Agree. However Pozzo is to blame for the rancid culture. He treats players as cattle so they feel no affinity for the club. I would say we have the poorest team spirit and poorest player respect for our managers in the entire football league. I doubt I’ll feel any passion for the club until Pozzo is gone. I’m just going through the motions like the players are.
Could not agree more. I honestly don’t think the club are far off beginning to have empty seats at some games - I can’t really remember the general apathy towards the team (under Pozzo ownership) being as high as it is right now. Seems to be a general sense of feeling with the majority of fans with a lot going out of a sense of duty, rather than any genuine excitement.
Spot on with all of those Andy, particularly the call on WTE. I'm afraid 'King Ekong' has been acting like the team's mainstay and captain in waiting once Troy's departure was announced. Leadership is not about waving around a 'Go Pro' with fawning team-mates on international duty and swanning around in defence in a half-ar**d way with a dubious technique. Thankfully, Sissoko is a captain that appears to demand respect, leads from the front and puts a shift in every time. Never the most talented but I have far more trust with him now. No wonder Udinese were happy to let him go, a liability in the making at the highest level I'm afraid. Agree that Cathcart looked far more assured positionally, despite his still glaring faults, with N'Koulou next to him, another who just got quietly on with things today.
Was at the match today and we were deadful in the first half but I thought we were the better side in the 2cnd half . However , it is agreed that we did not create a great deal .
Happy to agree to disagree - but you really need to watch it back if you think he did nothing wrong. The slow motion replay clearly shows Maitland-Niles toe-poke the ball into Kucka’s shin which ricochets away…and then Kucka swipes Maitland-Niles into the air. That’s not a matter of opinion - it’s a fact and the evidence is there to back it up. The photo above clearly shows this. The ball leaves the scene off Kucka’s left leg. If Kucka is capable of clearing the ball with his shin on his standing foot, then he’s got talent that no player in world football has.
I guess it’s because we are losing games so people get fed up and lose the will and desire to support the team fully as we don’t have the fan base who will be “there no matter what happens” as crowds over the years. You are right - we wouldn’t get full houses if we were stuck in the Championship whereas Norwich for example keep up a healthy average crowd .
I have not seen a slow motion replay but in real time it looks Kucka plays the ball. Where can I see the slow motion replay?
Okay - match highlights on the Sky Sports App. Literally the very last thing they show is a slow motion replay. I’m sure MOTD will do it as well. But trust me, I’ve watched it a few times (appreciate its hard to tell at first) but it’s 100% what happens.
I think the apathy stems from a comment Duxbury made recently. He said “don’t fall in love with a player”. I think that one comment is very damaging. Fans want to love their players. They want that connection and affiliation. But SD’s message is that they are just passing commodities. How can be anyone get excited or support that? I hate that message to the fans. We want to feel the players are connected to the club and are all fighting for a common cause. There is a price for the Pozzo ownership and that price is disconnection. Maybe that price is too high?
It is too high. Some have said it all along and others fought against it the notion - but I think the opinion is becoming more unified.
No it’s disconnect, not losing games. I felt devoted when we were poor in the championship and league 1 and clearly we are better now and probably will be next season. It’s the Pozzo ownership model that just leaves me cold.
I’m on the fence. I want Premier League football for Watford and the Pozzo’s give us this. But I’ve always hated the secrecy and disconnect, but when you win you can overlook that. I’ve never felt we are building something. I’ve always felt we are just trying to flip a player. Watford, even though they are in the Premier League, I feel we are actually in a sh1t place as a club.
Fair enough - guess the endless stream of managers and players doesn’t help feel any connection with them or allow for long term support .
The price is too high. Call me crazy and maybe I am but I would watch Don Cowie & Carl ****inson any day of the week over the half arsed efforts of Ismailia Sarr & Danny Rose. Lack of quality can always, always be forgiven. Lack of effort, simply, can never be.
For every Don Cowie and Carl D1ckinson there was a Lee Williamson and a Tamas Priskin (<3). And for every Ismaila Sarr and Danny Rose there's a Tom Cleverley and a Jose Holebas. I didn't see these types of comments after the wins against Everton and Villa and to be honest I think the effort levels were fairly decent today from the majority. There were plenty of problems but I don't think desire was one of them.
As **** as the Premier League is it actually sickens me when people start lusting for the Championship. It's just weird. Oh it's proper football bla bla bla. No, it's **** football, and if you're not getting out of it at the top end then it's an even more horrendous place to flounder around in.
According to some HR departments and higher management echo chambers these days, unconscious bias is the worst thing ever to be unleashed on civilisation. Kevin Friend would be severely course-corrected until he was turned into a soulless unthinking idiot and appointed to be chair of the Referees Association or whatever it's called these days.
