Rob Edwards Sacked

I thought you were currently unable to take a job offer at another club given your roles elsewhere? And that's why you turned Watford down when they did finally reach out to you a season or two ago?

Please drop our club a line again before helping out Blackburn!

 

It’s not even a conscious decision. I’m not suggesting they thought “let’s appoint this young, keen guy from the lower divisions because it keeps the heat off us”.

It’s simply a default design flaw in the entire operation which means the head coach / manager has all the responsibility for the performances and results and carries the can when it goes wrong but is not given the right or responsibility to make all of the key decisions necessary to ensure success.

 

Yeah I turned down Blackburns offer as I'm contracted until next summer still. Watford actually offered me a job at the same time as my current role (technically Watford offered first) but the wage they offered was so laughably bad that I said I wanted to wait until I heard Spezias offer. Spezias offer was much much better so I took that instead!

 

Considering Watford should have much better finances than Spezia that's some great penny pinching for our friend mogi's pockets

 

If it was me I'd just get rid of him now. He's just an old school manager dressed in modern coach clothing.

 

You’d think Watford FC could afford a measly salary to employ the services of an expert like yourself to improve our meagre set piece goals total alone, as well as all the other benefits your analysis would bring.

£5,000 per week is nothing in the scheme of things of a promotion to the Premier League £millions.

 

An excellent post. I am reminded of Mike Keen's attempt at coaching at Watford: A fine player in his day, he had the intention to get his team to play complex, high-quality football. They could impress you if you watched them for a short time. The consensus was that they were too good to go down. I remember watching them from the Shrodells Stand and thinking that, right at the end of the season. They lost one more time and were relegated then and there. The players couldn't understand or enact the master-tactician's theories.
Taylor came next and demonstrated how to swim against the flow and turned essentially the same squad into a record-breaking outfit.
Keen was a nice guy, too.

 

You see the mistake you made there was not calling yourself a Set Piece ‘Agent’ They would have offered you a small fortune then

 

I genuinely hoped RE would be the 'breath of fresh air' we were all promised. I am willing to concede he has not been fully backed. I am willing to accept he had to try to fix a 'toxic atmosphere'. What I'm finding impossible to accept is how, for the love of god, can a group of players of the quality he DOES have available, players who all seem to say he's improved matters, put in such inept, half-arsed, slow-paced nothing displays. Why don't we 'fly out of the blocks' at kick-off? Either he's telling them not to, or they're all so disenchanted/confused with/by whatever else he's telling them that they've decided there's no point.

Either answer is demonstrably disastrous.

 

Yup - if you break down the amount of money each club receives from the PL and then divide it by how many goals each team scores, it usually works out that a single goal in the PL is roughly worth £2.5m - a good set-piece staff member will pay for themselves many hundreds of times over even if you pay them a high salary (compared to other backroom staff members).

 

Yes, that season was my gap year so I saw every game home and away except 2, I think. We played some lovely football in midfield, had Scully on the wing, Rankin in goal, Garner at CB, Studs & Bond in midfield, Downes, Mayes & Ross up front. That squad was way too good to go down, but for all the pretty footy we only scored 52 goals in 46 games, conceded 75 and we watched on as all the intricate football was rendered pointless (literally!) by pragmatically efficient teams simply rolling over us.

 

There is certainly a world-weariness that comes with age. Some years ago I felt I’d seen everything there was to see in football and going to games was becoming a bit mechanical; then the ‘Deeney moment’ happened and all the old joyous feelings came flooding back. So they can be rekindled, but sadly we haven’t had any of those moments really since the Wolves semi-final.

 

To a certain extent it does come down to the manager. The instructions and motivation comes from Edwards before the players come out on to the pitch. As you probably know if you've followed football for a good while, when there is a manager change, quite often players get motivated to play good football again. He needs to get them playing well soon else he's had it.

 

I watched the Kirby season and never stopped going....but the commitment is slowly ebbing away. The lies from the hierarchy, the way the club's 'media output' seems to be controlled by semi-literates aimed at the same, the gradual dissolution of any sense of connection. Had we 'gone for it' in the games thus far with the same ppg outcome as we currently have then maybe the connection would not be waning, but the turgid crap we've seen thus far just won't cut it in level 2 considering the players we have. I would accept it in the Prem because of the class gulf we'd have to bridge; I accepted it when Furphy took us up to level 2 for the first time, because I could understand the rationale (and I was only 13!); I can find no possible justification this season other than indifference, hence the growing disconnect.

