasoning that if we got through the season our ace youngsters would take over in the next season. It was a risky plan but almost worked.

    The squad imploded because they started believing their own hype and thought they could beat the likes of Brighton without putting in the graft.

    They never recovered from the wake up call in game 1 of the season. We had a team full of players with papier mache hearts.
     
  5. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    The YouTube comments made the case for evolution as a priority in Hertfordshire. There was even someone pretending to be moog saying mad stuff for the lols.
     
  6. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    You think that Hertfordshire needs lots of TVs from a dodgy former sponsor?

    (I live in Bucks)
     
    Moose likes this.
  7. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    I'd argue that maybe Pedro could have been given a few minutes last season, though he has bulked up since then, so may well have been too lightweight. The other two, for sure, were not ready for more.

    I'd have given Philips the captain's armband though. Absolute unit.
     
  8. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    This. We were always standing on a glass mountain in moccasins. A couple of defeats, confidence and spirit just died and nothing could stop the slide.
     
  9. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    To be fair, he was introduced as 'another Junior Hornet' so he's probably only about 13 and has time to fill out into an absolute unit.
     
  10. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    I've been working on a 'Vlad the Inhaler' gag since the chat started last night. Not really managed to make it work though.
     
    K9 Hornet likes this.
  11. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

     
    Siohmy and reids like this.
  12. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    I agree with your comments over youth development. It was very difficult to get players to the level where they can play in the first team at a Premier League club. It's all down to the structure of the EPPP. That needs to change before clubs like Watford can buy into it.

    What I'd like to see is a flat £1m fee, plus a 50% sell on clause as an automatic compensation package for any player poached from the academy. Big clubs can afford that, but it would make them think twice before coming in for a player.

    That way Watford can invest in the youth and develop their own talent. In the Championship, the youngsters we have could well bridge the gap, but they are not really academy players that have come through. Only Phillips looks remotely good enough from the crop of academy players I've seen.

    The young players we are blooding were far higher up the football pyramid in the first place. Ngakia, Quina, Wilmot, Pedro & Dele-Bashiru. Two West Ham academy players who had already started to make a breakthrough in their team, a Man City academy player and the other two were already playing senior football for their respective clubs when we signed them.

    We do need to upgrade our own academy, but we cannot do that until there is some real protection. We'll always fall victim to the bigger London sides in our catchment area, or United/City/Liverpool
     
    Muggins_77, Teide1 and PowerJugs like this.
  13. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    A very good summary. The weirdest thing from last night was Duxberry saying that they had recruited for all areas well, when challenged about the defence being cack for a long time.

    Player wise, we managed to assemble a team with only a handful of players who either wanted to play for the club or were professional enough to do their job, that small list was made even smaller as some didn't have the "cojones" for the job.
     
  14. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Certainly looks a unit.
     
  15. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    What disappointed me the most from last night was Duxbury's total denial that the club had gone into hiding over the past 18 months with the "radio silence" question. He cited a recent Tweet saying two players had handed in a transfer request, as an example of extraordinary candidness from the club.....but what about the silence for the previous 18 months? Only until very recently have the club posted inciteful tweets, and by the reaction of fans it was noticeable because of the comments alluding to "finally the club are speaking" when that particular tweet came out. It was a shock to everyone......not the norm. Now I think they only tweeted it so he could use it as an example in the forum. A bit of forward thinking as he knew the question would be raised.

    He treats fans like idiots. Ok, some are, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. It was good he got tripped up over the very last question regarding Mapps. He had nowhere to go with that question other than apologise. He almost got away with it, or else nothing would have been said about Mapps going and was an example of the appalling lack of communication that he so vehemently denied.

    Having said all this, I do give him credit for finally putting on a Fans Forum. It has been long overdue, but I think he got away lightly. There was no real difficult questions for him to deal with. Maybe it had all been vetted.......but maybe it's time to put that behind us. Going over old ground is not going to be helpful in this campaign, although his card has been marked now.
     
