Well I certainly hope he's wrong, and his underwhelming track record whilst covering the club certainly suggests he may well be. There's just enough niggling doubt (for me, anyway) to worry that there's truth in it when you consider that the defence hasn't really had any major investment (in comparison to the midfield and attack) since our time in the prem. Despite how divided people still are on the Gracia in/out subject - I think everybody agrees we need some better defenders at the club?
That journalist may just be sticking his finger is the wind. But let’s be honest, it’s not exactly a stretch to believe it may end up being correct. I’m not going to criticise transfer business before we’ve even begun - but the defence needed strengthening majorly over the past 18 months and we didn’t give it the due attention. I’m hopeful that Giraldi and co are seeing what we see but I’m not convinced.
Gino should take a leaf out of David Gold's book and announce he plans to spend big this summer, days before the transfer window slams open (I assume it slams both ways).
Gracia for Udinese?! http://app.football-italia.net/?ref...silva-or-gracia#article/footballitalia-121962 Not sure they'd appoint Silva after this Everton saga..
It’s his own fault. He plays football from the dark ages. Btw this is possibly the most ridiculous story ever. Silva to Udinese wtf?!!
The problem I have with Gracia is that I don't really understand his philosophy, or even know if he has one. Under Flores we knew that we were getting a hyper-defensive style, and even though the football was crap, I could at least get on board with it as we had a plan. Silva was all about pressing and attacking, with little thought for defence. Again, easy to get on board with. I appreciate it's been difficult for Gracia to implement any sort of philosophy due to injuries - but assuming a fully fit squad, what is his prefered style of play?
Well in all fairness Javi came in and steadied the ship and got us safe. That was initially his job. The Summer gives him the chance to implement what he wants. So until the new season we won't really know. Will he be giving any input on signings? I hope so. I believe he is not the type of manager who sticks and stays with one formation week in week out. The away games at Spurs and Man Utd showed us that he is capable of entertaining football. We just couldn't score or get the results we deserved. He will hopefully get some quality defenders and strikers to utilise and then I can see us pushing on. Build around the quality we already have.
He appears to be a reactive manager rather than a proactive one - sets his team up to address the strengths of the opposition, instead of having a set idea on how he wants to play regardless of the opponent. If true, I can't see this being a recipe for success as the players will be constantly chopping and changing their roles to counter the plans of the other team, instead of sticking to one role and becoming familiar with the likely positions of his teammates at any given point in the game.. I believe there is a lot to be said for imposing your game on the opposition - most successful teams play this way, and Silva has already shown that Watford are more than capable of doing just that.
...until we got found out a handful of games into the season. If you don't adapt, you become predictable, and easy to beat
Liverpool and Man City didn't adapt to us - we knew exactly what they'd do and they battered us anyway. We've also failed to tailor our game to other sides and looked poor doing it. On balance I'd rather have an attacking game plan and stick to it.
It's a case of 'bird in the hand worth 2 in the bush' for me I find Gracia a bit meh, but recent Pozzo history with choosing managers has been poor and there's as much chance of the next one being duff
Yeah, true. We almost made them look like they're world class sides that we have very little chance against, didn't we?
Liverpool and Man City scored a combined total of 17 goals against us last season. Capitulation indeed.
They've been linked, but "on the verge" is a bit premature I think. I don't see why someone of his calibre would be going there.....but football is weird at times.
Okay, maybe I was a bit OTT with that comment but I was just repeating a radio report and it does seem he's the overwhelming favourite. He's probably a bit too attacking to suit us - but if we aren't investing in this defence, Bielsa would be ideal as at least he'd have a bloody good go at teams!
Silva’s downfall was the opposite, relentlessy plodding on trying to play exactly the same way when it clearly wasn’t working, hence the run of 1 win in 11 and some truly horrendous results. At the time I was crying out for him to make changes and allowances for the opposition to try and get some points in the on the board, for him to focus a bit more on defending and help us stop conceding at least two goals every game, but he didn’t. Gracia came in and with the same players made changes in individual games to get us the points we needed. It didn’t always work but it worked a lot more than Silva plodding on with the same philosophy. Gracia hasn’t yet had the benefit of playing with the same squad that Silva did at the start of the season, and when he does hopefully he’ll turn out to be somwhere in between Silva and how he has been so far. I think it’s a nice idea to think a team like us can play religiously in the same way, but unless that way is like how Burnley play or how a Pullis team play, then the reality is was are just not good enough to do it in every game if you also want us to be mildly entertaining to watch, and unless we are exceptionally lucky injuries will always affect it season one way or the other. Mazzarri kept trying it with his 3-5-2 but better teams just strolled through our defence, we just didn’t have the players to play that way.
I had a dream last night that he was sacked and replaced by a weird cross between Fernando Forestieri and Gianfranco Zola. Like it was both of them but neither of them. Worrying if it happens.
All of what you say is perfectly true. It's just a really strange feeling that we have no identity - if someone were to ask how Burnley, Liverpool, Tottenham, Bournemouth or Arsenal play football, I could give an answer. With Watford I just don't know. Much of that could be Gracia firefighting with an unfamiliar squad - but is a philosophy even necessary? Maybe our playing style is to have no playing style.
I'd agree that we don't have a distinct playing style - although in the Premier League we've typically been very compact, rarely playing expansive attacking football, though at least on the flip-side also rarely just "parking the bus" in the manner which many lower Prem sides are prone to do. We have a pretty average outlook to matches, which tallies with our mid-table league position; this is also underlined by the fact that our ball possession for the 2017/18 season was 49.3%. However, I'd disagree that we don't have an identity - our recruitment policy has been pretty consistent over the years, with mostly experienced, technically sound, comfortable on the ball, physically tough and intimidating cosmopolitan internationals, sprinkled with the occasional less experienced youngster with hopes of a high resale value. If I were to single out one feature I'd say we're pretty thuggish - with the odd exception, most teams will know to expect a battle against us and we don't easily roll over or capitulate. By contrast, much of the struggles of Southampton and Swansea this season were due to both having relatively inexperienced squads, hand-in-hand with some clear deficiencies throughout in both physical and mental strength.
I'd say petulant and ill disciplined rather than thuggish. And we regularly capitulated last season, repeatedly turning leads into late, undeserved defeats. A mentally strong team would make sure they at least took a point.
We also have a tendency to be bullied. Outside of Troy's futile barging standoffs, we are unable to compete with overly physical teams, though I think we improved at that under Gracia.
