Rotten Club

Apparently so. It wasn’t something I was aware of, but apparently the early Saturday kick off is to coincide with around 8pm Saturday in Asia. That slot only exists because the PL have made it exist for that reason, and Sky/BT are then televising games at that time. Naturally teams like Liverpool and Man Utd cover those slots the most. Neville showed that in one season Utd were shown 12 times in the Saturday lunchtime kick off slot.

I’m not sure if anyone else saw the same feature to verify, but I’ve also heard Simon Jordan say the same as well, and that Klopp should stop moaning as his club actually benefit financially from being in that slot.

 

How much would it cost to buy a Championship club that owns the freehold of its stadium and has a Premier League standard training ground on a long lease and the players we have in the squad. I doubt you would get to buy Watford for much less than £200 million. For comparison:-

Leeds United 50% of club bought for £47 million in 2017. The squad was average quality, with an average age of 22. finished 7th in the Championship, Chris Wood scored half their league goals that season. Club income £34 million, with £5 million debt converted to equity, but no big debts. Did not own its stadium.

 

It's not, that's why we are not category 1. Even the dome is temporary. You should see the state of Spurs (world class)Leicester, Liverpool, Everton, Brighton and co new training grounds, let alone the ones already developed. The likes of QPR and Bristol City will also be way ahead of us soon. Ours has had a tidy up by putting cladding over brickwork and a temporary 'conservatory' for the players to stretch in. Have a look at Leicester's new one here, even has a golf course! https://www.lcfc.com/galleries/1950021/lcfc-reveal-seagrave-training-ground

 

Except one

 

But think where we've come from.

 

I agree that this appears to be a rotten club with player power seemingly rife at stages. A set of owners that seem detached from the fans and more miss than hit in the transfer market.
Ivic style of play was far from great although his tactics had us not to lose, he was training a whole squad whose not only attitude stinks but none of them are that good. This new coach is going to have the same issues, whatever formation he decides to play, expecting Cleverly,Chalobah, Capone, Cathcart, success or Gray to actually perform as professional footballers will be his downfall. Add to these the unknown trouble makers around the training ground and the click is ticking. If he fails he’ll go and the dross will still be here.

 

I'd say that if he asked for it, yes; it was his idea. The club sanctioned his wishes and it obviously caused some friction. He owns that; it was his job to keep the players onside and motivated.

I do have some sympathy with the squad on the hotel thing. The phones, music etc. stuff is both minor and very normal in so many jobs (my wife has a zero-phone policy at her business, for example), and is a pretty stupid thing to be upset about. The sudden addition of more time in a hotel ever week is a pretty significant life change, though.

I've done my fair share of work traveling and staying in hotels, and it's a pretty crap thing to do on a regular basis. While the article in the Athletic didn't explicitly outline the exact schedule, it said the team were often asked to spend an additional day in a hotel after away games prior to cooldown the following day. I am fairly certain the team already travel to away games the day before a game, so if you also stay in a hotel the night after the game that adds up to a lot of additional time spent away from your family. Given their ages, for many of the squad that means time away from small children.

This amounts to a fairly significant alteration to the terms of their employment. The money they're paid is largely irrelevant; they were paid the same amount when they DIDN'T have to spend an additional day in a hotel. Suddenly doubling the amount of time spent away from their families just because the new head coach says so is therefore almost guaranteed to cause people to balk. Given that none of the other head coaches have apparently done this in the past, the players also know it isn't necessary to operate like that. That's a recipe for upsetting people. I'd certainly be pissed off if my employer suddenly decided to do that to me, no matter how much they might be paying me.

 

You don't get bargains that way so the whole Pozzo model falls apart.

 

How much of it was recovery related and how much of it was Covid related though? Maybe they didn’t even trust some of the players so would rather keep them in a hotel overnight? The fact they’ve got young kids also adds to the risk of getting Covid.

We’re in the middle of a pandemic, NHS staff didn’t sign up for what they’re going through, supermarket staff didn’t sign up for what they’ve faced. Then on the other hand you’ve got people that will have been paid to do nothing for what could be a year and people loving life working from home every day.

Its just the way the dice falls for people, It’s a gruelling schedule because of the pandemic and that gruelling schedule might make the manager think it’s best that the players stay in a hotel an extra night. A small sacrifice to pay in the grand scheme of things.

The reason I think they don’t like it is that footballers exist in a bubble detached from real life, where NHS staff have had to live away from their families for months on end, people are losing jobs left right and centre etc etc.

 

To further add, the Wycombe game was given as an example as being local anyway. Well it was evening game, when would they have got back to the hotel 10:30? Not all the players live locally, for example doesn’t Foster live in Leamington spa? Troy (I know he didn’t play) and Andre in the Midlands?