  16. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    Yeah, the whole thing was an exercise in cherry picking. Ignored the long periods of time where no communication was made and then throws out the rare example when they have. It was the same with the talk of recruitment, young players coming through etc. where he either denied the obvious or gave some minority examples.

    He's make a good politician if it wasn't for the fact that he came across as not really believing what he was saying.
     
    Burnsy likes this.
  17. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    And yet, it's this season that they made the call that they only wanted players who wanted to be here and sold half the squad.

    Remarkably convenient and a pretty desperate story to spin. I guess the stepping stone story doesn't wash anymore.
     
  18. Oh the old ‘you’re not a manager what do you know’.

    I can tell you what I’m not that the other 3 are, a manager who got a team relegated.
     
  19. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    What I still found a bit annoying was when talking about the Mariappa issue, he accepted the ‘huge mistake’ and that he hoped talking about it then ‘put it right’. If there had been no question on the issue, the matter would have continued. It would have been nice for the Chairman of the club to have realised something so basic before having to be reminded by fans publicly. And I think the player deserves the same recognition his peers got - not a send off given as an answer at a fans forum. It looks underhand. I hope something is put together by the club in the next day or two. Plenty of people have been mentioning how odd it was online and on social media - for someone who claims he prides himself on communication, it’s a nonsense that he’s only just realised.

    I’m still a little bemused by his unwillingness to provide even a little more detail to the clubs relegation statement. Fudging his answers last night and being so evasive gives the impression that things remain largely the same behind the scenes and that statement was lip-service to fans. Why he couldn’t say

    ‘We made signings last summer and it’s fair to say that 2 out of the 3 didn’t work out as we had planned. One of them was a signing to give the defence a much needed facelift but in hindsight it wasn’t enough. We accept this. When a club employs 3-4 head coaches over a season, it’s clear mistakes were made both in who we employed and the methods we used in making those choices and how we supported those coaches. We accept that and changes have been made to the way that will operate from here on.’

    If those changes have been made, I don’t see why that couldn’t have been said. It’s shouldn’t be for fans to be able to answer that question better than the chairman.

    His answer regarding ‘communication’ was pure bluster. I’d really hope that question hit home with him and he drove home thinking about ways to improve - but I suspect otherwise and thinks he knows best.

    Like you, I applaud the club for putting these things on and Duxbury clearly is the driving force in doing so. Which is why I find his attitude when taking part so puzzling. I understand he wants to present a positive spin on things and has his new manager next to him. But I think some fans wanted, and were due, more transparency and honesty in his answers about where the club went wrong.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2020
  20. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    And said ‘I was open’ about which players wanted to leave and had handed in transfer requests and didn’t want to be part of the project - only very partially true. He alluded to it with Estupinan, said nothing about Suarez, nothing about why Cucho has gone again, Pereyra fair enough and Capoue is still here. There’s been no mention of the other players we sold and if they refused to stay.

    Again it was an easy question to be more truthful on...

    ‘We had two exciting youngsters who we wanted to make a part of things. But it became clear their motivation was to make a move elsewhere so the club made a decision based on the financial need of the club to cut its cloth. Other players have moved on and are likely to return if this season proves a success as we all hope. Others have left on a permanent basis and we wish them well. Those who have left showed a desire to move on. And those who go remain are fully committed to the club for the season.’

    Communication really isn’t hard when you know what questions were coming up.
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  21. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    He made it clear he wasn't going to criticise individuals. The bit bold would easily be twisted by the tabloids into a 'Chairman slams Dawson' type story. Whether it'd have any real legs now we're in the Championship I doubt, but we're clearly not interested in getting into that space at all.

    Not that I think your suggested answer really takes us much further forward.

    Why on earth would they do that? They were never ever going to willingly serve up a load of sticks to beat them with at what was a club-run PR event.
     
  22. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Because admitting your mistakes is a way to improve and doesn’t always have to be seen as a negative. He talks about everyone pulling in the same direction and doing it together - then he needs everyone to trust in him as chairman and the direction he is pointing us towards. Pretending everything is positive can quickly look more negative than just admitting fault.

