Walter Mazzarri - Ex Manager

Did we lose the coin toss as well? ****s sake. That point is looking like gold dust.

 

If by 'towards the end of his tenure' you mean virturally the entire second half of the season, then yes you are correct. We lost 11 of our last 19 league games last season playing some of the worest, most mind numbingly dull football I've ever seen a Watford side play. Even in the first half of the season we didnt play that well really bar the odd exception, we were just hard to break down and the Deeney/Ighalo partnership papered over a number of cracks. And when our premiership status was secured and he had the oppurtunity to play a more expansive attacking style we still continued with the dire square pegs in round holes, dont loose first syle of play. The football on show yesterday certainly wasnt any worse than last season unless you enjoyed watching us defend 0-1 defecits.

As for the squad being more limited last season, I would actually argue that its just as limited this season and actually more so in terms of balance & depth. Yes we have some talanted players but most of the first team squad all play in the same 3 positions.

Wally might not be the anwser but he's an improvement on Flores, even if you will label every positive result as lucky or a football miracle. He isnt afraid to drop underperforming players nor is he afraid to change the system if it isnt working and atleast has shown he can learn from his mistakes. Flores was stubborn beyound belief.

On a side note I would agree with something that Moog posted in another thread that we have lost some of our identity. Then again we are a team in transition trying to establish ourselfs in a league, wehere even with the Pozzo's backing we are small fry.

 

Amazing how people can say we have been lucky and have up to 10 points more than we should, yet we've had almost laughable bad luck with injuries. I'm absolutely not a Mazzari fan, but we've had wretched luck with injuries and he's had to change his game plan countless times in games with players going off injured, yet we've been overly lucky?

 

Has he? He spent god knows how long defiantly trying to stick square pegs in round holes whilst sticking with the 3-5-2 formation.

 

I'm very concerned to hear this.

 

I disagree. I think we played better football under Flores if you look at his entire record at the club. It wasn't great at the end, but we are certainly no better this season.

At least with Flores we had a good half of a season and an FA Cup semi final. If you factor in we have better players this season, then we really should have seen some sort of improvement.

No way are the performances such as Liverpool (a), Spurs (h), United (a), Burnley (a), City (a), Arsenal (h first half), Swansea (a), Hull (h), Boro (h & a), Burnley (h second half), West Ham (h second half), Stoke (h & a), Bournemouth (h), Sunderland (a) better than last season........and that's quite a big list.

 

Wasn't it the late, great Graham Taylor who said managers need at least a season? Wasn't it GT who said without time he'd have never have achieved what he achieved at Watford?

 

It's could be down to general conditioning, especially Janmatts as seems prone to stretching injuries.

 

Ranieri is without a job and Italian.....

 

We've had 1 good performance since going 4 at the back and 3 rubbish ones

I'm not one cheering the formation change just yet

 

I won the toss captaining my cricket team about 7 in a row. I don't know what my point is here, probably that **** happens.

Mazzari needs time to work out how to improve us, with no injury or few injury at least, at some point we need to give a manager more than 9 months. Next December if the football is dire and we are in the bottom 5 he'll be gone.

 

Berlusconi is without a job and Italian ...

 

So it's only taken half a season for the revisionism to start with QSF tenure. Amazing.

 

Rolf Harris is without a job and he may as well be Italian...

 

I'm actually stunned people seem to think QSF's tactics were better to watch.

 

I'm still undecided and I still say give him more time. I sympathise with both views.

The football is turgid and disjointed, and the manager does not seem to have a great effect on the players. Although I do think this role is constantly undermined by match day injuries.

I think the Pozzos see Walt as a manager who is capable, but much more importantly one who can attract the really big Italian names. They were delighted we attracted Niang despite interest from more established EPL clubs.

Sticking with an average manager is fine, if it can allow us to win over a Gabbiadini type player. A few of those, and we'll be fighting for Europe, even if it's despite of Walt's in match tactics.

From what I've seen, Walt only trusts particular players to do certain jobs. If they're not playing, or not playing well, his play resembles his actions on the touch line- 'just get it the f*** away before I have a heart attack'. I don't think he trusts most of our squad, and we'll play boring hoofball until we get in some good players which don't get injured.

 

Our football in the first half of last season was far, far more watchable than the consistent hoof and hope crap of this season.

 

Sylvester Stallone is without a job and can speak Italian.

Just don't put him in goal !

 

I do/don't think we should sack Quique/Joka/Beppe/Zola/Dyche/Mackay yet.

Because they are rubbish/great/okay.

If we had different owners then we would be relegated/promoted/mid table/bankrupt .


Repeat Ad Infinitum .... then die .

Yawn ****ing yawn .

 

This is pretty much how I feel. As turgid as the football is, however poorly Walter has us playing it looks like we may be safe and it would be wrong to get rid of him now.

Looking ahead, if we want to sign the better players, then we have to make ourselves a more attractive prospective employer. If I was a good goalscorer like Gabbiadini I doubt very much if I'd sign for a team that plays so poorly and slowly going forward and where the one of the few bits of stability is the ever present competition up front for my place in the team - regardless at how poorly he plays.

 

Don't agree at all. Even when we were doing well it was based around being solid and hope Deeney or especially Ighalo conjured a goal up. The other 8 outfield players were on defensive duty with no width. And when it went badly it was unwatchable.

 

If we were to get rid of Mazarri, I'm not convinced the Pozzo's would get anyone else in that would be much different.

