Chris Wilder - Watford Head Coach #18

Oh come on. Poor tactical nous on show here.

You put him in charge of the organising defense, not the attack.

 

Nailed on.

 

By ‘season’ I presume you mean summer. Who knows who will take over in the autumn, i.e. late September.

 

There's surely just no point. The short term contract is to ensure we don't have to pay Wilder out at all if we don't want him past the summer. Right? Would be scandalous to end up paying his contract out too.

I do struggle to see who would even take over from the summer onwards, assuming it won't be Wilder. We promised a change when hiring Edwards and that went well. How can any manager believe any promises about a long teem project now?

Sacking Edwards was probably the worst thing we could do in this regard. Pozzo has ****ed it completely.

 

I continue to fail to see this argument. It’s the easiest job in football.

Succeed and the narrative is you’ve succeeded at the circus that is Watford and you’ve succeeded DESPITE the toxic environment. Reputation enhanced.

Fail like Bilic and your reputation is literally none the worse because it’s the circus that is Watford with its horribly toxic environment. Reputation protected.

Apart from those managers with a load of pride, who don’t want to work under the DOF type structure / model, it’s literally the most risk free gig in football!

 

It all depends on how vital promotion is. Seems like it’s absolutely necessary, which begs the question why didn’t they fix the areas of the team that needed upgrades in the winter window.

It smacks of arrogance and incompetence. Now we are in a desperate scramble to get promoted. If they consider sacking Wilder and bringing in someone like Munoz will have a positive impact, I’m sure this is what they’ll do, as they are so panic stricken.

 

Because we are skint, not skint enough not to fork out £5m for Bayo, but skint nonetheless

 

What I'd like to know is, if promotion was so necessary in the first place, why did we change tack and go for a project manager, why not just go for a more experienced safe pair of hands in the first place?

 

Has he?

Out of the top of my head I only recall the two games against us in the first relegation season, and the home game against Boro this one. Before those he’d managed mostly in the lower leagues and non-league.

 

I expect we already have him on a retainer. Just what we've been crying out for...a promising young British coach.

 

I said something similar on the Bilic thread, he seems the kind of guy who garners a lot of respect but not much love. Surprised to see him come across that way when I saw him interviewed as Northampton manager (as well as the fact I thought he looked really old for someone of 48), as during his days at Halifax he seemed more the mild-mannered unassuming type, like Simon Grayson.

 

Guess who's nearly a decade older than who?

 

It'll all still end up with another Bachmann interview gobbing off.

 

I personally think Wilder is here for a Championship audition. Look at the team he built at Sheffield United when he walked in and what that squad cost. He's (realistically) here to win a few games, miss out on playoffs and be just about the best we could do next season anyway given the budget. And he will be set the unenviable target of promotion with little cash to spend and a squad shorn of its marketable talents.

If we somehow go up, they will let him go as they won't see him as a big enough name for the PL and Manga will get his little black book of c0ntacts out. And if we get pummelled to the end of the season, he won't get it because he will have been crap.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that Chris Wilder will be our manager next season.

 

To be fair to Wilder, while he’s more a long-term manager who may struggle to properly prove his worth with the way our club currently operate, he does have a record of (near) rescue jobs having been hired mid-season, even if some of them were in quite different circumstances, eras and divisions.

I forgot to mention that while he was appointed far earlier in the season, at Oxford in 2008/09 he almost succeeded in getting them to the Conference play-offs after they looked in real danger of relegation, a task equal if not greater in challenge than the one he faced here - he only failed due to a harsh points deduction because of an administrative error.

At Northampton he rescued them from a dire situation that funnily enough Aidy left them in, no mean feat in a season during which an unusually high points total was needed to stay up (Bristol Rovers went down with 50 points with a -11 goal difference, better than Northampton’s even after their revival).

At Boro his team were in contention for the play-offs going into the last game after Warnock left them in a similar position to where they were when Wilder was later sacked. They could have done better, but like I said in the Bilic thread, that job was the only slight blot on what has been an impressive career on an otherwise upward trajectory.

