Where Do We Go From Here?

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by Optimistichornet, Jul 20, 2020.

  1. Optimistichornet

    Optimistichornet Penguin Assassin

    With the astonishing events of the last 24 hours and the apparent complete breakdown of sanity in the halls of London Colney you have to question where we are going as a club from here on out.

    In the Pearson interview about his future he said he wanted to help the club change its culture and find it’s identity again. Clearly there has been a big falling out with the senior management and that has precipitated recent events but Pearson certainly wasn’t wrong.

    This season has been the least enjoyable season I can remember in quite a long time. I don’t really remember the early 90s too well but I remember both of our previous relegations in detail. At both times I felt that although outclassed we always played with heart. This season the class is probably there but the squad is spineless.

    We appear to have fallen into the trap of many mid table premier league clubs of the past, buying journeymen looking for a last big pay day or young players who are probably not good enough and looking to make a quick buck. It’s exactly the same thing that has happened to other clubs in the premiership over the years; West Brom, West Ham, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Sunderland, the list goes on. Some have managed to bounce back, others have struggled.

    The issue for the owners now is how to change the culture. It’s probably easier to do this if we are in fact relegated, we should be able to ship out a significant amount of the deadwood. As Leventhal claims the vast majority of our players are on 50% relegation release clauses and won’t want to hang around. However if we do stay up it would be impossible to initiate a whole rebuild in just over a month.

    I’m curious to hear other people’s views on what can be done because at the moment it all feels a bit hopeless. We appear to have lost a manager who at least showed a fair bit of passion about turning the club around and have no idea what we can replace him with.
     
  2. Watfordftw

    Watfordftw Reservist

    I would have liked Pearson and Shakey to be the people to guide us into next season, regardless of which division we were in, and help change the club culture we currently have.

    I can't see a great deal changing, I think we'll go for a safe/uninspiring yes man and next season we'll continue with the majority of the under performing senior players. I'm not expecting anymore points so I think our fate lies in Villa/Muffs hands. Relegation really doesn't bother me anymore because this season for the majority has been horrible and the Pearson sacking was the knockout blow for me.

    I'll miss a few players if they leave, Del, Sarr, Hughes, Welbeck, but couldn't care less about the rest. But away days in the championship and the prospect of getting rid of most of the deadwood does seem quite appealing.
     
  3. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Is it down to the lake, I fear?

    Ay yi ay yi yi yi
    Ay yi Ay yi Ay yi yi yi
     
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  4. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Player wise if we stay up integrate the loan strikers and joao Pedro to freshen up. Bring in Esputian as senior left back. A new centreback and two new right backs. (Or get Janmaat fit). Would be enough to spice things up.

    Culture wise there is no scope for change until Pozzo leaves taking Giraldi with him.
     
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  5. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    What happens next is we find out which league we'll be in next season. Both scenarios of Premier League or Championship football remain strong possibilities and we're relying heavily on influences outside of our control.

    Until that little issue is resolved, everything else is on hold. We won't know what type of coach we'll require, because if we go down, we'd need someone who has a good pedigree of getting teams promoted (Nigel Pearson anyone?). If we stay up, then it would probably be a different profile we need.

    Personally I do think the culture needs to change now. I've dismissed it in the past, but all these head coaches show, there is something wrong with the club's model. It's not working. We may stay up, but that will be down to the failure of others. 34 points is a very low total to stay up with.

    Will there be lessons learnt though after this season? I'd wager no, but maybe I'm being a bit too cynical. Maybe they will look at things differently and decide to let the head coach have a bit more control over things. After all it makes no sense the club keep having coaches for 4 matches then the sack, 10 matches then the sack, 20 matches then the sack. Just think of all the payments they've had to make on the back of this. What about the bonuses to Pearson and Shakespeare. They've probably had to pay out a percentage of bonus to them, even if we go down as it can clearly be argued that they have improved the position so much, that Watford have a better than even chance of staying up before they left.

    There will have to be a lot of reflection after this season is done, but there will not be a lot of time to think things through. We'll only have 6 weeks before the new season starts. The players will probably get a couple of weeks off, then straight back into a semi pre-season.

