Question To Be Asked

At the start of this season I was still sulking about the cup final. Sacking Garcia after 4 games pi55ed me off royaly and taking QSF on again was so obviously a mistake that for the first time I doubted the judgement of our owner. QSF's all-out defence approach knackered us and we never recovered. Pearson was doing well and although he comes across as being slightly unhinged I liked him. To get rid of him with 2 games left after an argument was pathetic. Throughout all this our 'technical director' has been waddling around in the background and, by all accounts, being a pain in the ar5e. There will be a big turnover of staff over the coming weeks and ideally the first out the door should be Giraldi

 

I notice you omit the word "marking" from this sentence. Very apt!

 

Harsh. I make it April 2019 - sadly one league win in over half a season since then set the tone.

 

So to follow the title of the thread then, is the question to be asked - "is the door wide enough?"

 

You are absolutely correct but I think it is down to confusion about how the team sets up at set pieces. Javi had his own way , so did QSF etc etc
Do we have a man on the front post ?both ?neither? does our best player in the air pick up or just tries to win the ball ? I'm not suggesting this for one minute but when a fire fighter is appointed at a club Allardyce for example he and his team immediately work on set pieces in order to reduce the amount of goals conceded . Being organised and difficult to break down is the term . People then think this is genius but all that has happened is bog standard basics. If a team scores from a well rehearsed routine you just have to put your hands up and say "well done," but those 2 goals from corners we conceded at home to Everton have relegated us and all they did was put it in the mixer !

 

Complacency. That's the simple answer. I had to cringe when the club representatives (I cant remember who) saying the squad is good enough for the Prem when it was evident from fans that the squad needed strengthening last summer. The recruitment was abysmal (Sarr aside maybe).
That's what you get, relegation.

 

Do very much think the owner has shot himself in the foot regarding the Pearson dismissal. Personally don't think the timing would have affected the outcome as I'm sure we would have lost just as easily to city and based on the west ham performance was quite possible the same would have happened v arsenal but we've copped a lot of flak from neutrals and from pundits who stand up for their own particularly when a British manager is involved.
Surely some form of statement or leak would have been helpful as we still don't know whether it was a disciplinary or football related matter.
Personally would have liked him to say because I think it's time for some hometruths, squad is talented but unbalanced and mentally weak.

 

I happen to think we have a mid-table Premier League squad, which only needed two or three good signings in key areas to complete it. There have been a lot of things, as well as our own failings, that have conspired against us this season. You cannot legislate for a lot of it, but it does have an impact, especially when the margins were as fine as 1 point and a couple of goals on GD.

What will probably happen now, is we'll get dismantled to a degree, so all the good work, and there has been some, will go to waste. We'll not see the development of Sarr in our team most likely, which will be a shame.

However, as I type at this moment in time, I am convinced our current squad would win the league next season. Between us and Bournemouth (again). We have the best two squads in the Championship, without a shadow of doubt. However, both ourselves and Bournemouth will lose players.

We can afford to lose some, but we do need to keep that quality in key areas. Midfield, on the flanks and Welbeck in attack. We've got three promising young talents out on loan also to integrate, so we may even be better than the team from last season potentially.

The owner has the golden ticket already in his hands. He could never put this squad together as a Championship club, that would be impossible.

Right now we are as strong as we ever would be as a Championship club. We can only go backwards in terms of transfers. If we sell Sarr, we will not get similar quality. If we sell Geri, it's the same story.

So, Gino has to work out can we afford to operate as a Premier League club for one season? We probably can, and it's our best chance of getting promoted. If we don't bounce back straight away, then we will certainly lose all our remaining quality players and will have to start from scratch.

I would go as far to say, if we add those three loan players to our existing squad, it would be probably the strongest Championship team ever. So it's down to the owner to keep it that way. Convincing players to stay will be the hardest part, and some won't stay regardless. Hopefully that will only be a minority and we can convince big players to remain for one season only if we don't go up. Maybe even say we'll let you go in January if we're not cemented in the top two by then.

