The Championship 2020-21

Our last two league fixtures against them were 12 pm on 02/01/2006 (the New Year holiday as the actual New Year was on a Sunday) and the same time on 09/04/2006 on a Sunday (don't know why it wasn't played a week later during the Easter weekend).

 

Bayern in for Aarons is not a surprise at all.

 

Can easily see Norwich losing 3 of their back 4 this season (Aarons, Lewis and Godfrey) over the summer as well as Buendia in midfield - teams may be on the lookout for Cantwell too. I think they've already recruited 3/4 young players since start of July.

 

Norwich have some incredible young talent on their books, they are in a good place. Buendia and Cantwell will go of course, but they're in a position where I don't think they'll be forced to sell anyone else, they seem a lot sounder financjally than us and Bournemouth. Only thing for them, as much as we are talking about having to arrest a losing mentality, they've got that ten times worse now

 

The advantage of being doomed so early?

 

Possibly - but that's where our man Giraldi along with Duxbury and Gino have their master plan good to go...hmm!

 

Aarons, Lewis and Godfrey will all want out as well. They will lose their 5 best players. I Can’t imagine any of them in their team next season.

 

Presume they will buy decent replacements with the proceeds ?

 

Like I've said on a different thread, although Bournemouth and Norwich will undoubtedly lose talent, they have a so called 'style of play' that should on paper be easier to recruit for. They know exactly what they want in each position, obviously without a head coach we're not even close to that which makes a quickish appointment even more crucial - it's all guesswork but they hold an advantage at the minute in my opinion.

 

Just seen here that Bayern are in for Aarons, if they want him, they get him, but the others? They have a chance of keeping them, short turnover, and perhaps a subdued window for the teams below the elite. Godfrey is clearly a talent, but they were the worst defensive team in the league for a reason, so if I were him I'd regroup for a season and then see how things pan out

 

If going off of Leventhal’s best guess, then we should make over £100mil in transfers at least.


Femenia £5mil
Capoue £5mil
Doucoure £20-25mil
Deulofeu £25mil
Estupinan £20-30mil
Pereyra £10-15mil
Saurez £20-30mil.

Those prices seem realistic to me anyway.

Our starting 11 I hope will look something like

Foster

New RB, Wilmot, New CB, Masina

Hughes Chalobah

Sarr Quina Pedro

Welbeck

If we can keep a hold of Sarr that will be huge. Gino won’t accept anything less than £40mil that’s for sure. In a Covid market, there’s very few teams that would pay that when you can get a proven player for the same amount.

We then have the likes of Janmaat, Dawson, Kabasele, Cathcart, Cleverley, Dele-Bashiru, Penaranda, Pussetto, Sema, Deeney and Gray as off the bench options.

I don’t believe the talk of Cucho’s work permit. I wouldn’t be surprised if he joins us for preseason. I pretty sure he stated a couple of months ago that he expects to be with us.

 

It’s weird how Norwich have finished rock bottom by quite some margin, yet have so many potentially in demand young players.

 

Godfrey has attracted interest from Man Utd, Spurs and Arsenal if reports are to be believed. I can’t see him staying. Cantwell has West Ham/Everton written all over him. Buendia is wanted by Atletico Madrid and Aarons will soon be in talks with Bayern. Lewis would be the only one that might not get a move, the others will be long gone.

I agree they have the advantage by having an identity, know what they want and have a manager already in place. Hopefully we will too by the end of this week early next week.

 

Probably do what they always do, by young talent, trust them, play them get promoted in a couple seasons, go back down. Do it all over again. Norwich seem to have the ability of buying very cheap unknown players, who turn out to be a great piece of business. Similar to Brentford.

 

Only if set the team to play with two up front 4-2-3-1 killed us this year

 

Just think if I was a player looking for a move and if you've got the option of us, Norwich and Bournemouth, you're more likely to join those you can see exactly what you're going to get. We're such an unknown and have been for a while.

 

The Cucho thing is so weird. He's been in Spain more than long enough to qualify for the passport and the clubs made it very clear all year he's coming for next season - moreover as recently as yesterday Leventhal said he expects him with us. An old copy and paste mistake from last year?

 

It does seem hyperbolic to compare us with Hull and Huddersfield - Hull were always punching above their weight even in the Championship and Huddersfield were utterly dreadful last season and have been **** in the Championship apart from that wonder season. Stoke is a more valid comparison but they seem to be on the up after getting the right manager, which shows how crucial the next appointment will be.

