Contradictory Views

This is not meant to wind people up , , I am genuinely interested.

I can’t say I’m not worried about the current situation , as it’s not how I expected it to go. I thought we would sell a few big names early on and bring in championship quality replacements , but it hasn’t happened . I still believe there’s time to put together a decent squad, but I’m concerned because I enjoyed us being in the premier league and I know our best chance of going up is this season.

However , when I was defending the Pozzos to a degree after we were relegated , the general consensus amongst the people that wanted them out was not because we were relegated but because of the lack of connection with the players and how people harked back to times when the players all played for the club etc etc .

Well isn’t this what we are getting now ? The team we put out on Friday night was a team of players that want to be here , clearly want to fight and Ivic clearly won’t take any sh*t. There were far less premier league prima donners in that team . Clearly that team won’t win promotion . Look
I’m not saying it is t messy , it clearly is , but I’m sure things will be much clearer on a couple of weeks. But why is that an issue as probably the worst case is we’ll be back to where we started , a mid table championship club and the Pozzos may well cut their losses and sell up . This is what people want isn’t it ?

So why the hysteria from what seems the same people ? Why are people so up in arms about selling Suarez and Estupinan ? They will almost certainly be the ‘mercenaries’ of a few years time if we keep them . Suarez has only played one debut season in the Spanish second tier and is already touting himself around , so why do you want a player like that at your club ?

Surely a lot of people are getting exactly what they wanted ? Isn’t this all
A bit contradictory . Or have I missed something ?

 

I guess for those who want the Pozzos out and a return to being a normal championship club it’s because of a number of decisions they have made over the years and how they have run the club. That they continue to run the club in that same way and are making similar decisions is still going to annoy them, it’s just human nature.

If you disagree with how a government runs a country and the decisions it’s makes, you probably don’t revel in each mistake and bad decision but will still want them out at the next election.

 

The team who played Friday might have a lot of faults but it deserves our full support, and I'll have a row with anyone who rants on about them being rancid etc. Players like Cleverley have chosen to stay and chosen to help the club through this and they deserve our respect.

My issue is with the club management. As fans we demand 3 things:

1. Our club is run sensibly and sustainably. It hasn't been.

2. The club communicates with and is honest with the fans. Again not.

3. The clubs employs players who want to play for the shirt. So that's none out of 3.

 

I want us promoted again. Simple as. Also think the the fans are being treated like mugs.

 

I'm just pretty sick of the Pozzo's.

The lack of communication, the sackings, the constant complacency, the constant legal battles, using players as commodities, exciting loanees that never play for us. The last two years have been a world away from what they built the first few years. Treat us like ******* idiots.

They've earned the time to fix it, but Gino seems to be constantly bending over atm and making the club look like a circus.

 

Good point, well made. Barring a miracle, we're never going to be anything other than mediocre, we missed our chance to be something more than that when we lost to Wolves after the Cup semi, so I don't think it's this that people should be getting wound up about. If we go up, it's only gonna be another year of struggle, not the most exciting prospect, is it? Only way we can break new ground is by winning the division, and that's gonna be very difficult


Clearly the idea was that a lot of the foreign mercenaries were gonna be off, but with the market slow, especially abroad, that's proved difficult. At least Bournemouth managed to find English clubs interested in their big names, and Norwich were in a position where they didn't need to sell, although it is very frustrating that we've got to this stage with such a large number of players who seemingly aren't that bothered (in Norwich's case, it seems they were simply not good enough for the Premier League, and in Bournemouth's case, apart from Fraser who left months ago, they did seem to have a bit of fight in them), and not having a clue what's going on

 

You make some good points here and I mostly agree with you.

Re your bit in bold, if Estupiñan and Suarez are going to become the mercenaries of tomorrow, then sadly despite their talents, yes we would be better off getting rid of them.

The issue I (and many others have) is the woeful and frankly embarassing mismanagement that has taken place off the pitch over the last few years. Sending Estupiñan out on a 2 year loan with 3 years left on his deal was ******* stupid. Not getting him to sign a new contract in the summer of 2019 was even more stupid.

Now we're in a position where we finally have some young and talented loanees who are ready for first team football and who could have given our starting XI a major facelift, but we won't get to see the reality of this because of stupid decision making from those at the top of the club. That is where I believe many of our frustrations lie.

This. 100%

 

Just FYI, there's no apostrophe here.

The issues you mentioned above really grate on me as well. For these reasons and others, I do think it's why I'm feeling increasingly disconnected with WFC but club football as a whole.

Gino has made some really poor mistakes over the last few years, but I take solace in the fact that he's the one that will pay for said mistakes more than anyone else.