    If we wants people to trust him on that sense, they need to be sure mistakes aren’t destined to be repeated and the club know what they were.

    A lot of it is as an exercise in ‘spin’. Was I expecting anything different? Not at all. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t highlight how I think it would have gone better.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2020
  23. Relegation Certs

    Relegation Certs Squad Player

    Does anyone really give a shyt that mariappa didnt get a crappy thank you video? Since when did this become a requirement? I am sure the millions we paid him over the years will soothe the pain.

    He was partly to blame for our relegation, he's left, we move on. Who cares.

    (his mum is lovely though, so she probably does).
     
  24. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Yeah, but the 'everyone pulling in the same direction' thing is clearly business speak/PR drivel. Everyone involved in a football clubs, including the fanbase, is happy when they're winning. That's the only magic formula. Duxbury also knows that if we get back to winning, and look like we're going up again, the sins of the recent past will largely be forgotten. Other than a hardy few, most of the fanbase will be back to being content. I can see why, for now, he'd gamble on that stategy rather than holding a massive, and probably quite depressing, public post mortem.

    That said, I don't think he pretended everything was positive either last night. He just declined to say what most of the learning points were.
     
    Arakel likes this.
  25. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Yup. It's all smacks a bit of pearl clutching for me. Mariappa was hardly loved on here - in fact, he was almost universally slagged off every time he was in the team. And while he started out here back in the day, he also did one when we were rancid Championship no marks and only returned when his days were nearly up and we were in the PL. I'm sure he'll live without something cobbled together by the work experience kid in the social media department.
     
    Arakel likes this.
  26. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    I think that’s the point I’m trying to make. It didn’t have to be a ‘depressing post mortem’. I think more detail could have been given and more fans would have walked away finding it refreshing and in safer knowledge of what the strategy is now. I don’t think that would have been hard to do at all.

    I do agree with the rest of your post however!
     
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  27. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Ultimately we have a significant proportion of odd fans who are never going to be critical of the ownership so they are going to treat the fans like mugs. They know they have people defending them come what may so why make the effort to communicate and take ownership of blunders when we have the nuttiest fanbase around?
     
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  28. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Then why do one for other players? It’s no skin off my nose what they say or do regarding Mariappa. But I don’t think it’s a good look.

    Estupinan, Suarez, Penaranda, Sinclair and even Agyakwa got more of a mention!
     
  29. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    His allusion appeared to be to both Estupinan and Suarez - the question mentioned both of them anyway.

    I thought we also already knew that Cucho has gone again because he can't get a passport until January.
     
  30. Teide1

    Teide1 Squad Player

    I thought it was interesting Duxbury said that the movement between WFC and Udinese was led by the players agents, and there's us thinking it was led by the football clubs!
     
  31. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Nothing to do with the fact that you're not a manager. Everything to do with the fact that you've not seen them every week in training, practice games and have no idea of their personality, fitness and attitude.
     
  32. barely1egal

    barely1egal Reservist

    I think there is a very obvious reason that he hasn't been more clear on who wanted to stay and who didn't. There are players on our books who made it clear they wanted to leave, but the interest in them was insufficient so they are still here.

    It does not do any favours to the club or those players to make that public, so he has been vague on that point.

    Duxbury dodged a lot of simple questions he should have had answers to - but I can understand not being clear on this point.
     
    UEA_Hornet likes this.
  33. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    I think the point is being missed. It's not so much about how much a player is liked or disliked but about the consistency in how the club treats players. For others, ones that have been defined as 'not wanting to be here', they've sent a lovey dovey leaving message along with a 2 minute video complication of their highlights for the club.

    By Duxbury's own comments, Mariappa wanted to stay but they couldn't agree terms and it's not even mentioned until someone asks that he's left. It's all just a bit odd.
     
    Burnsy likes this.
  34. Personally I’d be more concerned if Duxbury were willing and happy to throw employees under a bus live and online.
     
    AndrewH63, Forzainglese and Arakel like this.
  35. funny that all of those things are under the control of the manager
     

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