There is definitely a sizeable lump of pro Pozzo 40-60 year olds who think the anti Pozzo faction are all younger fans and busy themselves telling them how entitled they are because they never saw Keith Dublin play!
Like most things, the opinions probably don't split neatly into easily-defined categories. My main issue is how opaque everything is. While the team was doing well, that opaqueness could be largely ignored. That's perhaps the wrong approach but at the end of the day I go to watch a football team represent the club I've supported. I don't go to study the balance sheet. It's like the sausage factory – I don't necessarily want to know what to know what goes in the sausages. If I knew too much about the wages, the pay-offs, the money that disappears out of the game, and by association our club, it'd probably wear me down so much I'd give up. But when things take a downturn those things all come into sharper focus. The labyrinth of companies, who owns what, who controls the holding company, the fact Gino Pozzo doesn't appear to be a director of any of them (so doesn't have the legal responsibility) but does have significant ownership shares, the connections to Arnaud Bayat, the descriptions of trade of some of these companies, all raises questions. How much money does WFC owe Pozzo, for example? As GT once said about anyone who takes over a football club: "The question is, is the money given or is it a loan?" I remember the end-of-season bash at Shendish shortly after winning promotion in 2015. Jokanovic was at one table and Pozzo was at another. Deeney was talking about how he'd butted heads with Jokanovic early on. "Then he [Jokanovic] realised I was the main man and I realised he was the main man." Deeney made a comment about looking forward to going into the Premier League together. I looked over at Pozzo, who was just staring ahead of him with no expression on his face. It struck me 10 days later or whenever it was he fired Jokanovic that he'd probably already made up his mind. For many fans, that ruthlessness followed by good results banked a lot of goodwill. For some, the PL years will represent some of the greatest days they've ever experienced as a fan. And that goodwill does go a long way for many people. But the fans' reaction at Blackpool demonstrated that it is running out quite fast.
I think you're very much correct here, and that it is just the nature of football fans to not ask any questions when results are good - and I'd hold my hands up and say that I was one of those until the 2019/2020 season. But I also imagine alot of those who say "remember Basini" were also of the same, insofar as everyone realised he was a clown when the rumours started to become true. With Gino however, once you do start to look a bit deeper, it really becomes something you can't ignore, and arguably we're hitting levels that even Big Bad Bassini didn't get close to. Things that people stated as fears when Pozzo took over (and I was one of those who scoffed at the ideas) are now happening and we see the manifestation on the pitch. I heard a caller to one of the pods saying look at the Pozzo's expirience with Udinese and that's why we should trust - but I think the caller is missing a key component that Udinese is the Pozzos home town team, they are interwoven into the fabric of the club as not only owners but also supporters. Gino Pozzo, whether we like it ot not does not care one iota about Watford FC other than the revenue sheet. Because of this and much like any investment there is an expiry date, just as there was with their ownership of Granada. Our life cycle with the Pozzo family is at its conclusion, as fans our job is to ensure that the club is still salvageable
Personally, I became uncomfortable with the performances after Xmas in the Cup Final season and felt the fact that Espirito Santo effectively handed us the semi final win by crap tactics in the last 20 minutes of the 2nd half glossed over a lot of weaknesses that were becoming more obvious. I placed my hope in some sensible recruitment, especially in defence, but also at CF as we were clearly lacking. I viewed the signing of Dawson as 'OK' if we signed a more dominant CB to play alongside him. The fact we didn't increased my concern, as did the flawed pre-season friendlies; no physical teams to kick us into remembering what would happen in the EPL season, because we decided to play against pretty footballing sides as a natural step along the path to becoming 'the best of the rest' (sic). Then the home game against BHA happened and it was probably already too late. No matter, we only just got relegated and the 'lessons have been learned' bull5h1t was put out. I was willing to give Poxbury the benefit of the doubt, especially in the context of Covid. I was willing to accept that financial strictures prevented us from doing the type of business we'd have liked, always with the caveat that those problems were the direct result of recent flawed management of the club. I was sure that the squad we'd end up would go up and then we'd have to see some sensible investment on our return to the EPL. The events since then have shown that either: 1) the financial was and continues to be more parlous than realised 2) that Pozzo is trying to do his best for the club but has totally lost the plot to such an extent he is unable to make consistently acceptable decisions 3) something far more sinister is at play. Whichever it may be, his continued ownership is damaging. There were numerous opportunities since the Cup Final for Pozzo to rectify the problems caused by his mistakes, but his character as a 'macho Italian manager' prevents him from showing any contrition or ability to exhibit even a slight suggestion he's made mistakes. Our company had the misfortune to have its main European factory controlled by one such VP before his elevation to COO and move to USA. On his departure his successor found that most of the capable people had either left or been sacked for standing up to him.
I'd say like our financial state,Pozzo is already borrowing against that good name. The line in the sand,the Rubicon being crossed,all are now passed tense. Reminds me of The Life of Brian; "You're only making it worse for yourself". "Making it worse? How could it be WORSE?! Jehovah, Jehovah..."
? Id say its the other way around. Just my opinion. The 1881 is full of youngsters. The loud pozzo out voices are the slightly older fans
Oh I’d agree there is a large younger group of Pozzites as well. My point was just that it’s not age specific as the “entitled you didn’t go in the 90s” line of attack can only come from an older fan.