We still have a club to support. One that, albeit in the league below, is still playing matches, paying players and mostly operating as normal. Unless we were to somehow find ourselves in a Bury-like situation, then it would be the fans that would be made to suffer as the club would disappear into the abyss.

Relegation doesn't affect me. I still have the oxygen in my lungs, a smile on my face, my health and my friends and family. Gino has lost millions. He's the one that has paid the price for relegation, not me and not our fanbase.

 

Regarding Estupinan, you’re right about his contract, but on the flip side in the summer of 2019 he was just another pozzo youngster with potential. His break out season was last season. We should’ve tied him down to a new deal a year ago, but a large part of that is based on hindsight based on the season just passed.

 

Not sure we all wanted a team with players who die for the shirts, or rather players who want to play for the club. That's an ideal that is rarely achieved. It's like saying you want your team to play attractive football and winning football. You're lucky if you get one of those things.

I want a team that contains the quality to get the job done. We currently have this in abundance. This season it's a weak league, that's widely recognised. It's an unbelievable opportunity to get promoted at the first time of asking. If we fail to get promoted with the squad we have in the league of such low quality I'd say it's the biggest failing in the club's history.

But what I'm seeing is every salable asset on the market. There's an almost insane desire to do it the hard way. Strip the club right back and use journeymen pros and academy standard players to get the job done. Of course these players want to play for the club, as no one else would have them in a lot of cases. You could offer a place in the first team to 11 passionate fans, and they'd die for the cause. So wanting to play for the club doesn't really cut it for me. It's nice to have, but not the most important thing.

A group of players will buy into an ethos and a direction. All aboard the promotion train. It's very exciting to be part of a season like this. But it has to be created. Right now they seem to be doing their best to undermine the head coach from every angle.

Look at the crop he had to pick from on Friday. Ridiculous. 17 players unavailable. There is something seriously wrong, but fans still want to make excuses.

The only thing that really surprises me in all this is Foster is still around. But then Foster seems to be a bit mad anyway. Maybe a madhouse is his thing.

People will come back and say only Doucoure has gone, but look at who is available. They've all gone already. We're not picking them.

To my mind, Ivic is already doing a brilliant job. So I give the club huge credit for picking a coach who looks like the real deal. But I hope he's on board with all the behind-the-scenes player movements. It seems clear to me he was totally in the dark over Estupinan's imminent departure. His comments now make him out to be a liar, when I think he's just not been told. That's of great concern to me if that's the case.

We won on Friday, great, but we got lucky. It was a very even game and we got away with it. If we go to Wednesday, play a weak team or play a weak team against Luton and lose those matches, the attitude from fans will be very different. Patience will instantly snap I think.

The club has the winning hand, but want to give all their cards away. There has to be a balance, and sales do need to me made. I think we all understand that, but there has to be a logical line to it. Sell your Deeney's, Welbeck's, Doucoure's and Deulofeu's......yes, it's a shame, but understandable. But then it's exciting to think we could build something special using the likes of Suarez, Estupinan, Ngakia and Quina only to find they're going to sell a couple of those players too.

I think it's right to feel a little let down and angry right now. There is so much wrong at the club. The deliberate alienation of fans, the lack of clear direction, the denial of information......what are supposed to do? Yes, we go on a forum and vent our feelings. We cannot even go to the stadium and show our frustrations that way anymore. The club is more distant to me than it's ever been. It feels like it's not my club anymore. I get the feeling they've divorced me and even though they don't want me anymore, I'm missing them. It's a horrible position to be in.

 

Agree with this. I was slightly angry seeing the squad on Friday due to the 17 players missing through a mysterious illness etc, but full respect to those who wore the shirt, played and won. Hats off especially to Femenia - I think he's the only one linked to go who played on Friday, yet didn't make himself unavailable. I'm undecided if I'm angry with the owners, as we don't actually know the true circumstances behind the scenes - If we're at risk of serious financial difficulty - then they're doing the right thing trying to get cash in. If we kept a load of players and went into admin/breach FFP then they'll be slated to. I am angry at a number of players though - they're the ones truly showing a lack of respect to the fans, especially if some refuse to play.

 

The first thing I’d say is I reckon if you did a straw poll of supporters of every club, a high percentage would say they don’t like their owners. That’s just the nature of the beast. United fans hate the Glazers, Newcastle fans hate Ashley, West Ham fans hate the two Davids etc. So it’s not an unusual thing for a large amount of our fans to start turning against the Pozzo way of doing things, as soon as the wheels appear to be starting to come off.

