Marco Silva - Manager

3pts

 

You silly lemon, you forgot Millw'll

 

Sell Silva for 200 bags of gold?
Put him on the market for £20m?
Put him in the late season panic auction?
It could work?

 

Bang on I'd say. Although it might have taken 5 mins rather than 5 secs.

 

And ExEtEr

 

I had 5pts, but to be fair, they did have Abbot in the Swansea Wetherspoons.

 

Oh, you can make that 7pts, if you also count before the game.

 

Whilst I know it may be easier to replace a successful manager than replace say a 30-a-season striker, I’ve always found it a bit weird that the compensation fee’s for manager are so small. For example, and this is just a guestimation based on compensation figures over the past few years, if we finished 8th and Arsenal were 11th, sacked Wenger and came calling for Silva, we’d likely be compensated anywhere between £2m - £5m. Surely these types of figures should be much higher in the current market? Much the same as goalkeepers still not commanding huge fees. I find it a bit of a financial anomaly in the current climate.

 

Written like a true English football follower, sir. (Mind you, neither can I).

 

Wenger would just jump over the fence and save Gino the taxi fare.

 

I took a punt on Jorge Jesus, checked Google and found out I was right.

This reflects nothing as he's the only Portuguese League manager I know. Even then, I only remember him because his hair looked impressively bouffant in his FM14 photo.

 

Likewise. Arguably the manager is the most important player at the club, yet chairmen simply aren't willing to spend compo money on someone that would fit. Just one of those things filed under "makes logical sense but football continues to ignore."

 

I think it's because they're all much of a muchness when compared to variation in player ability.

 

Coaches are at the top of a pyramid - there are fewer head coaches (one) at each club but many players. I'm sure quite a few aging players consider coaching as a next career move, so there's a bottle-neck of potential coaches. Supply and demand effects follow: Why should a chairman pay more when they can pay less? You will now say ' Because they should pay more to get the best'. But I wonder if they find it all that easy to recognize the best. Additionally, the coach also represents a scapegoat - so the coach, who doesn't cost a lot, can be fired much more readily than firing half the crappy football squad you bought and dumped on him and the blame for failure is put on his shoulders, not yours. You, the chairman/owner, are seen to be doing something and blame is deflected. (You hope).
Does Crystal Palace spring to mind here?

 

And The Muff.

 

Signed up for one free premier telegraph article per week:

Watford are set on a path to finish eighth in the Premier League which will be their highest-ever place since they were runners-up in the old First Division in 1982-83. They may end up ninth or even 10th but it is unlikely they will finish much below that.

Why eighth? Just six games in and obviously it is impossible, and ridiculously foolhardy, to predict where any club will finish but a look at the record and points trajectory of their head coach Marco Silva since he arrived in English football suggests that not only will they comfortably avoid relegation – after a 17th-place finish last season and 13th place in the campaign before – but can achieve their goal of breaking into the top 10. The priority remains simple – avoid relegation – but Watford could well, in fact, be the best of the rest this season.

Outside the big seven – if Everton and Arsenal get their acts together – it really is much of a much-ness. Yes, there are Southampton and Leicester City, who can probably lay legitimate claim to the middle ground – the ever-so-small group of so-called ‘mid-table’ clubs – but even they privately admit that their first priority is also crystal clear: do not go down.


Already, in fact, there are just five points separating seventh-placed Huddersfield Town and West Ham United in 18th, 11 places below, which is as many as there are between the Manchester clubs and Watford who are currently in sixth. So it is going to be tight.

Which is where managers – or head coaches – who can make a difference come in. Who can eke out those handful of extra points? The hottest measure in football when it comes to management is the oldest one: making best use of what you have got. In the wealthiest league in the world there is also, inevitably, the most waste. Players are bought for exorbitant fees and not used properly or are simply not worth it.

Silva arrived at Hull City in January with the team dead and buried and the club on its knees. The atmosphere was toxic. The 40-year-old Portuguese, new to England, did not save them from going down, they even lost their last three matches meekly, but he went close and gained 24 points from 19 games, half a Premier League season, in fact. Across a campaign he would have comfortably kept them up with that average.

