Promotion - How Is It Achieved?

Cathcart will probably be captain

 

Will Cathcart play much? Thought he’d be 4th in pecking order behind Dawson, Wilmot and Kaba/new CB?

 

The Leventhal article yesterday left me feeling both excited and a bit anxious at the same time.

Like many people here and on Twitter and other places, I’m genuinely excited about the season ahead and hopefully seeing many of the younger players breaking into the team and showing us their potential. Bar one purple patch, last season was so depressing and noticeable for our bigger names constantly underperforming and never getting dropped, so of course it feels great to think of seeing what those who couldn’t quite get into the side last year can achieve. Can’t wait to see Pedro play more, and Quina and Dele-Bashiru, plus the return of our loanees such as Wilmot and Suarez etc.

However, this is balanced with just a little anxiety too. I always maintain that players not in a side assume a greater myth status, their abilities usually bigged up because they’re not part of a losing team. I’ve no doubt that the players I’ve already mentioned have bags of ability and many will have a great season, but I think it’s perfectly fair to urge just a little caution too. They’re young. Some are new to this country. All will be new to a pretty brutal league we now find ourselves in. I hope our summer clear up will at least let us hold on to some of the experienced heads we will need too. Not so much on these forum but elsewhere I’ve read people being very very cavalier. ‘Great that we get rid of Deeney, Deulofeu, Welbeck etc because next season we will have Suarez, Pedro and murder the league’ kind of comments.

My own opinion is this. Get rid of those who don’t want to stay. Doucoure, Pereyra etc. I’d like him to stay but Welbeck too if we can’t afford him or his heart is elsewhere. Be gracious enough to give Deeney and Mapps a good send off, as both have been great servants to our club despite their waning form of recent months. Give our pool of young talent every opportunity to shine. But do all we can too to balance them up with experienced heads. Foster Capoue Hughes Dawson/Cathcart maybe Cleverley too. And don’t be complacent. Look to bring in an experienced seasoned pro in defence and another in attack too, where I think without Deeney we will be lacking in experience next season. To go up we will probably need a few players hitting at least double figures and at the mo what we have in attack is exciting potential rather than a proven 10-15 goals per season player.

Exciting times ahead. Today’s news about our new statistical appointment looks promising too.

 

As usual, I don't disagree with your measured and compassionate sentiment, but in terms of send-off for Mariappa given that we are told his contract has already expired, it doesn't seem like the club's bothered about giving him any kind of send off, much like the other long-serving players who've just been allowed to dribble away, out through the gift shop, recently.

My excitement is realistically based almost solely on Suarez staying and playing upfront for us, because everything we've seen and been told to this point suggests that it is the club's decision and one they are enforcing, and he has already shown capability as a striker and goalscorer. He's also 22, so he's not an entirely fresh ingenue; he's a 'senior' player in an official sense, and that bodes well for his chances of adapting to the league and team.

The idea of Estupinan being here also excites me, but I'm highly suspicious of it, even if Leventhal says that's also a club decision...

 

Thing is, there is doubt about it. Unless we are part of the squad. Being captain is a broad role that goes beyond doing the most running on the pitch and showing up for an interview post game.

I’m not saying Hughes shouldn’t be captain. But I’m saying there’s elements that need to be considered that we don’t see. If he’s quiet around the training ground or not an organiser, then it shouldn’t be him.

As in, I’ve seen some say Capoue should be considered - but when people talk about what he’s like away from matchday, we hear he doesn’t watch football, isn’t that bothered about it and is a practical joker - not sure any of those things play into being a good captain in our situation. Similarly, we’ve been told that Hughes is quiet...

Hughes might be the best option currently but that isn’t saying much - we’ve neglected ‘leadership’ as a trait when looking to buy players. And that’s now coming home to roost and we seemingly don’t have any outside of Deeney.

My opinion is that we should be buying a player with obvious leadership qualities who has done the role elsewhere.

 

I’m with you all the way. I’m just urging caution about falling into the trap of ‘I hate player X so therefore if player Y plays instead, it must therefore be better’ or ‘player X can’t get into the side but we keep losing so therefore if player X had played, we wouldn’t have lost’.

We saw it to a small degree with the two cup ties against Tranmere. Lots of people kept calling for Bachmann to play, based on the fact he’d had a good season in Scotland. People suggested he was capable of being our number two. He duly played, made a bad error and two games later the same people were then saying he wasn’t up to it. This happened too with a few of our other squad players during those two cup ties.

Suarez, Pedro, Quina, Wilmot, Dele-B, Ngakia, Estupinan etc all bring huge and exciting potential to the equation but my feeling is don’t expect too much too soon and don’t get rid of all our experienced heads just for the sake of doing so. We will need a healthy mix of both.

 

As you say there's definately a balance between old and young, experienced and inexperienced.

The one thing we had when we got promoted was goals. We had 3 forwards who could score 20+ in a season. If you look at it now, there's three experienced players who could do it but you've got to question age, motivation and injuries (Gray, Deeney, Wellbeck). Then you've Sarr and Deulofeu who might not be here and are wingers rather than forwards. Leaving Pedro, Suarez, Hernandez who might not be good enough or again might not be here. A fit Wellbeck, Sarr and Deulofeu is exciting. Gray, Pedro and Hernandez wouldn't fill me with total confidence.

 

I think Dele-Bashiru needed a loan last season to get a regular run of 1st team football. Unless he’s a revelation, I don’t think anything he should expect too much of him yet. I still think a season on loan in L1 would be beneficial.

I’m as excited as anyone about the youth - but as you rightly say, we must be careful we don’t go too far that way and have no experience. I’d rather have a Cleverley than a Dele-Bashiru this season.

 

Just thought I'd bump this #123 as a few of you seem to be talking about the suitability of Hughes as Captain now , but were not when I posted this some days ago.

 

I am not sure Hughes looks like a leader on the pitch. He gets stuck in, but an organising motivating force on the pitch? Not so sure.

GT brought in Sam Ellis to lead the squad and team. I think bringing in someone like that, A Malky, Pat Rice sort of figure. Respected, experienced and not associated with the past season. Not sure who or where you find them. But who was the capatain at Maccabi? If he can speak English, wants to come to England, and does not cost a lot sign him.

On our exciting talent. I would at this stage not want to base a promotion push on the potential f players like Wilmott and Quina. Everyone says they have potential. but have they got it in spades enough to battle through a 46 game season. We will i suppose find out, but its agmble without a goal scorer. Last season the team got relegated because we did not score enough goals. Who will be this seasons Deeney, Igahlo and Vydra? More importantly who is the new Abdi?

 

One way promotion is not achieved is being weak in the air. There are some big players in most Championship sides and they will soon target this weakness if it's not fixed. I believe Brentford have just signed Charlie Goode who is 6' 5", L*t*n have Sonny Bradley who is also 6' 5" & Collins at CF who scores a lot of headers, and there are many, many more players of that ilk throughout the division.

For some considerable time Watford has been lacking in aerial ability at the back, in midfield and up front. Everyone agrees we need a CB. Wilmot sounds promising but I read somewhere on here tonight that he is a good player but 'weak in the air'. We have some tall midfielders but none of them has a good leap (surprisingly Will Hughes is not bad) and the same goes for the forward line. Maybe our scouts just don't consider aerial ability to matter but in England, in the Championship it does.

Don't get me wrong, I want us to play good passing football on the ground but I'm fed up seeing us just giving goals away at one end and never offering a threat at the other (Dawson excepted when in the opposition box).

 

Wilmot is young and can still improve though, and this Francisco bloke really puts the 'alta' into 'Sierralta'

 

As in Alta not sign him?