    Certainly there's going to be a lot to do. A new coach, a major overhaul of players I would suspect, although that can be staggered as the transfer window is open from 27th July and closes 5th October and does depend on which league we are in of course.

    I'm hoping we stay up......then it's a clean slate. We get the necessary quality in the defence and up front. We retain all the players we would like to keep and move on the deadwood, and most importantly, spend a bit of money on a head coach who can motivate and is an excellent tactician. Then let him do his job without interference.
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2020
  6. Optimistichornet

    Optimistichornet Penguin Assassin

    Out of interest when do you think it all went wrong? The whole Pozzo system seemed to work well enough in the championship and arguably well enough until up to the day after the wolves semi final.
     
  7. Optimistichornet

    Optimistichornet Penguin Assassin

    This is the biggest concern I have. If we go down and we have to renovate the squad it could be a disaster, we could slide down the championship very quickly.
     
  8. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    The problem seems to stem from Giraldi. He seems to want to pick the team and formation and has a very mixed record of bringing players in. This makes it difficult for a manager to manage effectively.

    The other major problem is that he seems to be matey with certain members of the squad. So if some players feel that training, team selection and tactics are not too hard / not right, they can run crying to Giraldi. He's backing them and creating the culture at the club where the manager takes responsibility for everything, including those things that they have no control over, such as lack of effort and tantrums. They are expected to keep an entire squad happy all the time and god forbid you start making them work hard or give them some home truths.

    Our managers are getting the squeeze from their own boss and the players, who are in cahoots. Until that cycle is broken we'll remain the same, if not worse.
     
  9. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    Nothing will change.

    Until at least next Sunday their model has worked and has not failed since they’ve been running football clubs.

    A lot of fans have grown to dislike the model, but they aren’t going to change it just because of that. Although we’re fans of the club and our opinion matters ultimately we’re an extension of the wider public and they’ve never listened to them when it comes to criticism have they.

    This isn’t the first time this has happened, this isn’t new, we’ve had four managers in a season before under arguably more bizarre circumstances.
     
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  10. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    The way I see it is that if we survive from relegation this season it would not only paper over the cracks but kick the problem down the road by a year. This time next year we may well have fewer saleable players so relegation next year could be worse than relegation this year.
     
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  11. Supertommymooney

    Supertommymooney Squad Player

    Going down never really helps a club.

    But we need the first big overhaul in players for 5 years. Transition won't be easy.

    It'll be a riskier season in either Division.

    A team philosophy and even formation would be helpful to bring manager's into an established way of playing

    Otherwise how do we recruit to this, or have any continuity?
     
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  12. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I do think a lot of people are over complicating it.

    We are struggling this year because of mistakes in managerial appointments and the timings of them.

    We’ve always neglected defence, we’ve always bought the same type of players. We always buy players in the summer window and strengthen, despite people’s perception we don’t. We’ve gradually season by season been increasing the amount we spend on players to the point we’re now spending £30m+.

    We’ve always chopped and changed managers, we’ve had four in a season before, but it’s finally that that has caught us out this season.

    Whatever failings you think there might be in the squad We would’ve been mid table with the correct managerial appointment.

    You might not like any of the above, but the owners aren’t going to change it because of that.
     
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  13. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    2017 is when things started to go downhill. We'd negotiated our second season back (albeit in turgid fashion against some truly crap teams), but it was clear even then that we needed to think about moving on from Deeney and invest in a new defence. Obviously Wally went, and we brought in Silva, who out of everyone I think was the man who was supposed to take us to the next level, and while there's no defending wanting out after 9 games, you can understand why he was pissed off being lumbered with Gray and **** like that. After that, our recruitment didn't really improve, and every single managerial appointment was made with the short-term in mind (I don't believe they ever intended for Gracia to stick around for a year and a half, but by the time we did, it was almost too late as we were in a tailspin by then). I dunno, I guess there was more of a long-term plan in the Championship, they seemed pretty confident of securing promotion eventually, but in the Premier League they've been so ****-scared of relegation that they've never thought more than a few months in advance
     
  14. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    I agree. Wally was meant to be a coach they had touted for many years, but he was such a bad fit at Watford. Still, he had pedigree, and then Silva was the next prodigal son. When we got Silva, I really thought we could be going places here. I was very excited by what he could bring, but as we all discovered, he only wanted to be here until something better came along.