Then factor in his six league matches at his new club, Watford, where he already has those 11 points. So that is 35 points from 25 matches. The return is 1.4 points per game or, over the course of a season, a total of 53 points. In five of the last 10 Premier League campaigns that equates to finishing eighth. The lowest would have been, on two occasions, 10th.
It is an artificial measure, of course, but, crucially, it is one that is now being used by clubs when it comes to assessing the effectiveness of managers. Silva, in business terms, sweats the asset. He gets the best – and more, given the budget - out of what he has got. So the points-per-game ratio counts.


Hull went down. But several of their players stayed in the Premier League – Harry Maguire to Liverpool for £17million, Andy Robertson to Liverpool for £10million and Sam Clucas to Swansea City for up to £16.5million – which showed how they improved under Silva. He made them better. That is another measure.

It has already happened at Watford where the club has recruited well and intelligently – such as the Brazilian forward Richarlison and the Peruvian winger Andre Carrillo, both Silva picks, but also with English players, including record signing Andre Gray and Nathaniel Chalobah. Silva wanted even more – he is extremely ambitious – but will make do with what he has.

Like Hull, Watford had gone stale before Silva arrived although, rightly, the club will point out that it was not in any state of decline or chaos. It just needed a progressive head coach. One who wants to succeed and quickly make his mark. Silva is doing that with the team playing far more aggressive, positive football.

If this carries on big clubs will inevitably come calling and they will also gather that Silva wanted to remain in England having taken the gamble to join Hull. Silva likes the Premier League not least because, in his view, it is where the big managers – Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, Antonio Conte – work. He also likes the fact that after Mourinho and Andre Villas-Boas he is only the third Portuguese manager to work here.


There were offers from Portugal – Porto most seriously – Spain and Italy but, to their credit, it was Watford who made the first and the firmest proposal once they had decided to sack Walter Mazzarri. They pursued Silva and got their man and he responded to that desire to recruit him and wants to achieve something at the club even though he is well aware that Watford have had eight managerial departures in the past five years.

But what Watford do have is a clear identity. A clear way of doing things and a structure, and Silva fits into that perfectly. It is a good fit.

Given the work he has done so far Watford may – eventually – face a different problem with Silva than with his predecessors. They may one day have a fight on their hands to keep hold of him in the long-term. The target for this season is safety first, as always, but Watford appear on a trajectory to achieve more.

 

Thanks GOBE - that's a good article.

 

I thought someone ITK on here said that richarlison was nothing to do with silva.

 

For both jobs? He must be busy

 

Pretty sure the Pozzos recruitment team would have been tracking Richarlison for some time on the recommendations of their South American scouts. It does appear however that Silva did phone Richarlison just as he was finalising the deal with Ajax. Question is whose idea was that, Gino's or Marco's? We may never know but particularly at WFC the owners not the coach 'buy' the players. I am just grateful that we appear to have struck Brazilian gold in Richarlison. Never thought the day would come when I could say that or get such a raw but talented player, certainly since Barnes made his debut in 1981.

 

I'm shocked you even posted this.

 

Yep, I havent been this excited by a player since jamie moralee.

 

I'm 100% positive that I read somewhere that one of the Pozzos South American scouts has rated him for a long time, but only this season has he actually been a realistic and achievable target. Nothing to do with Silva.

 

I heard Marco was dialing for a pizza, dialed the wrong number, stumbled across richarlison and decided to give him a trial. The rest is history.

 

I don't think that's true. I mean, he would have to have put in the international dialing code for Brazil. He strikes me as a bit more organised than that.

 

Fixed

 

And another...
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/sep/29/marco-silva-watford-coach-sebastian-prodl

 

Oh No!

https://www.sport.de/news/ne2668393/silva-im-visier-zieht-bayern/

 

Something about the war?

 

Sorry but that invalidates the whole article

 

Silva mushed up in a mixer and poured into a blue drinks bottle by evil foreigner whilst bald henchman laughs?

 

The Best Premier League coach. AND WE HIS PORTUGUESE <3.

Keep strong Marco

 

Got it wrong before the match but made up for it when going back to our normal formation. No 3 at the back against Chelsea and we will win.

 

Disagree, 3 at the back kept us in it, his change won it

 

Currently trending on Twitter after saying "why would I leave Watford for Everton?"

Great news! He'll undoubtedly go on to bigger and better things one day but fantastic for him to come out and just squash the rumours outright.

Link here - http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/watford-chief-marco-silva-insists-11414846