 

I was a fan of QSF and he did what was required but the football after Christmas was awful and even though I liked him his refusal to change things even when mathematically safe was ridiculous. Some of the football this year has not been great either but I'm not sure changing the coach will help. A new coach means another new style of play for the players to get used to, another load of new backroom staff and basically starting from scratch again. The problem we have is that we would like the hoofing to stop but the Center backs are not good enough to bring the ball out from the back. Not sure you can blame Mazarri for that and hopefully that kind of player is on the radar this summer. Although Some are suggesting that he's a lucky coach the amount of injuries to key players would suggest otherwise. Long periods of time without Pereyra, Amrabat and Success who have all looked very good when they have been fit. On Saturday Zarate was the best player on the pitch and is now out for up to a year.
Genuine question but how many of our current squad would get in a top half team? I would say not many so mid table is fairly decent

 

We did have some fantastic effort at the beginning, with certain players playing out of their skin.

It happens, even with awful managers. Weren't Blackpool in the top 6 in October/ November under Holloway? That also fell apart rather quickly.

 

Agree with all of this and if anything 11 loses in 19 suggests we were going backwards. There really was some stinkers in terms of performances in the 2nd half of last season. If when we were mathematically safe Flores had tried to implement a more expansive attacking game and showed he could develop the team forward to do more then just defend for 90 minutes then he would probaley still be in the job now.

 

It wasn't. But at the same time we did not have the quality or depth that we have right now. The amount of attacking options Wally has had, and has refused to use them, makes his negativity a whole lot worse. Why not bring Success and Zuniga on for Zarate and Janmaat rather than a centre back and a centre mid? It just doesn't make sense.

In fairness though, it could be argued that having had to go through a season of Quique's dull tactics, that maybe our patience was already thin and as such Walter hasn't been given as much time as people are already fed up with defensive tactics.

Either way, season ticket sales will drop and the Pozzo's will notice this and change something... I hope.

 

LOL really? He played a 6-4-0 against Man City? You're not being serious here.

 

I suppose the crux of the argument is - How we achieve our 12 wins and 12 draws in each premiership season. The pragmatists wont care how we achieve it, as long as we minimise defeats so that 40 - 48 points are achieved comfortably. Anything better than that will be a bonus. Last season WBA had 43 points, 10 wins, 13 draws and 15 defeats. They (same manager and the same core squad), are on track to achieve better this year. I suspect because Mazzarri was billed to be significantly better than QSF, and the fact that the squad is stronger, the expectation this year was too great. Less than 14 points from the remaining games is probably going to fuel the Walter out arguments. I suspect he will be at the awards dinner and we will have to settle the argument at the end of next season.

 

Oh, leave off.

Our good results in the first half of the season were nothing to do with QSF's tactics. It was down to most of the squad playing on pure adrenaline and Iggy having a unbelievable purple patch during which everything he did came off.

Tactically, we were set up the same in the first half of the season as the second half. Even before Iggy stopped scoring the writing was on the wall. Any setup that relies on individual flashes of brilliance to work is unacceptable. It indicates a team succeeding despite the head coach, not because of him.

 

Don't know exactly how much he's on but I reckon you would need to lose 5000 ST for it to be worth paying off WM's contract!

 

Mazzarri is going nowhere before the end of this season is he? A change in manager now could risk us dropping into the dogfight whereas with Mazzarri we are picking up the points needed - probably another 6 points from 12 games will be enough so there is no need to make a decision.
If the Pozzos have already decided he is going then they could bring that forward if we got to say 40 points but I don't see that as likely

The real question then becomes what do the Pozzos expect next season? Do they believe that injuries are the key reason we have not done better - if so and they think those are not down to how Mazz trains the team then they may feel next year he will get more out of the squad. Personally I just do not think he is much of a manager - I am not sure any of the last 5 of our managers would have done a worse job than him this year so why give him another go? The football we endure from week to week is not good so the only reason to keep him is if the Pozzos are happy to come near the top of the bottom half. Perhaps that is all they want - it gets the club the money.

 

Yep agreed. No point changing him now.

It worries me that he still talks to players through an interpreter. That for me is a deal breaker.

Ranieri is available & Italian.

 

Ranieri got fired for taking leicester to the brink of relegation. Why on earth would we want someone like that?!

The italian stallion mazzarri will be in charge next season, nothing is more certain. It is time for those who hate to come to terms with this, and make peace with reality.

 

Well, that's a simple question to answer.

Bring him in, win Premier League title, sack him immediately.

All the success, none of the failure. We're good at letting head coaches go after one year so it's a flawless plan.

 

I think a lot of people’s judgment is being clouded by the points total and position in the league. This is fair enough on a superficial level, and if we continue to play poorly but retain our lucky streak, then it will be enough for this season.

Where I’m coming from is that we have 31 points, but this is more than we’ve merited going purely on performances.

I believe we should be playing a lot better, but that does not necessarily mean our results would have greatly improved.

What I’m saying is that we cannot continue to rely on lady luck or wonder saves to gain points. A point against West Ham is good enough, but I would like to see that is was earned rather than lucky.

There have been far too many off days for my liking. Of course I accept inconsistency, but I do not expect to see Burnley outplay us for 45 minutes with only 10 men. West Ham totally dominate us for 45 minutes or Stoke do the double over us in second gear for example.

We are far too easy to play against at times and this is a problem. We could easily go on a long losing run playing the way we are, and this is the only thing I’m really concerned about.

Had we lost to West Ham, Palace, and thrown away a 2 goal lead against 10 men Burnley, which all could have easily happened, I’m sure the attitude of fans would be completely different.