Is it deserved? On balance probably yes. Whereas at first their modus operandi was fresh and exciting and brought us success and then stability in the sense of establishing ourselves in the Premier League, now it’s brought us relegation and the mess we allegedly find ourselves in now. Where as once changing Head Coach 3-4 times in a season actually brought us promotion that year, that approach is now perceived as a disaster as it took us down last campaign. Whereas once signing lots of players from Udinese brought us the likes of Abdi, Vydra, Fessi and Pudil and took us up, nowadays that approach is seen as cheapskate and lacking ambition. Maybe our perception of the way things are done has changed. We have become more demanding, we expect more. Maybe it’s partly us who’ve changed the way we see things rather than a huge change in the way things are being done. That’s not to say mistakes haven’t been made. They have. And it’s costing us.

I always felt at the time the Pozzos arrived that the two downside of the mass recruiting policy were a lack of stability (but I guess as we went up, got to a cup final, a play off final and a cup semi final, you could argue against that being an issue) but also of a lack of identity at the club in the sense of so many players coming and going and using us as their next pay cheque rather than having an empathy to WFC. There have been exceptions of course, players like Fessi seemed to generally embrace playing for us and being part of our community. Hughes always seems a good egg in that regard. Cleverley and Mariappa and Foster were obviously ex players anyway so they had that affinity. Love him or hate him but Deeney has always been a true club man. We’ve had lots of signings under the Pozzos who have generally seemed to love wearing the badge, but equally we’ve had so many passing through who frankly looked as if they couldn’t give a toss. And call me old fashioned, but I don’t think it’s necessary a good thing to have so many players using us only as a stepping stone. I know it’s a business and players should be professional and get their heads down and play but something feels wrong having so many players at the moment who can’t wait to get away or back to their home countries or to a higher league (on the back of many of them contributing towards us being in a lower league in the first place). To me character and heart matter as much as YouTube clips of skill level or TransfrMarkt stats about assists and clean sheets. Putting together a successful team through a Fantasy Football approach only works to a point. Sooner or later you need a heart too. A common commitment to the cause. Maybe as I grew up supporting us under GT I’m just old fashioned but that’s my view.

It’s an interesting debate but would we rather have players playing for us with 10% more skill but no affinity for us, or lesser players but with bigger hearts for the club and for the task in hand this season? Once Doucouré started agitating for a move, that’s it. He was never the same player. As soon as training started, Estupinan through his agent started saying he was unhappy and every day since has brought links of other clubs. You can put together a side of talent that looks great on paper but if there isn’t the heart too, then they will not get us through a long Championship season. Just look at the side that won promotion under GT or AB or even SJ in the second half of the season. United to a common cause. That’s what we will need this season too.

 

I think selling Suarez and Estupinan will be the tipping point for a lot of fans. We've been fed a lie, the club were even were showing photos clearly indicating they were going to be part of things, now they are going along with all the others.

Fans should rightly feel let down and angry by this. I think we're very close to a major kickback from supporters and dare I say it a real "Gino out" campaign, which would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago.

 

So to you, it doesn't matter what league we are in, how successful we are etc as long as you have a team to support and there's something to do on a Saturday.

Football is more of a soap opera to you that's on weekly. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day as, quite rightly, your health and family come first.

This isn't a piss take or anything, it's an interesting subset of our support. Not quite a happy clapper as they don't care enough and not a bedwetter for the same reason.

Day-outers? Emotionally disconnected regulars?

 

I agree with those 3 points but at the same time we've just had 5 successive years in the top flight so there's been a balance between those 3 issues and relative success on the pitch. Now we have been relegated there is less to balance these 3 failings.

 

Exactly. In 10 years time when we are subjugated by AI and their robot minions, we won't even have a football team to support.

 

I don’t necessarily think the tipping point will be the selling of X or Y.

I think the tipping point will be when we start losing matches.

Win as we did on Friday and it’s just about possible to tell yourself ‘uff it’s all a big mess but we must still be doing something right’.

Lose a few matches on the trot and I think that’s when the general anger will be probably felt.

I’m just writing from my perspective by the way. I’d never dream of telling others how they should be feeling. There’s obviously a fair bit of anger and annoyance around at the moment.

I don’t like seeing key assets sold (although I respect that these are difficult times, relegation in the midst of a pandemic, a double whammy) but equally I don’t want players who aren’t committed to the cause. I had high hopes for Estupinan but we are losing potential rather than a player about whom we can say ‘oh he was brilliant for us last season’. My tipping point will probably be Sarr I think. Or when we lose 3 in a row and sit in no man’s land mid-table.

 

These are all valid questions.

Re the first bit, that's not me. That's a happer clapper.

I am very frustrated with Pozzo and his lack of communication and his dreadful mismanagement, but honestly, I have so many other interests outside of football. I'm certainly glad that he is paying the price for his mistakes, but with the fact that I feel so disconnected to our football club, club football and this country in general means that for a long time now I've looked to the simple things in life that give me joy. Why get emotionally invested in a project within a system that's designed for it to fail? That's how I see it. I hope that makes sense.

