Who is he supposed to pick instead of Femenia? Mariappa? Gracia is hardly to blame if Kabasele can't avoid getting numerous bookings or giving away penalties 3 games in a row. The back up defenders at Gracia's disposal are not fit for purpose so Gracia has no option but to play Kabs and Cathcart even if they have dodgy patches of form.
Problem is that Kabasele is great when he's on form. But he needs to be at least 'average' when he's not. And he isn't. He is so bad when he's not in form and thats quite regularly. He needs to find more consistency when he's playing well because at the moment it's far too patchy and it's costing the team. I think Cathcart does a job and is neither brilliant or terrible. But at least he's consistent in that 9 times out of 10. I think Kiko is a better player than Maps, don't get me wrong. But I do think Kiko's first consideration is how can he support the midfield/attack. Mariappa's 1st thought is about being defensively sound - and perhaps thats what was needed given Bournemouth's preference to counter-attack. The club made a big error in judgment by not bringing in another quality CB. But I think most of us know that sadly. Maybe he was never interested in coming but Alcacer's form at Dortmund is painful to watch from afar too.
Indeed. Pozzo did things on the cheap so we are where we are. Marriapa or Prodl at Wolves it is. Would rather put Wilmot in personally but Gracia seems to think he is a defensive midfielder.
The situation known as "being forced to field non premier league quality centre backs after a single injury/suspension due to failure of owners to invest in an area that has been below par for two seasons".
I actually believe that the owners will continue to spend money off the pitch, stadium expansion, etc but we will have one bad season and get relegated due to the lack of real investment in the team on the pitch. I say on the pitch as we recruit a lot of young players with an eye for the future but we lack real investment in areas of the pitch right now. I don’t think we will get relegated this season and prob not the next either, maybe even get into Europe at some point but our owners eye for a bargain is going to bite us in the arse sooner or later
Yes. But look how much football Mariappa played under Gracia last season compared to Britos. Gracia clearly rates him.
Yes - probably helps Mariappa is home grown. I don't remember Britos playing much last season under Gracia so goodness knows why he got a contract! I mean at least Mariappa does have a bit of pace which could be useful. EDIT: Yes I remember that game now!
Well according to one Bournemouth fan that means the Pozzos will sell up, we will fall down the leagues and end up playing in front of 5k in Non-league football. They might be right about the selling bit but the rest is just what they hope I suspect. Ofcourse they themselves might suffer the same - hence holding back on building a new ground. I highly doubt it though.
They've got no interest in getting us into Europe. Staying up by a point and selling a player for 25million+ a season is the height of their ambitions. And who can blame them? They are Italian businessmen. The success of WFC means precisely nothing to them, apart from the additional income it would generate (though this income is nowhere near enough to justify the monetary outlay it would take to see us generate the income). We're exactly where they want us: a cheap squad with low wages with a low chance of relegation and a gurning spineless yes-man in charge (though why should he rock the boat? He cares nothing for WFC either, why on earth would he?) The pozzo model in all its glory.
I suppose no manager that we might reasonably recruit is likely to care anything for Watford, however, if they where to stay for a while, then that love of the club may grow. The only manager that I can remember that really cared for WFC was Graham Taylor, which sort of proves my point. He could not have cared too much for Watford when he signed. Why would he. Ex. Grimsby and Lincoln. He clearly cared a great deal later on though. The club can grow on one, but it takes time, time that most of our head coaches do not have. Maybe the club could even grow on Gino eventually, which would surely be a good thing. Perhaps even it already is, who knows.
We all know deep down that we are destined for somewhere between 40-45 points every season that we stay in this league due to being outspent by richer clubs than us. This season will be the same. Each season we will be checking that there are 3 worse teams just to make us feel a little more comfortable. Other than beating us, those teams will allow us to sleep at night. This season that will be Cardiff, Huddersfield and Newcastle or Fulham. We will need some dross to get promoted next season to give us similar comfort. ".....maybe even get into Europe at some point...."
More or less every team other than the big 6 will get relegated sooner or later. Our best chance of long term survival is to supplement income by continuing to sign and develop young players for future profit, * la Richarlison.
Totally this. First thing I do every season is see who is completely awful and hope we are better. Even despite our good start and even before the last 3 games, I've still been keeping an eye on those bottom 3!
And if anyone really expects anything consistently better than 10th to 16th every season, then they are simply deluded. Even in the old Div 1 with a manager like GT, at a time when the financial gulf between the teams was nowhere near as massive as it is now, with a youth system that regularly produced players capable of holding their own in the top division, we finished 11th twice, 12th & 9th. Our first season up was a little of a fluky "Leicester" season to be honest. And people are decrying Pozzo for not "going for it"? There is a reason why we have the players we do...it's all we can afford.