 

I think even Stoke was a stretch, it was Pullis who engineered their promotion in the first place. Eventually the fans got sick of it and didn’t they end up with Hughes? Hughes isn’t really a very good manager so they sunk back to their natural level pretty quickly. I think that we’re almost the opposite of Stoke.

 

This is what Cucho literally said in a interview in May of this year. 2 months ago

“They have given me incredible confidence,"

"I recently had the opportunity to renew and when you do, it is because they want you to be part of their project.

“They have let me know that they intend to count on me for next year. I'm not confirming anything, but there is that interest and that possibility of being there. I am very grateful and after several years belonging to Watford it is time to wear their shirt."

Why would the player himself say that? Unless we’ve royally messed it up like Gueye, then I fully expect to see him.

 

Was going through some of the clubs we will be facing in the championship and had a chuckle to myself. Notts Forest and Sheff Wednesday haven’t been in the Prem in over 2 decades!!! How their fans bang on about being a big club is hysterical haha. Literally a whole generation has passed them by and they haven’t stepped foot in the Prem. No-one 25 years old and under would even remember them being in the Prem. That just made me laugh.

I’m not having any of this nonsense that they are a bigger club than us. We are massive compared to them. They have spent more time in league 1 over the last 20 years than in the Prem.

 

Home v Coventry City

 

Adding to my post above: -

I think that in addition to going in for some of the quality free agents I have been talking about above, we should also look to the loan market and try to bring in one or two under used quality players from the PL and or other top clubs throughout the continent during this window.

Then if we manage to earn a place back in the PL at the end of the season, that will be the time to splash some real cash in order to strengthen our team and hopefully consolidate ourselves back into the Premier League.

 

I don't know about that - if you compare our history from 1979 (when we became Watford FC as we know it) to the present to theirs over an identical period of time (1977-2018) you'll find ours is very similar, Stoke's being slightly inferior because they spent many more seasons in the third tier. But they have a bigger stadium and fanbase, and before Pulis got them promoted they were something of a sleeping giant a bit like Wolves and West Brom, having spent several extended spells in the top flight. They've done poorly in the last two seasons because of poor appointments (Gary Rowett - he's like Garry Monk in that he somehow keeps getting jobs despite being consistently mediocre - and Nathan Jones, who had no Championship experience) but have shown play-off form under their current manager Michael O'Neill. Much though we'd like it to be otherwise, I don't think we can discount them as a threat.

 

Eh? This is this terrible news? Who was I supporting for the 15 years before that?

 

I don't know either ZZ

 

Enoch Powell?

 

The championship still looks as mad as ever and defending is as bad as it always was, even the teams going down won 12 and 15 games

 

He learnt a new language every six months.
Second youngest professor of classics behind Nietzsche.
Hopeless full back though.

 

This is the old debate about what constitutes a 'big club'. To some - often younger football fans - it's simply clubs' current or recent status; hence Forest or Wednesday cannot possibly be bigger than Watford or Bournemouth who have just spent 5 years in the PL. To others it's the weight of trophies won through history; so Everton would be 'bigger' than Newcastle, say. However, some of us who can take a long-term view opt for simply the size of support a club attracts, irrespective of their current status. Of course the support can subside somewhat if a club hits hard times but the potential is still there. Sunderland are a good example. There they are in League 1, they have hardly won anything of note in living memory, but to me they are a big club because of the support they have in their part of the country. I would say they are bigger than Forest.
Before the days of TV money the size of home attendances largely decided who were the richer and ultimately more successful clubs, so teams from larger cities who could attract more support became 'bigger' and overtook the town teams who had been the most successful in the formative years of the game.

 

The premier league changed it all forever. Before the riches of the premier league the correlation between fan base and size of club/success was pretty well aligned with the odd exception every now and then. Now gate receipts are a mere fraction of PL TV money that correlation has been completely destroyed.

 

Yes this is how I see it. I still see our rightful position as lower champ/upper div1 based on fanbase size and so anything above that is "punching above our weight", ie basically every year since 1978 which ties up with the fact we had only 2 or 3 seasons in the top two divisions in our history prior to that date. The last 45 years or so have been kind to us - there's no reason for us to be any more successful than a Bradford, Oxford, Luton, Plymouth, Blackpool etc. It's all down to GT/EJ who set the base for where we are now....twice....

 

‘Big club’ is some formula involving trophy’s won, time spent in the top division, average and largest gates, international players, average revenues... weighted over time, so recent history is more valuable

Would be interesting work it out

 

Not ultra negative, just an opinion.
Brooks, Lewis Cook, Lerma could fetch some cash.
I agree, Wilson's has had his day at Premier league level.
Will Norwich sell? They don't seem to need the money as much Bournemouth and Watford.