Obviously sleep is vital to recovery, so I really don’t think it’s a big deal with such a gruelling schedule. You’re talking about the difference between the players getting a good nights sleep vs getting back to their own house at very possibly gone midnight.

 

I found the team staying away the night before Wycombe baffling. Normally the benefit of staying the night before is to not have the same day travelling so for such a small journey it seemed odd and unnecessary. I know they are mollycoddled beyond belief now but it still seemed like a new level.

I've enjoyed the videos Foster makes but one thing it has highlighted is how mind-numbing the footballer lifestyle is. It explains why so often they come across as a bit dopey when they spend the majority of each day doing nothing. "Get up, bit of brekko, back to my room for a few hours. Down for lunch, then chill in my room for a few hours. Down for dinner, team meeting, go and rest for an hour. Travel 3 minutes, play a game of football, back to the hotel for a bit of food then to my room for the night".

 

I would agree the Wycombe one is strange if they don’t stay over for home games, however it also highlights that with evening games, home or away, if the players live a couple of hours away from the Grove (which many do) then staying at the Grove could help them get a much better nights sleep, than if they travelled home and got in at 2-3am.

There is an evening game every week, so 50% of the time that will be away and they often won’t be local, that might mean getting back to the Grove itself gone midnight. If it’s a Wednesday night game that better nights sleep will very likely aid recovery for the following Saturday game.

 

Yes, Ben Foster's Brentford video showed they were staying over at The Grove after that game. Despite him making a big deal of them having their cars at the ground so they could go home after the game for a change.

If Ivic was chopping and changing their plans all the time, that would be far more annoying to the players than anything else.

 

So Leeds with massive fan base and youthful aquads is valued are £94 million. Watford with massive debt , poor players on long contracts and tinpot support is £200 million. Righto.

 

Being in the middle of a pandemic only explains things which are necessary due to it being a pandemic.

The key test is whether or not other clubs were doing the same thing. If it is a necessity due to Covid then logically everyone would be doing it. Are they? And are we going to continue doing it under Xisco?

If the answer to either or or both of those is "no", then I'd say it can hardly be deemed a necessity. At that point it's just inflicting unnecessary additional hardship during what it already a very challenging time for many people.

 

You can leave Watford mate but Watford will never leave you! I moved away 24 years ago and go to see my local (League 1) team a few times a season with a bunch of local mates and I quite enjoy it and clap etc with them all but it's nowhere near the same as when I go the The Vic. The hairs on the back of my neck don't stand on end when they come out of the tunnel, I don't well up with emotion when the big screen shows clips of heroic past deeds, I don't really care if they lose, my weekend isn't ruined if they play like under 10's and I'm not unbearable to live with if they don't put the effort in. Yes I follow them but I'll never support them, as the saying goes "Watford 'til I die"!

 

The condensed schedule has been directly caused by the pandemic though. The games come thick and fast so recovery is crucial and therefore making sure the players get a good nights sleep after an away game is all part of that.

Other teams might not be doing it, Xisco probably won’t do it, but that doesn’t mean he and all the other teams aren’t missing a trick, come the end of the season we may have been fresher for it, but obviously we’ll never know.

The players didn’t like it, which is fine, and I get that it doesn’t make much sense after the Wycombe game as it’s so close to Watford anyway. But as an example, what time would the players have got back from the evening game against Nottingham? And if some of them live in the midlands or another couple of hours away from the Grove, what time do you suppose they would get back to their homes?

So I can understand them not liking it, but I can quite easily see the logic with some of the away games with such a gruelling schedule.

 

Wouldn't the logic be that the day after is their day off though as being asked to travel home on your day off is likely to put noses out of joint? I accept in the grand scheme of things its very minor - but I think most players would rather just travel home after a game or from the hotel that night etc.

 

And that’s possibly why they didn’t like it, but my assumption for Ivic wanting them to stay in the hotel afterwards is that it was to do with getting a better nights sleep to aid recovery, so I can see the logic behind it.

I think GD mentioned that Foster made a point of saying they were back at the Grove after the Wycombe game, and their cars were there but they couldn’t go home. He was obviously making a point about it and Foster is at that age where he doesn’t want any extra work, like when he’s said he wouldn’t want to play for England anymore because he wants his own time instead. Not really knocking foster but you can see he would be the type to resent it because at his age he just wants to do the bare minimum. The moaning about the hotel thing is probably largely symptomatic of the type of players we have.

I’d imagine if we had a squad of exclusively ambitious and hungry players they wouldn’t bat an eyelid at it.