I only hope if he does get us to the play-offs and fails to win them or just misses out after a good run of form and he is retained for next season, the board/fans show patience and don’t expect him to maintain a Burnley-type run of form just because his team finished strongly the previous season and will have (presumably) strengthened in the summer, because football doesn’t often work like that in reality.

 

I thought that article was very fair.

 

When Wilder gets the bullet I'd like to see @NathWFC or @Burnsy given the job

 

It is difficult to take the article seriously when the BBC (or Paul Grunill to be more precise) appears to be rewriting Watford's history:
"The Hertfordshire club had an unbroken run of four successive seasons in the Premier League from 2015 to 2019,"
Apparently the fifth season (2019-20), during which Watford were relegated, did not count as a successive season in the Premier League.

 

Good point, which I admittedly missed.

 

I'm in. But only if we can do it jointly like Roy Evans and Gerard Houllier did.

 

Can't disagree with what you are saying. I just think it's ludicrous that what you are saying is a real possibility.

 

Well this is it. Its a completely no risk move for him. We are 9th and playing *****. If we don't get promoted there's no blame with him, if we actually hit a good run of form and get the play offs, promotion or not then he's done a good job. So like you say he's getting himself in the frame for a job with us or otherwise.

 

I'm looking at it from the view of a manager who might want a project. As my post above says, Wilder obviously sees this as a no lose opportunity.

All we are going to have are managers who go into it with the mindset of what I think Wilder is going into it now. I fail who cares, I succeed I look great.

That's what I mean by Gino ******* it. We are no longer getting managers in who actually feel like they can build something with us.

And that is ******* worrying.

Sorry for the triple post. I didn't realise three people quoted me!

 

Good god.

 

We don’t get to hear about every manager who turns us down though do. Do we know if they went straight for Wilder as first choice? There was talk of Hassunhutl at one point, I wonder how that worked out. We were after Martinez at one point, but he didn’t want to come. Of course the Watford job is a win win if all you care about is a quick pay day, but some managers do actually have a level of personal pride and integrity, they also want a certain level of control and assurances of certain things. In the not too distant past we’ve had posters on here suggesting we go for managers like Eddie Howe and Sean Dyche, the reality is at the time we had less than zero chance of them every wanting to manage us, because the way our club is run is diametrically opposed to how they would want to work.

Of course there will always be managers out there who see the Watford job as a win win, who won’t worry about the fact they will probably only get 10-20 games before they have a sacking on their CV, who won’t mind having no say on transfers etc, but are those the type of managers we really want, and are going to get us anywhere? Isn’t that whey we’ve had managers like Roy Hodgson, Nigel Pearson, Bilic and now Chris Wilder managing us? How has that been working out for us?

 

“Just for men”

 

I wouldn't rule it out, but I'd be surprised if he's here after this summer. What I do know is that we won't strengthen, certainly not overall considering JP and Sarr at the very least are sure to go if we don't go up

 

We sacked a decent young manager who then joined our rivals and is probably going to get a playoff place with them, the whole thing is beyond parody at this point and i'm fully expecting them to win promotion just to rub it in even more.

The Nigerian witch doctor has a sick sense of humour it seems. Anyone that lives near the Vic needs to google how to lift curses and pop down there pronto, we cant allow the scum to go up. I would pee in a bottle and pour a bit at each corner of the ground on top of a sigil personally.

 

Funny thing is, any normal club in the Championship this summer, that has no money and has to build a promotion chasing team on a shoestring, would be very wise to hire Wilder….

But we aren’t normal. And have made sure that the circumstances should be stay, would be really weird.

 

Gino Pozzo is a rich child playing with his Daddy’s asset. Clueless. Charmless. I am not renewing my season ticket next season and will not renew until the pampered child is gone. I absolutely hate our club in its current guise. Which makes me so sad.

 

Just a thought, the two central defenders we bought in Jan, seemed to have hit the ground running, Porteous will be earning more than in Scotland and seems to have the desire needed, Hoedt has been there and seems a solid although lacks pace sort of defender. If Wilder was to stick around and get some similar standard players (which is really what he did at Sheffield United) no stars but players who have desire, we could have a decent season in the championship next season. Will he be allowed to? Unlikely!

 

I like Wilder I really do. But the management framework will nullify him. These dreadful people need to be gone before we progress.