Anyone else have to mute commentary when watching? Yesterday we were treated to such gems as... "Arsenal fans see this a potential banana skin match, well they do look like bananas I guess" "Hmmm I'm not sure I think it's slightly off banana colour" "watford managers have an average lifespan of 28 games" (just bad statistics as they will be including extreme outliers like BM and OG After a silent spell when they can't think of anything intelligent to say "Well it's been said that watford have a revolving door policy to managers" "Yes, and you'd think it was a well oiled door" Describing watfords formation as 4141 with Turfan shielding the defense as the DM and Sissoko and Kucka the advanced playmakers Honestly?! Do some brief cursory research you muppets
It will be very interesting to see if we do go back down what the crowds look like next season, after another turgid drudging failure of a season (which it will have to turn out to have been) and with pretty much all our exciting 'stars' disappearing like rats off a sinking ship the day after it's confirmed. Especially when you factor in the reality that, whether you agree with it or understand it or whatever, or indeed not, it will be a lot clearer that it will have been firmly down to Gino and Scott and their proper business decisions. That being said, I am extremely aligned with Nath in that I want Watford to be as high as possible, and in the Prem in perpetuity if I had my way - I have no desire to go back to Malky and Don Cowie and Carl Di.ckinson. That's why I want Gino et al to stop pisssing it up the wall and making terrible decisions to jeopardise that status. And, indeed, there is a disconnect, that I've spoken about before a few weeks ago, between this very randomly assembled collection of broken toys jumbled together in shifting ways each week, always out of necessity at least as much as invention. As others have said, it really does feel like we've been lurching from one mis-step to the next for several seasons now, and it's hard to see what the trajectory for the club is, or is even supposed to be. Getting promoted last season seems to have saved us as an institution from a financial perspective, so that's obviously a good thing (though utterly ludicrous for having come off a 5-year stay in the richest league in the world), but staying up this season is almost as momentous/a sliding-doors scenario, to my mind. If we do, we can put the relegation behind us and start building an actual squad again, as we sell the assets people want for their market value and think about progressing the club once more. If we go back down, we'll essentially reset to the point the Pozzo took over, only with an extra side to the ground and Camden beer on tap.
Yeah but most Norwich fans are related to each other so a home game is like a catch up for the inbreds
Just catching up on this thread. First of all, get well soon @onion8837. I can’t add any thoughts of my own re the match as I decided to watch the last couple of episodes of “You” with my daughter instead, figuring there might be less carnage in that. (And this is the problem with being a Watford fan - getting to the Premier League is what you wish for but, once you’re there, it’s a pretty miserable experience week in week out.) Anyway, I will share instead a couple of thoughts of Mr HH, who did watch it, as I think it’s interesting sometimes to see what a “neutral” made of the game. In a nutshell, he thought a narrow Arsenal win was probably fair but that they shouldn’t have played the ball that led to their goal (so it’s not just Watford-biased fans thinking that). He thought most of the refereeing decisions went their way (eg he thought one of the Arsenal players could have been sent off as he committed a foul that should have been a booking in the first half and was then booked in the second; can’t remember who, sorry) and that Smith was extremely biased in his commentary.
The Don Cowie that followed Malky to Cardiff and was booed on his return? Or the Carl ****inson that recently admitted to trying to injure teammates? There were past players I still hold in high regard, these are bizarre choices though.
In my opinion it’s a fallacy that the current PL players try any less than those we had in the past at a lower level. However, the perceived connection between those players and the club and, by extension, the fans is another matter. There will always be a ‘mercenary’ element amongst certain PL players, simply because they want to continue to play in the PL. Remember all those who happily transferred to Wigan - not exactly a club to dream of playing for - when their own teams were relegated? From the fans’ point of view, when a player (or even manager) signs for your club you want to get behind them and hope they do so well that they want to stay for the rest of their career. Of course that’s almost never going to happen but it has to be the starting point. The Pozzo stance unfortunately kills that, so we all expect our better players to be leaving at any moment which means it’s much easier to be critical of their efforts: e.g. “Player X isn’t trying because he doesn’t love the club and wants to leave”.
Foster 8 Kiko 6 Nkoulou 7 Cathcart 7 Rose 4.5 Sissoko 6.5 Sarr 5.5 Kucka 5 Tufan 6 Pedro 6 Dennis 6 Coucho 6 King 5
Is their 'stance' really any different from any of their predecessors? We're a selling club. For the right price any player is available and will be waved off on their merry way. But that's been the case for as long as I've been going and I'm pretty sure well before then.
Before you give us your normal ‘gotcha’ routine - can you clarify if these are scores from a newspaper or your own personal ones?
I think it’s more that the current bunch are vocal about it. Ultimately every club is a selling club if the price is right and the player wants to go - I think the slight difference we have is that we have been far too vocal about being a ‘stepping stone’ club and that has lead to more disconnect in the eyes of the fans.
Broadly agree with all this. We were sat in Club seats at the opposite end from our fans so had a good view of the play. Didn't really notice Tufan but we looked more cohesive as a defensive unit. They have some good players and whilst we were still in it at half time you did wonder how we would score when we were so focused on being defensive. Then we had a opportunity but didn't take it. Walking back to Finsbury Park tube after I couldn't help but reflect on why we spent so much money (£30m/35m/40m?) on one player 2 years ago in the hope that he might be worth a lot more. Not picking on him in isolation more the thinking around why a club with limited resources like ours (relative to others) making such a punt whereas we could/should have spread the outlay around a few more players to try to build a squad. Off topic but I hope whoever was injured outside Finsbury Park tube earlier/Saturday night makes a recovery as it looked like a war zone at 11am with a large roped off area/police CSI on hand/ blood splattering's everywhere -even across the Seven Sisters road.
This. Going to the Vic this season has felt more like a chore than a pleasure. Even during our horrific 2019/20 season, it felt more enjoyable than this one, and we were even worse back then! Perhaps it’s the fact that we’ve had a year of not going to games and it was easy to switch off if we were playing poorly. Whilst now, when you’re at the game, you’re almost obliged to stay. Feel like this is replicated with the players too.