I buy into this for strikers. Can you signicantly upgrade Gray/Deeney/Success for less than 40m? Probably not. However can you upgrade Prodl/Marriappa/Britos with 15/20m? Almost certainly with a half decent scouting network. It simply isn’t true that we couldn’t afford to spend on a decent centre back after selling Richarlison. If we are going to stick with these substandard players over the coming seasons then we will certainly be relegated sooner rather than later.
Not too sure I agree with your opinion over we can't find anyone for under £40m to be an upgrade on our current strike force. Gray/Deeney/Success are actually good forward players, but they are not regular goal scorers. Have Bournemouth spent £40m on a striker? They have Wilson, King, Defoe. All are better goal scorers. Palace have Zaha, Burnley are probably similar or worse than us, although Vydra is a better finisher than anyone on our books. We did have Richarlison, and we've probably got one or two on the books such as Pedro and Hernandez that are, or potentially will be, better than the current crop. We cannot sign the finished article when it comes to strikers. Once they become established they are beyond our scope. That's where we are as a club right now. Watford would never spend anything more than £20/£25m on one player, and even then, they would have to be exceptional. For promising talent, I think £20m is the highest we would ever go.
I don't know about never, as I never thought we's spend north of £10m on a player and its happened. However, I would agree that revenue needs to increase, be it from stadium, marketing or TV revenue for us to start looking at bigger transfer fee's. I do think we could probably afford to spend that amount in exceptional circumstances but the issue being that we'd need a guaranteed return on the outlay, be that from a future transfer fee or even just by performances on the pitch. Andre Gray will be the main reason they are cautious to do this again. I also think one of the main issues when it comes to finances, are wages. A player who costs £20m+ realistically wants between 60k-100k a week. This is a big reach for us. You pay one that, and they all want it. And if that player isn't justifying the wage, that soon spreads discontent in the dressing room and training ground I'd bet. But we could have competed for the likes of Ben Gibson at £13m. I don't believe he's the finished article but theres scope for him to improve and being Boro captain, he had leadership and organisational qualities whilst also not likely to be demanding to start as soon as he arrived. Now Kabasele is suspended, I'd have been comfortable with him coming into the team for example - but as it is, I'm concerned with the replacements we have beyond Cathcart and Kabs. We could have strengthened without breaking the bank. Let's see if the club realise that and see what January brings.
For me its not about picking Femenia or someone else, it's about how the players work within a formation that counters what the opposition is doing, and then when we have the ball allows us to do what we want to. If we were going 442 on sat then Mapps at right back with Femenia at right mid would have made us more resilient down that side of the pitch and better countered what muff were doing (although I'd never have gone 442 anyway) Cathcart and Kabaselle were hung out to dry by our gung ho approach and lack of cover... in my opinion.
The reason I said never, was because SD has gone on record saying if Watford ever spent £30m on a player then they would consider that a failure as a club. Our model is simple. Buy young promising talent, augment that with a few senior pros then blend it all together. Right now, we are still at the beginning of this trend. It's a very long and slow process. We probably have too many senior pros as our average age of 29 years and 7 months would suggest. We can see the new direction though with signings of young players like Dahlberg, Wilmott, Pedro, Henandez, Pendaranda, Stuparevi*, Quina, Navarro, plus a barrow load of other young players who we've farmed out to European/South American clubs. The sale of Richarlison, who is going to be the pin-up boy for the Pozzo's network, will give us a lot of funds in order to implement this idea successfully. Imo, were two players away from being a very good side. A clinical striker and commanding leader at the back (Cahill?). It doesn't sound like a major fix is required.
We should have considered playing 3-5-2 or even 3-4-1-2 against Muff cos of how they were obviously going to play....but as we had not given a bad performance thus far, Gracia stuck with the "proven" system. Now we've had that stinking performance, maybe that sacred cow can be sacrificed to setting us up the best way possible to counter the specific team we're playing against. We just do not have the quality of player to "just play our own style no matter what".
I'm not sure I really understand what you're trying to say. Sorry if that's me being a bit dumb! I think WFC will have an ever harder job just to stay "standing still" unless we're bought out by someone with mega-billions.
No one should be calling for Gracia out any time soon, but as when & if he does go, I certainly wouldn't mind nicking Wagner from Huddersfield when or prior to them getting relegated.
All I meant was in the 80s we had a manager and an owner who would have given everything to win a cup and push up the league. Now we have owners and a manager who are perfectly content to stand still.
Aah, I get your point. Except SEJ/GT would have qualified the phrase "given everything" with the caveat "as long as it did not put the long term viability of the club at risk". In my view, I'm not sure our current situation is that dramatically different.
I agree they certainly wouldn't have put the club at risk, but I bet SEJ's profit margin was a lot thinner than the Pozzo's!