    So I concur with your timeline of around 2017. We seemed to be on an upward curve until that point, but have plateaued and even gone backwards since then, culminating in this disaster of a season.
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2020
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  15. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I personally don’t buy into the ‘we need to go down’ philosophy

    We only need to go down if your preference as a fan is to see the team perhaps play possibly nicer football (Zola era) and be more competitive and win games (Joka era). But that’s a bit of a fools paradise because if it happens it’s against inferior opposition. Our team wouldn’t be better, it would just be playing weaker opposition.

    There isn’t a way that we get relegated and our team gets better quality wise, it gets worse quality wise. We lose our better players and we replace them with worse ones. Young players may get a chance, again if that’s your preference then great, but again the caveat is young players getting a chance at a lower level.

    If we do then get promoted we’re back to where we were five years ago, we have the same challenges to upgrade our squad to PL level and stay there as we do now, but with worse players.
     
  16. Wally actually did really well considering the injuries he had to contend with
     
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  17. Malteser2

    Malteser2 Reservist

    On a debate on the radio last night, one contributor made the point that he believed good football management was 15% tactics, 85% social awareness.

    The really decent managers not only know their 4-3-3s versus 3-5-2s, but know exactly how to handle each and every player, and also what makes their club tick.

    Think of the likes of Klopp. Wilder. You might not like me saying it but Howe, before their slump this season. They know how their clubs work, they get it. And you rarely read a player saying a bad word about them, even in the guise of unnamed sources.

    Looking in from outside, I’d say Gracia probably got our club, whereas Mazzarri didn’t. Silva didn’t, as he was just using us as a stepping stone to bigger things. Zola probably did from the sense of knowing how to deal with the players, as he seemed much liked. Joka too.

    I wonder how history will remember Pearson?
     
  18. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Yep, last season was almost like an accident, nobody inside or outside the club were expecting it, and it's very much lulled ourselves into a false sense of security. Massive credit to all involved, but it wasn't to last. Not that I'd swap last season for anything (well, all but the last 4 games of it), but you do wonder if we'd have been better off long-term had we struggled a bit last season. Mazzarri was obviously a bad fit (not least because he couldn't speak English!), but I do wonder if Silva would have been more likely to persist with us at least until the end of the season had he not had the board interfere with footballing issues
     
  19. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    There’s no point in signing young players and then not playing them. Presumably, at the point you sign them you think they are good enough so they should be tried in games other than cup ties against Tranmere. Ideally to progress a club like ours you need a mixture of these young players and some solid experienced professionals, along with the odd star man. Some of the youngsters will develop well and become regulars or be sold for a good profit. GT of course did this time and time again.
     
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  20. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    I'd say he'll be remembered fairly fondly, it wasn't for a lack of effort or 'pashun' on his part that we've struggled since his initial purple patch. Don't know exactly what each player thought of him, but when managerial turnover is so high, every manager is on a hiding to nothing
     
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  21. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    The problem with Silva is that he failed at Everton. Objectively if you go through Everton’s squad they’ve got better players than us, but he still performed badly. Whatever you say about Evertons recruitment and how much they’ve spent on players, there are still enough good players there for a decent manager to work with.
     
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  22. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    I think Tommy Doc had it didn't he?
    "Trying to keep the six that hate you away from the five who aren't sure."
     
  23. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    Let's hope this is true on Sunday!
     
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  24. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    Fans would treat Pearson well for sure, if he turned up to the Vic with another club. There are some managers you would warmly applaud, like Lewington, Gracia, Zola and others who would be jeered like Rodgers & Silva. It all boils down to how successful they were and the circumstances of how they left the club.

    Pearson did enough good things, turned us around, always said positive things about the club and was sacked in strange circumstances. That usually equates to a tick in a fans' mind.
     
