The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I’m sure AL will be pleased he still has such a powerful ally as Jumbo.
Given the 3 month clause what was the point of the contract extension from employee’s perspective. Indeed isn’t he best to have a short contract so if things go really well he has more leverage to negotiate a better deal?
I guess it depends on the terms of the contract ? He may have had a better win/promotion bonus, better pay ? Maybe he was only one one-month notice beforehand ? Or sign it, or we fire you !!
Val really must’ve been desperate, there can’t be any other explanation. Form the clubs POV it was purely just optics and desperate attempt to force the players into upping their game, which worked for a very short period. Managers and players tend to share agents and as the Athletic know then you’d assume some of the players would’ve therefore also known, despite the extension, it was only 3 months severance, so rendering the extension largely pointless for everyone.
Of course there is the other alternative (given how much it’s stated in that article that Gino hates to be made to look stupid) considering the Athletic somehow know it was three months, that the club briefed them it was three months, and in fact it wasn’t at all, just a means of Gino to save a bit of face. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.
3 months does sound pretty short. Desperation's one possibility. But also I reckon we also have to factor ego into this. Most of these head coaches probably look at us as from the outside as a basket case but when it comes to needing a job their ego leads them to believe they can be the one to turn everything around and go on some five year stint leading to glory. On that basis as @The undeniable truth says, a contract which dangles carrots for success down the line is likely to be quite attractive.
Quite interesting piece with its insight into the scenes behind the downturn in results (which quite obviously started with the 1-4 humbling by a Bristol side who have turned out to be very average) and Cleverley’s background and views on how football should be played as a team (very much ties into how he was as a player at his best) but The Athletic really could do with a word/character limit - as I was scrolling down towards the end on my phone with all that back and forth between The Athletic and club, I wondering when the article was going to end. One thing the club were right about was that it’s not their job to proof-read articles - that’s the Athletic’s job, including getting the venue of our final game right!
@Halfwayline thank you for taking the time to post this. It's a very interesting read. I hope you do not mind but I've edited it to make it a bit more readable on the eye.
@AFWO did a good job on Talksport. Balanced, knowledgeable and a good dismissal of their cheap Watford gags. However much Pozzo deserves ridicule, it’s nice to have a journalist speaking for the fans.
I mean this season there have been a few clubs with 2/3 changes . Feel it’s becoming more normal now but then they aren’t all given new contracts months earlier or given more control over things .
In an ideal world the fans would speak for themselves. Sadly all our talking heads are oddballs, attention seekers and podders. Or all of the above.
Troy had his say too. https://twitter.com/WD18Fans/status/1767647439601770870 Guess he knows a bit about management changes. I seen Merson was going down the Johnny Foreigner route there then quickly had to back track when he remembered Ismael had managed here before .
I watched it. He was surprisingly reasonable and articulate. Maybe he’s angling for a job with Clevs.
Succession planning? The patient approach for Troy. He might have to wait a whole 9 games for his shot at the top job.
@wfc4ever Very true. In fact our last 6 Head Coaches all came to us after a previous spell/spells managing in England. So the notion of foreigners rocking up here not knowing either the league or the country is irrelevant. Ironically the last one who hadn’t any previous experience in England actually got us promoted!
And the likes of Joka, QSF (first time) and Garcia did solid jobs with no prior experience. Ivic might have done too had he not upset Deeney.. The trouble is recently I guess we have said this and that about a new manager (Duxbury mainly) then gone back on it a few months later which makes us look silly. Particularly with you know who!
Not Val but an ex employee isn’t happy naturally. https://trainingground.guru/article...inted-to-be-sacked-by-watford-after-six-years But wasn’t going to get the gig was he ?
Had an awful record with the youngsters and was lucky to get a gig with the first team. Heard he’s a great person and I can respect his words around us not giving thought to humility etc. But he knew who he was employed by. And his record isn’t good when at the helm. Not sure how he can be annoyed that he didn’t get the gig.
I may be wrong here, but personally I quite liked Ivic. He was a miserable looking bloke but I think he was quite stern on the training ground. When we got relegated the season before, I think we had a lot of players who probably thought they belonged in the PL still. We were not exactly sliding down the division under him and were in and amongst the playoff contenders early on. Yes he made the biggest mistake any head coach can make and upset Deeney, but I do wonder how we would of done that season had we not got Xisco in around Xmas time. Obviously going to form, the Coventry injury to Denney would have still happened, but would WTE needed to step in and shape the side up? We will never know.
He was a good tactical manager and probably knew how to organise a team but was a bit dull in style and personality at a time when people needed cheering up ! Another who suffered through injures and poor recruiting.
Shouldn't judge him by his time at this madhouse where (surprise, surprise) he didn't have the players to play the way he wanted. Everywhere else he's been his teams have scored loads of goals, two most recent jobs they've averaged over two per game.
Yeah, his record at Maccabi before us was insane, lost something like 2 games in 2 seasons. He suffered from our as usual chaotic transfer window, with half the players potentially leaving and not wanting to be there, and as you say not getting the players he needed to play his previously very successful system, at least we learned from that. Where he didn’t help himself was playing it safe and overestimating the quality of the league and over compensating for those shortcomings that he had to deal with, but that’s always a risk when you appoint a manager for achieving something specific under specific circumstances and then not remotely bothering to try and replicate that for him.
Was under huge pressure to keep playing a spent force Deeney, had no left back despite wanting to play a back four and no Hughes available to him. Was being actively undermined by senior players and not backed by the club. No-one was going to succeed in those circumstances. Actually, having thought about it, if he'd been brave enough to play Sema at left back, then he could've maybe played the system he wanted with Pedro off the left and Sarr the right running past an immoveable Deeney. Still, a lot of cards stacked against him...
Indeed, Sema at LB and "Goals inc" Deeney & Gray upfront, that line-up was guaranteed to out-score any team.