This is the tactic I'd use because it will take a long, long time to get a squad this good if we operate in the Championship for more than a season.

 

We had fans on here who said it too. In fact, we still have fans claiming the defence is good enough.

 

I think a factor that needs to be considered is the damage the virus and lockdown and then resuming in front of no crowds will have done to many club’s finances.

With regards to losing our Crown Jewels, we may find this wasn’t the worst year ever to get relegated, because it doesn’t sound as if the game in general is awash with money right now.

It might actually be a very subdued window. No coincidence I think that the biggest spenders look like being Chelsea, as their transfer ban means they have unspent cash in the bank..

I still remain hopeful of holding onto Sarr. We can name our price for him and there might not be that sort of money readily available to many prospective suitors. Also, although we all rate him very highly and have seen what he can do, it could be argued that it’s still too soon in his English career for him to be securing a big money move. There might be lots of paper talk but let’s see what materialises.

I appreciate common sense says both he and GD will be off and I could be very wrong, but time will tell.

 

FFP might be sacked off for next season so the big teams might go mental. Can't see us holding on to Sarr or Doucoure, but everyone else we have at least a chance of being able to keep for at least part of the season

 

I agree with pretty much everything here . . the only nagging doubt I have is actually about keeping the squad together and does this present more risk for short to medium term success. Most of the team appear completely and utterly mentally shot with their confidence near non existent. Staying in that state/environment potentially isn't going to help anyone, and I worry that all it will take is a few dodgy results at the start of the upcoming season and we'll see the fragility again particularly given how we will now be the "target" for other teams.

Personally it feels the best signing Gino et al could make at the moment is a psychiatrist who can not only get into the players heads but really ascertain who is at risk of breakdown again and needs to be moved on for their own mental welbeing.

 

I think Sarr will definitely go, as he seems to be a wanted man for a lot of top clubs. It's Geri that I think we may keep, certainly for a little while until he proves he's back to normal after his ACL.

But just imagine how good we'd be in the Championship with these two to call on. It would be incredible, however, I just cannot see it with Sarr.....but I hope you're right on this one.

 

So we’ve heard from the owner....

https://www.watfordfc.com/news/to-watford-fans-from-gino-pozzo-scott-duxbury

 

The biggest question the Pozzos need to answer right now is what their financial strategy is.
The parachute monies are to align a club's premier league cost base back to a championship cost base (a reduction of maybe 90-95% ?). It can't be done overnight hence the 3 year allowance.
Clubs that gamble, and "invest" the parachute monies banking on promotion can get into serious difficulties and administration if it doesn't pay off.
Normally you sell off your better players to raise funds to help bridge the gap and get payroll costs down but it's likely that player values will be supressed this summer.
So do they;
1/ Focus on reducing cost base to enable us to run on an even keel in the champ
2/ Look to sell - the club will now be worth a fraction of what it was a year ago but any buyer would have 3 years parachute monies, or
3/ Gamble on running at a significant loss for a year or two chasing promotion, and if that fails, let the debt-ridden club go into administration if a buyer can't be found.

Right now the value of the club will have dropped dramatically in line with expected future revenues, and it may be difficult to gte the best prices for our players, it must be tempting for them to go for 3 ?

 

They were never going to say more than that. We all hoped they’d go into more detail and the specifics of the failures but that was extremely unlikely.

 

The FA, VAR and refs, will make sure that doesn’t happen. They are delighted to have Leeds back.

 

An admission mistakes have been made with the team was what a lot of people said they wanted to hear. And they've got it.

 

I agree. They'll look after them as they did with Villa. Leeds have no chance of going down next season.

 

The thing I don't get is that it was obvious by January that they'd majorly f**ked up in regards to recruitment (and long, long before that, obviously), so why was nothing done then?

