We will all give him a chance. We all want him to succeed. I just think it’s perfectly reasonable to discuss the merits of a new appointment. It shouldn’t be taken as a sign of negativity or miserableness to question a new appointee. I think it’s acceptable to look at how big a gamble we may or not be taking. My hope for Grazia is that, not only can he improve our defence, but also our focus and game management. Do that and those last minute sucker punches should be consigned to history.
All fair points, as always. Don't forget we'll also now sign players. I think there was a standoff between players Silva wanted and players Watford could afford. Now they will go ahead with signings they have already lined up without any type of conflict. Once something becomes so toxic, as this situation must certainly have become, there's no other action the club could take. The club were pushed into a corner. New players, new coach will bring a fresh impetus. This season is now all about staying up.....nothing else matters. Remember SD's statement back in May? He said we don't want to be hanging on by our fingernails this season.
Again none of this is a gimme. It all depends on who we sign. How many players have we been linked with this January that have filled us all with excitement? It seems the usual hotchpotch of exotic sounding overseas players that force us all into Google to see who they really are. We’ve changed coach today but how much confidence can we have in a recruiting team who’ve brought us the likes of Zeegelar this season. Get the January recruitment right and yes we will have a better chance of halting our slide. I wonder if Grazia will be our first ever Coach to start his reign with a cup match rather than a league one? Anybody know?
You can see why they did not buy in the transfer window - I suspect a win yesterday would have been enough to delay the sacking
It's a cautious tale you tell, but it's a bit glass half empty. Yes, it could go all wrong, but I think our chances have greatly improved, as doing nothing would mean a continuation of poor results.
Javi Gracia is at the training ground signing paperwork. Wow, we certainly do not mess about. Gino's conversation went like this: "Marco, you're fired.......now clear your office quickly, as the new guy will be here in a minute."
Let's face it. Even if we win no more of the 14 games left this season with the new guy he won't actually have done much worse than Silva over the last 14 games.
Perhaps we should start with getting his name right.. Seen Garcia and Grazia used already. To my uneducated, working class white Englishman's mind his first name sounds like Harry.. Javi the Hornet.
Again, my concerns today have not been about doing nothing. They’ve been about whether we’ve followed up doing something with doing the right thing. Just a few days ago, the common consensus was our playing squad wasn’t good enough. Our recent recruiting had been patchy. Our defenders were being called generally lower league standard. Our medical team were halfwits. Problems that lay much deeper than merely Marco Silva. Nearly everything with the club seemed wrong. Just re-read the threads to see this. Now he’s no more and I’m with the many others here who think that’s a good thing. I’m simply questioning or at least hoping to debate whether a Head Coach totally new to our country and league and with an underwhelming CV so far is the right man to magically change everything around! Or is his attraction simply he’s not Silva? I think it’s apt his first match is against Southampton, because in both age and average coaching history to date plus reputation as more of a defensive minded tactician, he seems quite similar to their manager (Apart from never having played in our league) . And look how that’s going.
Malt You are a wise and reflective contributor. The fact of the matter is nobody knows. Silva seemed a good appointment.Most of us were delighted to acquire his services. Mr IBB was mournful during Four Game Frank's tenure that they had failed to appoint Silva. Most of us agree that it was Silva's handling of the whole sorry saga and his subsequent failure to knuckle down and re focus,that caused his removal. Together with Everton behaving like a playground bully. Perhaps our new man will fail to grasp our league. However the fact that he comes with a history of being able to organise a defence encourages me on this dark and dismal day. I will give him my full support.Safe in the understanding that if I don't,judging by the look of him,he'll be straight over to my seat and behead me!
To me the consensus has been that Silva has been getting very little out of a capable squad with lots of injuries, because he didn't want to be here
Actually looking forward to the playing 4-4-2 every week. Could see him playing Richarlison and Pereyra on the wings, Pereyra especially because he has played 4 centre mids in midfield before.
"Tactically, Gracia was quite stuborn, unwilling to adapt his formation which clearly struggled against the number of 5 defender formations he came up against. For most of the season, Rubin were tactically uninspiring, even when on good form, they did not create much, with goals coming from long balls or high balls into the box. Rubin tended to look most threatening on the counter, which was one of Gracia’s main traits as a coach, but the lack of pace in the team did not help." Sounds like what we're used to.
Sounds lovely. I make lots of typo errors, I did not know it was possible to go back and do corrections. Anyone know if there are instructions somewhere on the site?
Assuming this deal doesn't fall apart at the last minute (a bit like the defence....) - rather than the media and the sea of ignorance on Twitter criticise the club for sacking a manager who'd overseen the worst run of form in the division and had let his employers know he wanted to manage elsewhere - can Watford not receive some praise for making such a swift new appointment? Leicester, Everton, West Brom, Swansea and Stoke took between 8-38 days to bring in their replacements. Gino and co had obviously been busy behind the scenes, making this the least knee-jerk mid season change you are likely to see.
I can't for the life of me understand how anyone can find this underwhelming. Literally anyone with any knowledge of Spanish football thinks this is an incredible appointment. A lot of the data analytics guys seem to think he produces remarkably good numbers and have been suggesting him for big jobs recently. Defensively meticulous, specialist against big sides, will work with whatever he has given and prefers to improve players, this guy sounds like a dream. Favourite thing i've seen was actually that he switched formation before that famous 1-0 win over Pep's Barca at the Nou camp at an hours notice when he saw the Barca line up.
Nice to see the blokes been written off before he’s even signed on the dotted line. You can barely make it through a page on these forums without someone slating our defensive organisation, now it seems we’ve got someone who specialises in just that. Our squad is well set up for a counter attacking style. Consecutive top half finishes with Malaga sounds like a pretty good achievement to me.
I'll predict he hits the ground running, gets us up the league and to the semi finals of the fa cup and then Everton come in after sacking bfs with an approach of a bigger budget and bigger pay packet. .......