 

I agree that the manager has an input to this, but the players are not automatons - they can be self-motivated and throw themselves around if they have a mind to. I’m certain Edwards in his pre-match team talk doesn’t say: “Whatever you do, don’t run around too much for the first half-hour. Tap the ball about slowly at the back and avoid any attacking.”

 

I'm becoming less certain of that, TBH.

 

Just looked at the table for the first time in a while, we’re already 7 points off Sheffield Utd, pretty sure the gap to 2nd only ever got as big as 9 points last time around. Sheffield Utd and Norwich have also won 9 of their last 10 games between them, a million miles from our current record.

 

Coaching needs to be effective, simple to understand and implement.
Taylor kept it simple and understood people but above all was an excellent communicator.
As he was often heard to say " no coaching is better than bad coaching".
I use that line regularly,it is very apt in my so called profession!

 

Missing out on a RWB won't result in the rest of the team meandering around like there is no plan.

A weakness in a position just means that position won't be as productive, but it doesn't stop the rest of the team playing well.

The fact is we've only looked good for short patches at best this season, and it doesn't appear like there is a gameplan that's coming together. When Zola took over, we weren't getting brilliant results initially but you could see that things were improving on the pitch and that we were building towards something. Nothing like that is on show thus far this season; if anything we seem to be going backwards.

That's not down to the RWB being below par. That's a general coaching issue. It would be fair to point at RWB if the rest of the team was firing on all cylinders and RWB kept letting us down (e.g. leaking goals, breaking down attacks) but that's just not the case.

 

The games we have won have been pretty even and we’ve been a tad lucky. We are looking very mid table at present and worryingly very pedestrian and demotivated.

 

Read his latest 'opinion' piece he's just written.

I really don't think he is a stooge.

https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/21488641.watford-must-react-make-changes-blackburn-debacle/

 

Not sure what you mean. This is genuinely how I see the issue. I do not understand how others can see it differently. I want to understand why. So I say it how I see it and ask for a reply. I don’t intend to be “smug”, no more than anyone else making statements of their belief - I haven’t directly insulted anyone I hope. Please bear with me - I’m not trying to talk down, merely to engage.

 

You sort of do, though. Unless you are privy to every factor behind the scenes leading to those decisions, you cannot know he is lying. We all draw inferences, but those inferences are opinion not fact. I would not want to be accused of lying when I am not, and I’m sure RE would be no happier.

 

It’s the feathers. You can’t hide these bad boys.

Or possibly because I don’t buy in to the mass hysteria inherent in some posts, and am trying to get some perspective.

I find it mildly amusing, in a Barry Glendenning kind of way, to see a season of fans yelling (rightly in my opinion) for a young progressive manager to be given time, followed by howls of protest against such a manager after just 9 games, 7 of which were during a tumultuous transfer window, with many calling for him to be sacked.

I also follow Arsenal closely - because reasons - and what I see here mirrors closely the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Arsenal fans over the first two and a half seasons of Arteta’s tenure. He is doing ok now, but then he was given more than 9 games.

 

Don't get me wrong - I'm in the pro Edwards camp. However, I am disappointed that the board have not backed him. A few minor changes to recruitment strategy, prioritising certain positions rather than looking after the Bayats would have given us (and Edwards) much brighter prospects. We are still top 10 for sure, but could have been top 2. I fear the board still think they have produced a top 2 squad and will sack him. If we start dropping to lower mid table then maybe it's time to reassess but right now the blame should be with the owners.

 

I wouldn't say you talk down, but you definitely drip with self regard

 

I don’t disagree - my issue is with the “sack Edwards” brigade, but equally I think it is too soon to judge the owners on this issue (appointing Edwards with this squad). This issue only, I emphasise.

 

Or you are very insecure, and read posts meant at face value to be far more patronising than intended. Both possibilities are valid.

Which is fine - we all are. Being told that I “drip with self-regard” is hurtful. Happily, I’m old and experienced enough to take such comments to heart only if they are echoed by those who actually know me. Which they haven’t been. So far, at least.

 

Well the clue was the emoji that I wasn't being too serious. But unsurprisingly, you've taken it the wrong way and bafflingly gone on about insecurity!?!

 

Ah come on, it was clearly another dig. Just own it, don't try to hide behind the emoji defence.

 

Ah, but I wasn’t being very serious either - note the emoji too.
Baffling? Possibly. I’m told that a lot of what I say may make sense to me but sounds like gibberish to others. Feel free to apply that maxim to any of my posts.