Do You Still Have Faith In Gino?

What little I had has been fully destroyed.

 

I never said it doesn't make them immune, in my post I said don't agree with all their methods and some things I wish they would do differently. Not sure what you think they are destroying. No-one has the right to stay in the Premier League, bigger clubs than us have been relegated. It happens. Some relegated clubs have ended up going backwards like Bolton Wanderers. We are currently up there in the top 6 looking for an immediate return to the PL so nothing is being destroyed really. I am aware that if we bought certain players we might be do better, but that is normal thinking behaviour in a fan forum, most club fans will be wanting better players and expressing thoughts in forums because of it. Don't mean those clubs should necessarily be kicking the owners out and getting new ones in. The vast majority of us don't know what is required to run a football club, combining balancing the books with being competitive on the football field. We don't have that experience.

Unless its a mega-rich owner takeover I'm against a change at the moment. The grass isn't always greener on the other side

 

Honestly this clear out smacks of selling assets before a club sale. Is Gino on his way back to Italy?

 

PZ aside, their transfer dealings in this window resemble Andre Gray trying to play football 10 x over the drink drive limit. An absolute clown show.

 

It seems clear the only real strategy he had was "stay in the PL" and he didn't give the head coaches the tools to do that as the recruitment was seriously sub-standard after our 2nd season in the PL. Now we have got relegated with a (self-inflicted) financial black hole, he seems to have no idea what to do. ALL the crap we're seeing now is due to that and I can sympathise with the view he is clearing the decks to sell up. Not sure who with really honest intentions would want to buy us, though.

 

Yeah, just ask Granada.

 

What is the point that you are making?

 

That not all new owners are bad.

 

OK.

 

Surely selling the club with all the assets still there would make more sense

 

First year down Bolton finished 7th missing out on playoffs on goal difference, so I wouldn't get too confident the same fate doesn't await us.

And in common with them, Pozzo doesn't know how to "balance the books" either.

 

Yep feels like a zero sum game to me as a prospective purchaser. Pay £X or £X + £Y for better players. Unless Pozzo thinks we're going to end up being wound up in 12 months time...................

 

There's a hilarious argument on Watford Twitter going on. Some guy called the owners out on their transfer activity. Someone else, defending them on it has given the following items as proof otherwise:-

'offered the ground to the NHS during COVID'
'operated a shrewd business model involving several clubs'
'allowed Watford fans to witness some of the best football in recent history'
'built the countrys (sic) first sensory viewing area (and won awards for it)'

I mean, you have to laugh. I'm so pleased Gino allowed me to watch the games. Although I'm not sure we quite topped Bayern last year as the best football in recent history. Maybe we were in the top 5 though.

 

What is shrewd about racking up tens of millions of external debt? The guy mortgaged everything in sight.

 

Hanging by a thread - tick tock!!!

 

Of course I still have faith in Gino. I'll admit that, so far in this window, we've sold arguably the best midfielder ever to play for the club, and one of the most talented attacking players ever to play for the club, plus 2 other midfielders have also departed, and another midfielder is rumored to be on the way out.

But everything's fine though, because we've replaced them all with an aging Muff cast-off, an attacking wide player who could be decent but he's hardly played so who knows, and a backup-backup goalkeeper.

What's not to like? Get a grip you lot.

 

We were once owned by a former dentist ffs!

 

Exactly!

 

So all correct then even if number two seems to have dropped over the edge of a cliff. As you are no doubt aware I'm sure the person who posted that was referring to our own football and not globally

 

At least two of those points are highly questionable and subjective.

None of the points answer the charge of poor transfer policy as they were designed to be.

 

In a word ... No

 

It's been an amazing run of nonsense from the club in recent times.

• Putting out pictures of Suarez, Estupinan and suggesting Cucho would play for us then watching them all leave for Spain.
• Letting Ivic continually tell the press we were looking for a left back and then just not bothering to get one in.
• Puff piece on the club website about how committed Capoue was then agreeing to sell him for next to nothing the day after our best result of the season and before the window had even opened. Then trying to placate supporters by feeding Levanthal the line that we were going to reinvest funds.
• Telling fans that Quina and Success were injured, only for them to miraculously be available for transfer at the end of the window.
• Consistently trolling about the ability of two strikers that anyone can see are underperforming.
• Letting Xisco tell Garner to be patient then him leaving about two hours later.
• Letting Chalobah agree a move to Leicester but being unable to let him go as we can't convince anyone to join us.
• Setting up a new "injury update" regular feature on the website to keep fans better informed then not explaining why Sema disappeared off the face of the earth for two squads.

 

Does the Pozzo model even make sense anymore?

Covid has put a huge dent in our finances. Brexit has made it much harder to sign foreign players. Have they ever even made a successful English signing? I can't think of any.

I know Gino is apparently very hands on, but the whole strategy seems completely bonkers. Spending big money on players we don't need, completely ignoring positions in which we are desperate for reinforcements. Selling players that actually have talent before they ever play for us. Signing players way past their peak on long term contracts.

It seems like the Udinese project is on its knees too. They no longer have lots of talented squad players who they can send our way. Before we received Vydra, Fessi, Abdi etc. Which squad players can they send us now? Where are the players they seem to have lined up e.g the next Toszer, or Casetti? I am sure it is much harder in the current market where the demand for players has significantly decreased, but our rivals have all done better business than us.

Has Gino lost any key members of his scouting team? Or did he just take on too big a project for one person and didn't plan enough for the future? Either way, Gino's heart, and/ or his wallet, doesn't really seem in it anymore.

 

We can't ship in a shed-load of Udi rejects on loan anymore, even if we could get work permits for them, because the EFL changed the rules after the last time we did it.

 

Im sorry but shrewd isn’t bankrupting your club.

 

And then loaning back Pussetto to Udinese for nothing thus extracting £7m off our balance sheet.

 

It did say it in the past tense and so I presume it was when they had the three clubs. I would be interested to see our financial situation and also compare it to others as I imagine the last year has been very difficult for most clubs

 

Our finances were toast after the cup final year. Will be looking from behind the couch when the next set of accounts come out. And heaven forbid the set after that!