Does it matter at this point? Gino is ultimately to blame, we could have Pep Guardiola in charge and he’d struggle.
Yep, especially as we NEVER win the last game before an international break (anybody else noticed this?) and 20th place with the players we've got is dire.
VI needs 4 points in the 3 games before the international break, tough games away to high flying clubs like Sunderland and Cardiff then what should be 3 points at home to lowly Sheff Wed. **** knows who we get in next as we have been scraping ther barrel for a while with our manager choices due to the way the club is run. Nobody decent wants to come here and I doubt we can afford decent coach money anyway.
I think we will do well to get a point from the next 2 games and even that won’t be enough to save him. Difficult to know how much of this is down to the players and how much down to VI. There is so little quality in the squad but I also saw no sign of a “highly motivated and organised set of players playing for the shirt” yesterday.
The effort was there just they were set up poorly and for whatever at 2-2 we seemed to play as if we were holding onto a lead .
It’s totally down to the squad. It’s the worst squad any head coach has had under the Pozzo’s, so makes sense it’s fairing the worst. It’s all on Gino Pozzo. What Ismael has done is improve attitude and discipline. But he does seem to be a one trick pony with only a plan A. If players are asked to work harder than ever in training it has to convert to results on the pitch. I predicted players will only engage in this if the rewards are there. If not they will switch off and performances will nosedive. Hey presto, just look at our last 3 games. Performances are in that nosedive. I think we’re in that period where it’s almost a certainty Ismael will go in the break, only a win in either of the next two games will save him now. But are we progressing under him? I think initially, as is always the case, the players were highly motivated for a new season, and we saw that in the first few performances. Then there is a levelling off followed by a nosedive, when players lose faith. This is where we are now. It’s been all so predictable.
Simple. Lose the next two he's gone. If he somehow survives those losses, lose at home to Sheff Wednesday and he will be marched out of Hertfordshire by Gino personally. As many have said above though, he's just the latest coach who is trying to get gold from rusted iron. What we put out now is struggling because we do not have the depth of most squads in this division. If we get a single injury then we are scratching our heads on who to use instead. Our squad isn't terrible by any means though and yesterday was on VI and he personally said he got it wrong which was good of him. I could be wrong but I think this has to be the worst start we have ever made to a season in the second tier (in my time of being a supporter at least). We've conceded six goals in our last two games after being pretty defensively sound at the start of the season. VI needs to sit down and think about where we go from here, and needs to make some tough changes because some of the players' are not giving their all for him and the club. Sunderland is a "free hit" as far as many are concerned. They are flying high this season and will be rubbing their hands with glee over us visiting Wednesday night. Cardiff is winnable, but still a very tough game and our away form is absolutely terrible. These next few weeks could be pretty hairy.
I think 1990 must have been the worst. We lost our first 6 games at home, plus another in the cup. 10 points from the first 17 games before Colin Lee was sacked.
He should be retained. Pound shop Pozzo has given him a bottom 8 squad to he is performing par. I think he needs one win next week though or the imbecilic man child will fire him.
I don’t think it’s a 20th in the Champo squad. For all this talk of ‘effort’, I didn’t see any of it at Leeds and didn’t see it beyond a couple of players yesterday and then in limited amounts. Ismael seems happy to dump off players for being late for training but is happy to watch Louza stink the place out week after week and flip flop on the lineup week after week when we have a limited squad. He’s not playing to any discernible strengths and if I’m completely honest, the team were playing like a team who know the writing is on the wall already. As has been said in another thread, some of the players seemed lost and running in circles yesterday. I fully expect his removal if we lose the next two. All the contract talk has died off or been denied which is quite shocking when you think about it, as Ismael more or less confirmed it.
I'm still hesitant to blame much on Ismael, yes I think 3-5-2 didn't help us yesterday, but there are shades of our 2020 relegation, in that in some areas we are far from being a relegation team, but in other areas we are sorely lacking. We're scoring enough goals, but defensively we are up and down, definitely more down recently, and the lack of any proper DM is reminiscent of going into 2019-20 with Mariappa at CB. I don't think we'll go down, Wednesday and Rotherham look bad, and we did smash QPR on the opening day, but any hopes of anything better than lower mid table rely on us getting an upgrade in January
I’d agree had Ismael not said that he was happy with the squad on numerous occasions. Also we’re meant to believe that Livermore was his choice for DM and he is laughably past it. Both of those things make him equally as culpable as the others for this squad.
But anyone who bad mouths their employer in public would be in trouble. Certainly done no Watford manager a favour and pushed Pearson, Bilic and Edwards out the door quicker.
Exactly this. The buzz around the new great plan and style has worn off and it’s only going to spiral downwards from here. The baffling switch to 3-5-2 is a clear act of desperation to try and come up with a plan B on the spot because he knew that a loss against Boro would more or less seal his faith. Unless he pulls out a miracle in the next two games (which seems unlikely), he's gone. I disagree. A head coach needs to get the most out of the squad that he has. What he's trying to do is force the squad into doing something that they can't, and when it doesn't work he doesn't know what else to do. It's no surprise, really. His average time at any given club until now has been something like 8 months. Sometimes it clicks and works for a while (like at Barnsley), but most of the time it fizzles out pretty quickly.