Re the second, I would say that I sit in the centre between happy clapper and bedwetter. Emotionally disconnected regular though? That is absolutely me! Thank you for summarising my stance so accurately.

 

Just FYI, I meant to say "We still have a club that we can choose to support." No one should feel compelled or obilgated in any way to follow this club. I wouldn't judge anyone for continuing to bang the drum nor would I judge anyone for walking away from this club for good and taking their support and £ with it.

 

I think it may be possible that GP & SD fully expected clubs that actually have the funds to come in for Deeney, Capoue, Pereyra so that they could take a different stance regards Suarez & Estupinan. Now that has not happened they are stymied & will have to accept bids for those they hoped to have to sell.
Unpalatable, but the more I see what’s going on, I fear our financial plight is worse than we thought. Maybe even worse than the hierarchy had previously thought once they had fully crunched the numbers.

 

I don't quite get why we didn't ask for Besic or even Davies to come in as part of the Doucoure deal. Surely it could have been done as by all accounts both players seem surplus to requirements. Getting 20 million would seem much more reasonable then.

 

Pozzo's still the best owners since Elton in my book.

Not perfect, but far more positives than negatives.

 

This - we could've sold everyone but those four and still got rid of an enormous amount of wages, brought in a ton of money, and had a team that would be pretty nailed on be top six if not better. For whatever reason we've completely ****ed it.

 

Fully agree with the original post.

I dont want the same old players pulling in their paypackets and simply turning up each week to collect it. That means (whether you agree for each individual player or not) the likes of Deeney, Pererya, Capoue, Doucoure, Deulofeu, Dawson etc can simply buzz off for all I care. Suarez, Sarr, Estupinan? Them too "if" they don't want to be here.

And then the fringe players can have a crack. Why buy Quina, keep him on the edge of the team and then NOT give him a chance in the championship? Who are we going to buy to replace Doucoure/Capoue thats guaranteed to be better than him?

I'll tell you one more thing, if Gray or Sinclair want to put the effort in, want to play for us and Ivic gives them a chance, fair play to them and I'll be behind them. Unless Gray scores v Luton and refuses to celebrate of course...

 

The problem is we got relegated. Mistakes were made but relegation at some point was inevitable for a club/town the size of ours , what’s more surprising is that we managed to stay up for so long (especially if you are in the camp that thinks the Pozzos have not got a clue).

Once we were relegated it was inevitable we would need to sell. I’m gutted that Estupinan has gone but it’s not totally surprising and is made even more necessary by the fact we have only sold Doucoure and so far have no takers for the Magnificent 17. If no one buys the dross then we will have to sell the decent players.

People compare us to Muff and say isn’t it great what they are doing and they haven’t bent over backward to sell below market value etc. This is silly imo as each transfer is different and we don’t know the details behind the negotiations, plus how many times have Muff spunked a load of cash on a rubbish transfer too, all clubs make good and bad transfers. People previously said I hope we get relegated so we can be a proper club and then the same people moan when we sell the youngsters brought in by the Pozzo trading model that they so despise. People say they hate the Pozzos for ethical reasons because of how they treat people as commodities but seriously look at the ethics of other football club owners (Newcastle had a lucky escape imo btw). People say that the communications from club to fans have been appalling and I say good point I agree I’m not going to defend that.

It’s easily demonstrable that the Pozzos have been awesome for the club and it astounds me how the anti Pozzo brigade ignore this. Yes I’d like us to have more of a go than it currently appears at bouncing back but the question that is never answered is what is the alternative to them.

it’s a circular debate and I’m not going to convince anyone that has a firmly held view. What makes me most angry is that my addictive personality compels me to read all the same circular debates posted on this forum and occasionally make pointless posts myself that add nothing new. I really should try to do something better with my life but fear I’m beyond redemption.

 

I'm an emotionally-disconnected regular. Partly because of the last few years in the Prem which made me realise you need a barrel-full of money to actually compete and get something substantial, partly because of how our club is run and partly because of the current state of football and how corrupt it is (I've been reading the Football Leaks book and I'm inclined to believe the leaks).

Football is still the sport I grew up with and Watford is still the club I grew up supporting. However I half have the mindset that if we need to sell out our ideals (or at least the ideals that GT endorsed) and the ideals of football being working-class-person's sport to gain success, then I'm not sure I want it. I knew a hell of a lot of Geordies who were willing to look the other way regarding the Saudi guy's misdemeanours because it meant they'll get a load of money and can compete again. That's not what I want from this club, but I fear we've already done some corrupt things...

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