  25. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Well, we weren't to know how well he'd do in his next job when he arrived tbf. Wouldn't say he did a good job at Everton at all (the same set-piece failings as we had under him were a regular occurrence), although in fairness, for all that recruitment, they have a decent attack, a decent defence and a Championship level midfield, I really don't think they do have enough good players to do better than they are at the moment
     
  26. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I agree, I just think as fans we often look back on things with rose tinted glasses but I’m not sure Silva would’ve been the answer. You could defiantly say his desire to get away affected results, but he then didn’t set the world alight with Everton. Mina, Digne and Zouma cost a combined £60m, now they may have grossly over paid for them, but even if they’re only worth £20m that’s still a hell of a lot better than our defence. So if he struggled with Everton, I see no evidence that he would’ve performed well with us over the long term, other than his first few games in charge of us.
     
  27. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    I think last season papered over very lax defensive recruitment and older players passed their peak at the same time. On a more general note, I think the model leans itself to players feeling like trading stock the way they get shuttled to and from Udinese and previously Granada and I think this results in a temporary transient atmosphere which is not conducive to team spirit.

    On the management front, the coaches know they have no time to build for the future or they get sacked so younger players are rarely given a chance, even in seasons where we have secured safety. And this of course leads back into stale older players passing their peak (Deeney for example). It is of course possible that Peneranda/Joao Pedro/Quina etc are utter bobbins, but I suspect the coaches just know they have to succeed short term and any blips in form result in the sack so they can't take the risk. It's then a self fulfilling prophesy because the young players stagnate and don't develop.

    All in all, I think the model creates a poor atmosphere for both players and coaches and frankly we've done well to last as long as we have in the top league.
     
  28. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    I agree Silva felt the high point. I think Gray was an honest mistake - I think the ones that really enraged Silva was Zeegelar and that CB on loan from Udinese when he wanted two more players to complete the puzzle.
     
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  29. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Be Sod's law if we go down having built up the stadium and got more fans in.

    Wouldn't be the first team to do so.

    Sometimes off the pitch investment can mean on the pitch problem are not focused on enough.
     
  30. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    He wasn’t the only one enraged.

    The manner with which Silva engineered his exit was disgraceful. But I always felt there was more at play and that perhaps he’d taken the job, turning down Palace, Saints and Porto, after being given specific promises regarding recruitment that Gino backtracked on.
     
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  31. Forzainglese

    Forzainglese Reservist

    What are the chances the Pozzos bail out and sell the club?
     
  32. folkestone orn

    folkestone orn Squad Player

    If we're not back up within 2 years, I would guess it becomes increasingly possible.
     
  33. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    No UFO? Name that track.
     
  34. Forzainglese

    Forzainglese Reservist

    The so-called Pozzo Model is to rely on bringing in cheap, under-valued players, using them and then selling them on at a profit. This requires having a recruitment team that is more capable than the recruitment teams of other clubs.
    Maybe other clubs have rumbled this and improved the efficiency of their recruitments. There are good examples of clubs who have failed in this and have paid the price: Fulham last year, Villa this year; Everton to a certain extent, West Ham, etc. But, overall, as time goes by, Clubs are catching up. Everybody watches everybody else. The result is Watford are finding it harder to compete with clubs that have bigger financial resources (nearly all the Premier clubs and several sleeping giants like Leeds in lower divisions). They are no longer ahead of the game and are outbid. I think this may have been the case, behind the scenes, last close season. It is not impossible Watford knew who they wanted and were simply unable to get them.
    Many of the early recruits were sold on the 'you are joining a Grand Project' pitch. This appears to have gone stale.
    Youth policy has crashed. I suspect Watford baled out once Jadon Sancho turned up and WFC were helpless when Man City simply took him away for less than peanuts. They realised the lie of the land and jacked it in and they were probably right.
    If you rely on understanding football better than the average club owner and then you make a series of serious mis-judgements you are likely to be f****ed.
    If your internal model for running your club fails to take into account judgement of individuals' motivations and it then goes sour you are in trouble.
    I'm not necessarily saying their MO is wrong, but it does require high levels of concentration and astuteness.
     
  35. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    I still think the stadium looks awesome. We have one of the best pitches in the league, and I would hate to see L****'s dross of a fanbase bashing it up, or taking
    out corner flags like they did when they beat us 2-1 in the Carling Cup a few years back. Spring scored a goal.
     

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