Genuinely Excited For The New Season For The First Time In 3 Or 4 Years

It was great being in the Premier League. It was great seeing my little club getting so much national and international attention. It was great seeing so many talented players play for us. But I realise now that I lost the excitement somewhere in our Premier League spell.

I think going into a season knowing you will not win that often, you won't score that often and you basically have nothing to hope for but grind out a 14th place finish caused me to lose enthusiasm. I only realise that now as I realise my enthusiasm is back.

The Championship is fun, we can hope to win games and score goals. We will get 2 games a week many weeks. There's interesting opponents in the league with us like Luton and Wycombe. I'm excited. I'm counting down the days to the first game. I haven't done that for years.

This year is going to be fun (as long as COVID doesn't spoil it too much).

 

I'm glad for you that you are excited, and to each their own, but I am really the opposite. I didn't see it as 'knowing you won't win that often' and 'you won't score that often', I saw it as trying to win as many times and score as many as you could whilst playing some of the biggest and best teams in the world, on the biggest stage in world (league) football.

Now, there are no guarantees we're about to swashbuckle our way to the title, or even score loads of goals and win loads of games, as it stands. Plenty of relegated teams thought exactly the same only to be depressingly disabused of that notion over a 46-game season. And that was without the exacerbated current situation: a truncated season, a squad in serious flux with no idea who will be playing for us and who won't at all just three days before the opening game, and a great deal of pressure on a team that has only had a very short pre-season and very little time for its manager to implement his tactical approach and ideas.

I do, of course, hope that the players we want to stay will do so, and we'll bring in good players to plug any gaps that appear, and that it will be an enjoyable season in which we gel and play good football and score lots of goals and win lots of games. But right now, for me, it's more like trepidation than anything else.

 

Same! I hated our time in the premier league. Don’t get me wrong it’s amazing. Beating Man United and Liverpool and Chelsea but that’s all for nothing when you set up to grind a 0-0 or Knick one on the counter against Burnley
Since the Covid restart the only game we turned up looking to win was the Arsenal game

 

I wouldn’t mind a few seasons down in the championship, we need to build a team that can go up and play. We have some really good young players, players who are hungry and we never let them play in the premier league as the overpaid dossers were the easy option... it would have taken a brave man to start say Pedro. But I saw more hunger for the win from him in the last ten mins against Arsenal than I have seen from Doucoure for... Well at least a season

 

Yes, that's really just mismanagement/poor coaching, though, isn't it; whether you're in the Champ or the Prem, it's not what leads to that. We've had a great many problems and issues in the past couple of seasons, but the league we were playing in was not one of them, nor was it the cause of any.

 

see I disagree, much like with England it’s the easy pick to pick a Rooney in the big game. Much the same as for us in the Premier league. We had (and it probably didn’t help how a lot of fans felt about our team of recent years) a rotten core of millionaires who have no hunger. A team like Watford should never be in that position we should have up and coming young players keen to impress, why we turned down 40m for dacoure is anyone’s guess for example.... we could have easily picked up a young hungry quality replacement for less than £10m and gone again

 

Yeah, but that's still exactly my point isn't it: that was all down to poor decision-making and coaching from management and hierarchy. All they would have had to do to prosper is not make those mistakes, but they certainly didn't make them because we were playing in the Prem.

 

Erm maybe maybe not, I think the money on offer in the Premier league clouds the judgment which is the bad decisions you mentioned. We need to go up with a team that only needs a few additions to play well in the premier league we need a style, a constant recruiting policy. And if it takes a few seasons where you get two games a week, are one of the favourites to win every week not lose, then happy days in my book

 

It's certainly true that we need a clearer vision of who we are recruiting and why, and indeed whether we are recruiting at all (thinking of the defence) but even if we do hit on a magic team formula that takes us up in style with a dynamic young team, in reality, the gulf is such that we will still need quite a few recruitments if we want to survive and prosper again. Besides, even if there was some magic spell that allowed you to basically use your Championship squad, that would only last for a season or two, before either bigger teams bought your impressive young players, or other players aged out/contracts ran out, etc etc.

We need to be able exist in the Premier League as a club when we are there, or there's something very seriously wrong with us, and I don't see how being in the Championship for four years before another promotion would help us in that anymore than going straight back up and actually sorting our own house out; cutting out the errors and failings that saw us sucked back through the trapdoor in the first place.

 

What is there not to get excited about? A new coach, a fresh approach, new players and a fresh challenge, with promotion at the end.

I am!

 

Being in the PL is great an all but nothing compares to a promotion season.

 

Why would it have been brave when the players that were on the field instead of him were absolutely diabolical?

