As much as I like him, I never saw him leading us in the PL. But I'm starting to think he may be worth the risk, our squad may be very good at this level but as Bournemouth (and us under Ivic) have shown, that doesn't guarantee results. It seems his main strength so far is building up squad morale. It'd be interesting to see if he managed to keep everyone motivated and happy if we went on an extended losing run in the PL.
https://theathletic.com/2483783/2021/03/30/watford-mailbag-xisco-munoz-sarr-young/ "If Watford win promotion they will require special dispensation from the Premier League and UEFA to allow Xisco to remain as head coach... The course takes 18 months to complete and Munoz would, at the very least, need to begin his course in the summer and be able to explain the reasons for the delay. If the pandemic has contributed to him not being able to begin the course, it is thought that would be considered as a valid excuse."
The football wouldn't be fantastic, but I'd love to have Rafa next season 'on loan' and have Xisco move to the coaching staff while he studies for his badges. Would make sense as they already have a close relationship, although I don't know if we'd be an attractive enough proposition, best case scenario we face a battle for survival next season
We'll also lose Troy, but gain an extra mascot. Barry the Hornet, will be trudging around in a xxxl costume by the food stalls.
Cant see him staying on at all of we’re promoted, after the shock of relegation, I can’t see Gino trusting £100m+ a year to a pat them on the bum and go play type manager.
Whole idea that you need to do a course to be a football coach is complete nonsense. Sure, do it if you want to and they should mandate the safeguarding aspect of it but the idea you need some UEFA endorsed turn-up-pay-some-dosh-and-get-a-certificate course to understand the game is preposterous. Presume it's some sort of money spinner for the federations?
If we finish the season playing at anything like the level we've been playing at, XM will have earned more respect than this. Surely?
Cant see the badges issue being a problem. When have the Premier League ever forced a team to part ways with a manager who is already in situ and got his team promoted. Would be qualitatively different from not approving the new appointment of a non-qualified manager. So they’ll grant dispensation, the question is will/should we seek it? With the caveat that what we see as fans at matches etc can be just a tip of the iceberg of the manager’s overall work through the week, I think it’s hard to argue that he shouldn’t be given a chance. His record is phenomenal per almost every metric (PPG, win percentage, clean sheet percentage, goals, goals against, xG, xGA). This is a chart I saw on Twitter from one of the MRKT Insights guys. Basically it says that Xisco’s xPTS per game (expected points based on underlying performances per xG and xGA) is better than anyone else in the Championship in the last 6 years other than Bielsa who he is ever so marginally behind and way clear of everyone else. The y-axis shows that we’ve overperformed that metric too. I haven’t crunched the numbers but I’d imagine that no manager has gained more than Xisco’s 2.25 PPG during that period either - and that’s without a pre-season or anything too. Edit: forgot to insert the graph!
What like Joka did? Gino appoints managers for a specific task in hand, and the task in hand next season will be completely different to this season. I mean, the similarities to our last promotion season with Ivic then Munoz compared to Beppe then Joka are quite remarkable. The difference this time round is that with the shock of a relegation Gino will be even less likely to stick with Munoz than he even was with Joka.
Surely most fans think of XM as more than a glorified cheerleader! Agreed re Gino's attitude, however. I have a feeling that keeping XM will be less of a punt than getting someone new in.
God knows. Getting rid of the 'feel good' managers is always the riskiest of the various flavours of Pozzo sacking. It's much easier to bin off the disciplinarian or the dead duck. What I would say is if we do sack him I think the tidal wave of disbelief from the media types will be up there with anything we've seen before.
Presumably Gino appointed Munoz with the aim and expectation of promotion, otherwise why did he appoint him? So if it’s achieved surely it won’t really have any bareing on the outcome of him staying?
How many times has that situation arisen, though? I'm not aware of any, and although that clearly doesn't guarantee that it has never happened, I'm fairly confident it makes it pretty likely that the answer is at least a very, very low number indeed.
I think there is a quite a high chance something like this will happen, Could be Xisco manager but overseen by Rafa, who I believe is acquainted with Gino!
Any mad Italian I've never heard of, who looks smashing in a suit, smokes a pack of Camels a day, and who makes the ladies drip like a gritter lorry at the lights. Someone that has a tactical mastery of football the equivalent of a grand master in chess. Basically the complete opposite of the fat whelk we've got. Did you see the state of him in that nasty 3 piece suit the other day? Looked like he'd stepped straight out of Moss Bros and was heading to a wedding in Mill End. Awful.
I hope he'll be here next year for the sole reason that every new manager who comes in gets sold on the Troy Deeney bull. At least Disco has been through that and come out the other side.
I thought it was the opposite and they low balled him which made it impossible for him to stay on. I think if they’d really wanted him to stay on then he would’ve ended up staying on.
If we get promoted, to then dismiss Muñoz in the same manner as Joka would be pretty despicable. We'd deserve all the vitriol the media and other clubs throw at us. I don't think it will come to this though. I suspect he will be given a chance next season, regardless of what happens this season.