My Thoughts On How We Are Doing

Been thinking about this a little bit since the rumors of the Gino allegations and protential investment have gained a bit of attention, so wanted to air how I view it from a fans' point of view.

I feel football needs to change it's concept on how clubs recruit owners/takerovers. Should there be a more rigorous screening process perhaps? Should each candidate outline their prospects going forward and what they want to acheive (how they can take the club to the next level for example) to the fanbase to ensure everyone connected to the club remains ITK, regardless of position of authority? Gino has had two spells of tenure, a PL owner who was shrewd when we first went up and spent wisely enough to keep us sustained for five seasons of top flight fooball, seeing players like Capoue, Doucoure, Delafoo, Peyera, Pudil, Abdi etc I never dreamed would be playing in the famous yellow and black shirt. It was magical, especially from a fans' point of view and probably something 10 year old redhead Skyla sat in the Vic in 1990 never thought would happen.

When he first came in, yes we did seem to have a (fair) advantage of using the connection with Udinese to get players across to Watford and this clearly began to rile up a few other clubs. The EFL soon closed that loophole but even then we continued along pretty sucessfully. However badly Zola's season ended, it was still a massive coup having him as our manager and he was and still is, a great football personality with passion for the game. What has gone on since relegation from the PL in 19/20, pre and post Pandemic has been a very depressing affair. Gino seems to have abandoned ship on any grasp of finance and the reason for that maybe down to him panicing and buying players like Sarr on a massive wage and price to sustain our status as a top flight club. Even had we stayed up when football resumed, I do not feel the club was in the right balance to of continued past the 20/21 as a PL side. Did we deserve to get relegated? Yes, the table doesn't lie and you only get so many games to get yourself out of a hole and the players we had then were more than good enough to keep us up. Whatever reasons it was, we found ourselves at the start of a downward sprial that has lead to where to we are right now.

As we all know, football is not a sport anymore, it's a business. Owner come into a club to make money, that makes sense. What pull we once had under the lights on MotD with Shearer and Jug Ears talking crap about us week-in week-out has long since gone. We are not a club who a protential owner would look at and say "yeah, I can do something here..." and the reason for that has to lay at Gino's door. No matter how awful the squads have been, the revolving manager door and the player power/dressing room toxicity, the buck stops and will always stop with him. He hires the managers and he fires them, for what reasons we will never know but I think performance levels of the various sides speak for themselves.

I love this club. I love the town and the people in it and the family feel that GT/EJ created within Vicarage Road. Some of that has gone, I know that. But the principle of the club, imho, is still there. To his credit, Gino is starting to turn a corner with Val being our best (all be it lucky according to some fans') manager since Gracia. Our squad has been completely gutted and what we are left with are hardworking players who we know are not going to go out and win 5-0 every week, but they put effort in. We've had perhaps three really bad performances all season and that is an acheivement in itself, considering the size of the squad we have.

I don't know what the future holds for Watford or Gino, but I do know come rain or shine I will always support this side. They might drive me crazy sometimes, but it's part of the rollercoaster of being a football fan.

Long may it continue.