Squad 2023 - 2024

I hope this is tongue in cheek? You surely can’t criticise the club for this, the players pick their preferred numbers.

 

I’d course he can blame the club for it. Gino has caused mortgage rates to go up too .

 

I think other countries have different numbering customs too!

 

What you'd course is neither here nor there.

 

27 players with numbers, including 5 players (the 3 backup goalies and 2 young strikers) who will see very little, if any, football with us this season. There may be worse clubs in the league, there may be clubs in greater disarray, but is there a single club whose squad is looking so thin?

 

I make it that we have 4 spaces left in the 25 man squad (Koné, Asprilla, Marriott, Andrews, Ford and Adeyemo all U21), I get nobody is under any obligation to fill the 25 spaces, but considering we're apparently not going to sign a new RB or DM, and considering any potential new striker may well just be a straight swap for Bayo, we're still going to have plenty of spaces in the squad aren't we?

 

Typing on phone without glasses. That’s never a good thong .

 

It's only when you see the squad written down on the screen, that you realise how awful it is. Amazing Pozzo has drifted into the first game with this mess. I suspect he only intends to add 1 or 2 more as well. Some of our benches are going to be hilarious in the next month or so.

I can't think of a second year relegation team that has been forced to have such a thin squad through gross mismanagement. The decline is truly dramatic.

And we still have a vast hierarchy of management sucking money out of the club while overseeing a 50k transfer budget. Disgraceful.

 

Is there a club in the entire league with a thinner squad? Not saying the quality is among the worst (although it's not great overall, suspect we'll be in the bottom half), but with just one injury in plenty of areas we're reduced to proper League 1 level players (if we're not at that stage already in certain areas without any injuries)

 

It’s not uncommon for us to have say 5 players on the treatment table mid season, so while not taking all the best players out (let’s say Hoedt, Lewis, Sierralta , Louza, Healey) could end up with:

Bachman
Andrews
Porteous
Pollock
Morris
Livermore
Kayembe
Kone
Asprilla
Sema
Bayo

Defence looks especially vulnerable to a couple of injuries with Livermore in front of them.

 

We had some horrendous injury crises last season, but even so, we only ever needed a couple of kids to pad out the bench, how many kids are we going to see on the bench this season? There are 9 spaces on the bench now too...

 

Tbh IF the manager is any good (and IF he is given time) and IF the injuries aren’t woeful… then I think we’re gonna be fine. Probably won’t p1ss the league, but I expect a better season than last.

That’s optimism, based on the big ifs.

 

Crazy thing is that despite how ***** it is in several areas, that team probably still stays *fairly* comfortably

 

We're not quite there yet, but we're close to the "good old days" of pre-Pozzo now. First game of the season in the last pre-Gino season (11/12) we had 4 academy graduates (Doyley, Mariappa, Jenkins, Sordell) in the starting line up and 2 on the bench (Mingoia, Massey).

Full line up for the 2-2 draw with Burnley if interested:

Loach
Doyley
Mariappa
Taylor
D1ckinson
Yeates
Eustace
Jenkins
Forsyth
Sordell
Iwelumo

Gilmartin
Mirfin
Mingoia
Massey
Deeney


Might be a nice throwback honestly to see the likes of Grieves, Adeyemo, Abbott, Adu-Poku etc being called upon this season.

 

Got to love a bench that starts Gilmartin, Mirfin!

 

Obviously Jenkins and Sordell were at least fairly established in the first team (not to mention old heads Doyley and Mapps!), hard to tell if the likes of Mingoia and Massey were better or worse than our current kids, they'd already had a bit of first team action, but that was borne out of necessity in those days (though they have had solid EFL careers since leaving us)

 

Let’s hope so, I think it’s down to how creative our creative players are!

 

Has there ever been a slower footballer than David Mirfin? Experienced pro snapped up from Scunny. They were the days.

 

Better journalism in those days as well. From
The Mirror:

The 26 year old has been given a 2 year deal. New Hornets boss Sean Dyche said “He’s what I call a
man”.

 

Someone should remind Dyche of that.

 

I'd take Doyley, Mariappa, Eustance and Sordell from that XI in place of Andrews, Hoedt, Sierralta and Bayo.

 

Give it one more year and the Bassini team will be superior!

 

I was at that game and I remember there being a mood of optimism amongst the away fans about the performance. I suppose it’s all down to the level of expectation.

 

Comforting that with the squad is as it is, we are linked with pretty much nobody the day before kick off - that multi million management structure working full steam!

 

HMSPLT is a submarine mate. Quiet and super dead(ly).

 

They've left the number 9 vacant, which presumably means they've got their eyes on a prolific striker, or they don't want to lumber any of our four-goal-a-season men with the burden of wearing the famous shirt. Or they've retired it in honour of Troy Deeney, Tommy Smith, Tamas Priskin and Tommy Mooney.

 

Agree. I'd have Martin Taylor too, although not sure if he'd suit today's game, the big galump.

Exactly that. I remember really enjoying aspects of that season. Once fans (ownership?) start to realise where we are now and adjust expectations, I think we'll start to enjoy Watford again.

 

The bit I don’t get is how we’re so much worse off than Bournemouth were. We both got relegated in the Covid season, but we bounced back, surely helping mitigate that to an extent.

In their 2nd season in the Championship, they splashed the cash and assembled a team so good that even Scott Parker was able to manage them to promotion.
In our 2nd season in the Championship (and with the benefit of PL TV money this side of Covid) we’re selling Bazzler and the tea lady if offers come in.

I get that they had rich owners, but I thought FFP was the limiting factor? Did they just assume all the debt and carry on as normal in a way Gino just can’t afford to?

 

My sauces tell me it is reserved for the return of our lord and saviour, Manaj.

 

Just seen an interview with Ismael where he says they’re 90% happy with the squad, just need a few tweaks

Obviously he’s not gonna publicly say the squad is in poor shape but even so…

 

Yes, seen that too. Re new signings, he mentions one or two positions/players. So that pretty much confirms it. What we have right now is basically what we’re going to use for the entire season.

 

I'm really not expecting the world, I pretty much agree in the sense that we're 2/3 signings away from being a solid mid-table outfit, but what worries me is that we don't seem interested in certain key areas

 

We need to sign genuine quality up front, which I'm not convinced we'll be getting. The squad is also far too light in numbers. We will get injuries, and I just don't see the strength in depth in any position.

 

Where was this? Link?