Deeney on Foster's podcast: 1:41: "They (Hull) have got an owner who's worse than Gino at this moment in time." 1:03:56: "Filippo's just gone in as director of football (at Forest), so they'll definitely be making five changes because he'll get involved."
I’ve just had some sage on Twitter reply to me saying: ‘We are not entitled to PL football...this is only a blip.’ - Which no one has even remotely said we are. ‘The Pozzo’s have delivered an FA Cup Final and 2 SF’s - we have never got so close since ‘85.’ - I then had to inform him we got to 2 FA Cup SF’s in the 00’s under owners many consider worse. He then told me he’s only 33yo so can’t remember them?! And when I told him our scouting is no different to any other small club our size - but ours has seen the death of any kind of academy, he told me ours is different because we signed ‘Geri, Doucoure, Richy, Joao Pedro and Sarr’ It really isn’t worth bothering at this point. Some people are too stupid.
Being brutally honest, Watford FC is some people's whole lives, they don't want to accept things are horrible at our club right now as it means their life is horrible. Leave them to it.
I'm not sure why you bother engaging with them, you won't change your view on the club and neither will they, leave them to it and let them lead their rose-tinted view of the club. Not sure what calling people stupid will achieve either, it seems like they engaged with you in good faith.
A. Because informing people of simple irrefutable facts, ones they are getting wrong, is a good way of swaying opinion. I don’t agree that people can’t change their minds - there are plenty on here, social media and podcasts/twitter spaces who have done just that. B. I think it’s fair to call someone stupid if they choose to use FA Cup records as a defence of the owner by suggesting no one else could have achieved that - despite us achieving precisely that under recent previous owners on a far lesser budget. Rightly or wrongly, I think for protests to take off, then work has to go into opening people eyes and moving them away from the ‘Entitled/Careful what you wish for’ narrative. If you disagree with that, that’s fine.
Here's another: 'New ground, financially secure, new training ground, fa cup final, 2 fa cup semi finals, 6 years of prem football out of 8 amazing scouting network.'
Financially secure? They must think Gino can call on the Bank Of Parent to bail him out like they obviously can.
You should respond saying that people still live in our stadium. Like in a Hollywood movie where the detective has to go and visit a group of rat people that live in the tunnels underneath a major metropolis to look for a missing person. Who survive on pigeon meat and burning barrel fires for heating. No offence to anyone who lives in the stadium like. I’m not saying you are rat people. Or eat pigeon meat. I’m sure you are lovely non-rat people.
Here is a list of all Watford signings from Gray onwards as per Soccerbase. There are 50 of them. Look down the list and see how many you would consider have been a success, i.e. been beneficial to our team on the pitch. Not very many. Andre Gray Dimitri Foulquier Marvin Zeegelaar Dodi Lukebakio Ben Wilmot Gerard Deulofeu Marc Navarro Adam Masina Ben Foster Ken Sema Quina Adam Parkes Kane Crichlow Craig Dawson Sam Dalby Tom Dele-Bashiru Kaylen Hinds Mason Barrett Danny Welbeck Ismaila Sarr Ignacio Pussetto Jeremy Ngakia Toby Stevenson Francisco Sierralta Stipe Perica William Troost-Ekong Philip Zinckernagel Maurizio Pochettino Dan Gosling Achraf Lazaar Imran Louza Ashley Fletcher Danny Rose Emmanuel Dennis Dapo Mebude Matthew Pollock Kwadwo Baah Josh King Juraj Kucka James Morris Moussa Sissoko Yaser Asprilla Maduka Okoye Edo Kayembe Samir Samuel Kalu Vakoun Issouf Bayo Rey Manaj Ben Hamer Mario Gaspar
Thanks for putting the list together. It really helps illustrate how we’ve been able to accumulate talent over the years, and given that we’ve brought in players of such high caliber, it’s easy to see how we’ve ended up with the strongest squad in Championship history.
It used to be mine, actually football as a whole was everything to me. I honestly couldn't care less if football stopped today
You have to be seriously ENTITLED to question this list. You greedy criticisers expected us to sign Haarland and Mbappe, didn't you? We're Watford you know, not some oil club. Trust in Gino and Mogi. You'll look stupid when Manaj bangs in yet another worldie off a Kalu cross to seal the Championship title.
Is it bad that I found myself laughing out loud as a I went through that list I've gone for 9 Asprilla (hopefully) Sissoko - I thought he was better than most last season Dennis Louza Sarr Sema Foster Delefeou Lukebakio - Just for the money received
I had that list (ex. Lukebakio) but also had Sierralta........and the only one I'd say that performed repeatedly over a number of seasons is Foster. That's a criminal waste of money
I don't think Sissoko was beneficial to the team. You could count the number of good performances on one hand and for a man with his experience he was terrible at doing the basics. He definitely wasn't value for money in terms of the wages he was on, wasn't he our best paid player?
Realistically, he was a bit of a shirker, a bit of a headless chicken, and a bit of a klutz, who managed to say the right things on social media and the few times he was caught by a broadcaster. A very disappointing lack of leadership from such an experienced player who had featured at such a high level.
Lukebakio not allowed. The intention was only to consider players who have benefited our team, not Pozzo’s pocket or Udinese etc. As we know profit on transfers is not all invested in the Watford squad.
He was the captain of a team that got relegated shamefully. There's no argument that he was good for the team. None whatsoever.