Problem is, this is part of the Pozzo track record. Hire a head coach who plays a specific style, give him a random assortment of players not suited to that style, and then blame him when he cannot force the players to adjust and adapt. The 3-5-2 debacle is on Ismael. But the mismatch between the squad and his style goes beyond just being his fault. But Pozzo is oblivious to the impact of his chaotic recruitment and mis-match with a head coach.
I also haven't learned his name. I've been calling him Vladimir Ivic as I already wasted brain cells learning that name.
In vintage Watford style we'll fluke a win somehow at either Sunderland or Cardiff and maybe put in a performance(s) that suggest things are turning in our favour, only to then lose hopelessly to Sheff Wed. It's set in stone regardless of where we pick up our points, it won't be enough to prevent Pozzo reverting to type. His constant sacking of head coaches is his way of absolving himself from any blame for the poor performances despite being responsible for 'building' the squad (I believe Manga has either been sidelined, overruled, told there's no money or is just sh1te - but Pozzo brought him in so is therefore responsible). By removing the coach every time he's basically saying 'unfortunately [insert name here] wasn't able to get the best out of the talented squad at his disposal, so in the best interests of the club we have decided to make a change in order to give the new coach the best possible chance of delivering the success we deserve'. Remember - we're only one right head coach choice away from being Brighton. As utterly insane as that statement is, I truly think he's deluded himself in to believing it - like his ego is protecting him from the realisation he has absolutely no idea what he's doing. The short version to this is I believe it'll be Xisco that 'forces' his hand. Revenge from another ex coach.
Oh he knows where the fault lies and the reason we are in this mess. How we went from a side that could possibly challenge the top seven which just needed a better backline and a possible new striker - to what we have now, which (and no disrespect to any of the lads) is a shadow of what we once had talent wise. Our squad needed an overhaul, and that was one of the good things he has done. But he has thrown money around like a kid in the candy store, mis-read our financial situation and spent way beyond our means as a club. Not to the limit that Vialli did back in 2002 (RIP), which almost put us in administration, but he wasn't far off that and managed to stem the tide by reducing our overall running costs and trimming the wage bill. Which is something he should of been keeping an eye on for the last five seasons. VI is a decent coach despite the limitations of our squad at present, and we all know he will take the brunt of how we have failed to amass so few points this season. Heading into the autumn fixtures with a air of relegation candidates already surrounding us. But he will just hang VI out to dry just like all the rest. He knows the buck stops with him, and must feel somewhat immortal from blame.
We have shyt players and a shyt manager. This combination will see us relegated. We need at either shyt players and a mediocre manager or mediocre players and a shyt manager to stay up. We can't sack the players, it has to be the manager that goes. We have nothing to lose by trying.
I’m interested about the current dynamic between Pozzo Senior and Junior. When they arrived, they were very much a partnership until Father stepped back and let son have the reins. Do you think he ever speaks to Gino about how badly things have been going over the past few years? Do you think he can see from afar just what a mess his son is making of the club that he himself bought back in the last decade? Does he have any say or involvement?
I hope he doesn't because we are actually playing half decent football under his tutelage, but somehow we keep coming out on the wrong side of results.
Yep. All that crap at the Q&A about having a great squad and set up, just need a coach who's the "right fit". It's a cheap, low quality squad, which exists in a weird, transitory state created by our idiot owner and his stooges. We were assured there that Val was the right fit, but even now you can feel the great rewrite coming. Like in 1984 when alliances are changed and everything has to be retrospectively rewritten. Zero accountability that either the squad isn't good enough or that they mess up the appointments.
I really don’t want this to happen and I’m not convinced it will . I think the driver of a lot of what’s happened this season is due to us not having a pot to p*ss in anymore and paying off the debt . So not sure there would even be any funds to hire a new manager if we sacked VI
Sadly, he’ll be sacked and the maddening cycle will begin again. People will still think that Gino will change, but he’s always going to be a sickening despot.
The issue is we need to stick with managers longer, but, we are now in the relation scrap, and Gino won’t tolerate relegation. You now have to swap avoiding relegation with making the play offs/automatics as the aim, so VI will inevitably get the boot if we don’t pick up points in the next couple of games. I think he’d have been ok for the season if we’d bumped around mid-table, but now we aren’t. Most clubs near the bottom of any league will fire their manager eventually, so despite the inherent issue of us doing it far too regularly, Gino surely won’t be any different. The issue then of course is we’re skint, and we’ll be fishing from the pool of our of work useless Bozos, but to get us out of trouble the new manager will need to come in and immediately generate top 6 form. That’s generally not in the capability of a cheap, jobless manager. I know Rangers was a disaster, but even if it would be a good appointment, could we even attract someone like Michael Beale? Would he want to lose part of what is probably a decent severance to take over at our circus?
I honestly think this time will mean implosion. I can’t believe Manga and co will stick around. He’s already stated quite strongly his views on sacking managers early. He will see it as an attack on his integrity and will want out. So this time sacking Ismael could bring the house down. Certainly the brave new world will be destroyed. Of course the hangers on Duxbury and Giaretta will stay like a bad smell.