I know prices etc. are inflated then and it's harder to bring players in, but could we still not find a decent centre back for the right price in all of world football?

Spending money in January may have been a risk, but it likely would have kept us up and meant we hadn't pissed away the past 5 years.

 

If this season has taught you anything, surely it is that doesn't matter.

The role is so reduced at our club that a trained ox would be as effective as a world cup winning manager.

 

We deserve to have knives stuck in. Gino runs the club like a bell end, it's natural that people will queue up to laugh when it goes wrong.

 

Me too, but possibly for different reasons

 

When we had total managerial stability with GT in charge and a supportive chairman who didn't interfere, the press still didn't like us because of our "long-ball tactics", which I remember as thrilling attacking football with a Klopp-style high press.

 

What happened to the man in the pink shirt? Is he available?

 

Hats off to their PR advisers. Presumably Gino didn't post yesterday because his PR people weren't working.

 

No they didn't like us because we had the temerity to beat the likes of Spurs an Arsenal

 

We were accused of taking football back 20 years in those days and were sneered at by the elitist snobs. Let's face it, we've never been liked in the top league. The establishment don't like us there as we don't fit their utopian ideals.

 

We don't fit neatly into a narrative like:

Bournemouth, plucky little club, with a dreamboat manager.

Sheffield United, northern powerhouse, local manager of a traditional club etc.

Naarch, brave underdogs playing naive, but entertaining, football

Burnley, old school English manager, squad full of British players that are punching above their weight

Palarse, English manager, Wilfred Zaha should be playing for Barcelona etc

All of the other club's are far bigger than us and are considered to be in the correct league due to big fanbase's etc

Probably an element of xenophobia as well.

 

Quite.

It does make you question what model of operation you ARE expected to use, though. After all, Bournemouth had a long term head coach, and went down. Norwich kept the coach that got them up, and went down.

What's the "right" answer, according to the idiot who wrote that?

 

Not much at all to smile about in Leventhal’s latest piece for The Athletic that he’s just posted.

• Juan Carlos Osorio and Carlos Carvahal latest names thrown into the hat. But doesn’t seem to be based on anything tangible.
  
• Mentions John Eustace as a coach again but not really sure where he’s going with the point.
  
• Says there’s been acknowledgement from the club around ‘trust issues and micro-management/say in team selection etc.
  
• Says Giraldi’s position likely to come under heavy scrutiny - but then goes on to say he will still collaborate with the Head Coach.
  
• Gomes has gone, Mariappa undecided upon but could stay as due to being more suited to the Championship. Says it’s not unlikely both players could stay for experience.
  
• Suggests Welbeck, Deulofeu, Capoue, Doucoure and Pereyra are all likely to explore the chance to leave.
  
• Says the club will likely want to hang on to Sarr and will only entertain bids around £40m-£50m.
• Nothing new on Deeney. Having an operation etc
• Femenia has gone back to Spain already to see wife/kid. Suggests it’s likely he may want to seek a move back there.
• Estupinan very likely to move.
  
• Suarez - nothing new. Interested clubs etc.
  
• Cucho unlikely to join up until January at earliest due to WP issues.
• Wilmot will return and is earmarked as a future captain alongside Hughes.
  
• New CB wanted - one who can ‘lead the line’.
• Quina will want guarantees before committing to stay.
  
• Kit released on August 7th.

 

Lol, he hasn't got a clue but the club have at least thrown him a bone with the kit release date.

 

The only thing you can take to the bank is the date of the kit release. The rest is just guess work and speculation.

 

So Gomes has gone, but it's also not unlikely that he could stay.

Cheers, Adam!

 

Yep. Given his supposed ‘insider’ links, he’s had 24 hours to put something worth reading together. But he’s just regurgitated stuff we already know or can safely assume.

Only things we didn’t know were kit release date which no one cares about and that Cucho looks unlikely to join up this month.