 

The Premier League is a bit like a dog chasing a car: it's bloody good fun to chase it, but once you get it the reward is nowhere near as fun as you had obtaining it.

 

What the hell is the matter with you ? Yes, me too.

 

I reckon we will be in a better position in 12 months time than we would have been if we had stayed up. This season is going to be great!

 

I understand that, but my post is not about the objective benefit of being in the Premier League which I absolutely agree with, but the emotional enjoyment of watching for Watford.

 

Sure, sure, but I am saying that I enjoyed Watford being in the Premier League and watching them in it - the fact that we weren't Man City whilst in it did not take that away, for me.

 

I'm sorry, but this whole 'the Premier League was rubbish anyway, we never won any games and played boring football' just isn't true. Last season was horrendous and awful to watch, but don't whitewash the previous few seasons with the same brush. Outside of the top 6 we were actually pretty successful, but for whatever reason bar a few big results we didn't seem to turn over the big boys as much as those around us.

This article perfectly illustrates my point:
https://www.givemesport.com/1466117...-table-if-the-top-six-were-completely-removed

Up until April 2019 we'd got 43 points from 22 matches against those outside the top 6. That's not boring, never winning, depressing football!

 

Looking forward to it. We all complained that we were getting to see the younger players. Most weren’t ready for the PL, but the Championship gives the opportunity for players to develop. Much will spend on the business that we do this window, but I am sure we will do ok. This season may be more of a transition year than promotion push, but you never know.

 

I agree, but it seems to be the way, otherwise why when they were diabolical were they not dropped??

 

I think we are agreeing just in a different way, I think you need a core of young players that can grow as the club grows and if they get to the point where they think they are something special (Deeney) we cash in and along comes the next hungry for the big contract player.
We need hungry players not what we collected while in the premier league

 

If we need hungry players, why would we sell Deeney?

 

I’m kinda looking forward to it - but there’s also so much upheaval still hanging over the team right now that I’m apprehensive about it at this point. Think I’ll enjoy it far more when the window is closed personally.

 

Very nice to hear from you Scott Duxbury and thank you for the update (see link in red in the above quote).

Having said that I'm not sure how to take what you say about our proposed "Player Trading" right though to the end of the window. I hope it means we are going to be bringing in some decent players, as opposed to selling off our so called "Crown Jewels".

Hopefully it will NOT be the latter, however, if it is the latter, I hope that we will at least be utilising the said "Crown Jewels" whilst we still have them and not just paying their wages.

 

“There is a very positive and fresh feel to the training ground environment right now, meaning it’s much easier to identify and eliminate any smaller issues as they arise"

I think that's quite the statement regarding the more toxic elements of last seasons squad.

 

I'm so very glad you're nowhere near the management of the team.

 

We can't actually go to any games!! Hasn't that already spoilt it enough? Please don't tell me you're looking forward to spending Saturday afternoons watching television! We could play like Brazil and have the league sown up by Xmas but the only thing we'll remember about the season in a few years time is how frustrating it was when the internet connection went down. The Championship is sh1te (I'd be happier if we were in Division 3 or 4) and this season is going to be a televised pile of sh1te . I can't believe anybody feels differently and to actually have somebody say they're looking forward to watching a year of 'virtual football' (complete with fake crowd noise!) boils my p1ss

 

“There is a very positive and fresh feel to the training ground environment right now, meaning it’s much easier to identify and eliminate any smaller issues as they arise"

Can't be referring to the tubster Deeney

 

What is this excitement of which you speak?

 

How do you know? A fair outside bet to be Deeney's alias IMHO!!!!

 

The Premier League can be good, 2018-19 was great fun, but then we missed out on Europe and got ****ed in the cup final, and I just felt really deflated, that was the absolute best we could do, and we still ended up with nothing to show for it. Was embarrassing getting relegated, but in truth, the worst bit was when we were desperately hoping for Villa and Bournemouth to **** up, when we dropped into the bottom 3 it was almost a sweet release. Nervously looking forward to this season, we get to see players that we probably wouldn't have, we'll play faaaaar more exciting football, and we have a chance of going up (potentially as champions, which is something we've never done before). On the other hand, we still have work to do with just a few days until the start of the season (probably more so than our probable promotion rivals), and the stakes are high, don't go up this season, then everything gets much harder, and we risk becoming a run of the mill Championship club, which is few people's idea of a good time

 

A bit excitable, but I totally agree with your sentiments.

 

Top effort but TOVR doesn't know how to reply

 

I’m excited.

We’ve got young exciting players we’re likely to play. We don’t have any games where the only aim is to minimise the negative impact on our goal difference.