Yep you’re right. Davis, The Hair, Hause, kept Pedro and Sarr with a week to go. Absolute farce as you say
Hamza is an excellent signing, Hause and Davis good on paper but remains to be seen when they’re ready and how quickly they can hit the ground running. Expect both will improve us however. Pedro was never really expected to leave but still glad we have (fingers crossed) dodged a loss there. Sarr staying (if that is still the case in a weeks time) would be a big unexpected bonus, no argument As for the bad stuff - Manaj, Bayo and Gaspar all look like duds unfortunately and the bigger picture remains that we still have some gaping holes in the squad preventing the manager from consistently playing the way he wants to and we are still restricted to either loans, free transfers or dodgy Bayat dross, despite generating >£50m at least already. The squad behind the first XI is also pretty dire as evidenced by the game midweek as well as against Preston and will not stand up to another 40+ games without further additions My issue this window is that either the finances are in worse shape than the club is letting on or they’re choosing to risk it on the cheap and not backing the manager in the way they said they would. We are 2 or 3 targeted additions away from a league winning squad in my opinion - big week ahead but not getting my hopes up
I feel it’s become a recurring theme of ours that we enter the final week of the transfer window feeling we are only a few signings short of being a well balanced and very competitive squad...only to then exit the window with those issues unaddressed and us all saying ‘uff if only’. It seems to have happened several times already in recent years, and the fear is it’s about to again.
Not farcical though. Could be better, could be worse. The back ups are not great as shown at Preston but we didn't have Hause, Davis, Pedro, Sarr or Louza playing, all of which would start the game. The three you mention as duds are all new to this league and country and although first impressions are not great I'm prepared to give them time. As for new signings, right sided defender and maybe Archer would be great but very rarely do you get everything you want and so far I would say it's not to bad
Yeah but to not get one of the key positions for the way your coach wanted to play, despite having all summer and seeing several suitable candidates move to other teams in your division is a bit ****, right? Surely we can all agree on that?
Yep I can agree with that but with Pedro and Sarr still here maybe it’s not the right formation for us anyway
That's a ridiculous argument. We knew exactly how Edwards plays so get him the players to do it! How long do we have to put up with head coaches coming in and making do with what the club thinks is the best squad for them? The same people who insist on keeping players like Cathcart, Kabasele, Gosling and Cleverley around with little or no competition for their places meaning that they start for us.
And others will always blame the club, without evidence that it is the club’s fault. I don’t know which it is in this case, so I’m content not to apportion blame just yet.
So who's fault is it that the club haven't recruited properly this summer? Edwards? The fans? The tea ladies?
Maybe Edwards is flexible in his approach ? Maybe he adopted 3-5-2 last season as it played to the strength of the players he had at his disposal ?
You don't always get what you want, but sometimes you can find you get what you need, as a wise man man once sang. He wasn't singing about Watford though.
That’s reasonable, but I’d say the fact we worked on 3-5-2 all summer, and started the season that way, indicates it’s the formation he’d prefer to play. Credit to RE for being flexible, but for me, I think there’s more evidence that suggests he’d prefer 3-5-2, but doesn’t have the personnel required. I would add though, I’m not sure he was expecting Sarr to be here this season, so it’s fair enough to theorize that with that unexpected bonus, RE has more scope for being flexible.
So why did he not play with a back four during pre-season? He even played a back three of McKiernan, Pollock and Morris at one point against Panathinaikos!
Yes and to be fair to @The undeniable truth Edwards has said they worked on different systems during pre-season, but every game was a variation of three at the back so it's clearly the way he wants the team to play.
The players we are looking to buy? Their agents? Their clubs? Other clubs with a better offer? Their family not wanting to uproot? I have no idea which of these many factors apply, but I can’t be certain it’s our owners. And we have 5 more days.
Come on Jon, they've had all summer to recruit a wing back. Are we really to believe that they approached about ten players and funnily enough every deal was hampered by the reasons you've listed? It's poor planning and poor squad management from the club, they've got previous for it and it's continued this summer.
So every other club has recruited all the players they want in the relevant positions? That explains why the transfer market is so quiet right now!
Not ridiculous at all. Not everything pans out the way you want it to and maybe the players we looked at or wanted didn’t come off for many different reasons. Edwards has been in football long enough to know this. There are many clubs still looking for players they knew they wanted 3 months ago. Chelsea for instance still don’t have a striker
Yes but by all accounts we did have a player of the right profile for a key position who was all but confirmed and then we randomly decided to sign someone else for that position who doesn't really play there, causing the initial deal to collapse. That's entirely different to not being able to find the right person full stop. We had a player the coach was obviously happy with and then decided to go a different route. Now we can see that the alternative we plumped for isn't really liked by the coach so we have to play another player there who would be really good at this level in his natural position but is now playing way below his level as he has no right foot. The failure to sign a right wing back when it's obviously been critical to the way Edwards wants to play is definitely not 'ah well, not everything goes the way you want it to'. It's ignoring the coach's wishes and telling him to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It's a fundamental failing and if it's not rectified in the next couple of days, it'll probably cost us.
“Randomly”? So there was no strategic thought in the decision, nor consideration of how it would affect the other deal (assuming it did - I’ve seen no real evidence of the cause and effect)? How do you know this was the case?
We by all accounts were close to signing a wing back, which is a vital role in Edward’s system. We ended up signing a full back who has no pace and can’t cross. Whatever happened there was a massive f**k up, whether it was apparently strategic or not.
If it was strategic, it wasn’t random. Was it. F**k up? Or did stuff just happen? I don’t know. And correlation is not necessarily causation.
Thread’s gone off topic, but my opinion (for what it’s worth) is that, barring any late changes, this squad contains several very good players for Championship level. There should be enough individual talent to see us up the right end of the table come May. However, this isn’t a balanced squad, with a group of players that all fit into a single formation and allows Rob to play the style he wants. It’s disappointing that instead of trying to plan something long-term, giving a head coach some autonomy over the squad he’s in charge of, he’s once again treated like a stop-gap. His job is not to build an identity and cohesive unit, but to instead find the best compromise that will allow this group to get as close as possible to being worth the sum of their parts.
Signed for Hull. So squad space still to fill; bullet dodged; another target we failed to sign. Take your pick.
The style he wants? He seems not to agree so much - https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/s...oach-not-fixed-playing-one-formation/?ref=rss
He played 3-5-2 his entire time at FGR, throughout pre-season here, then switched to 3-4-3 because he had Sarr and Dennis. He’s only moved to a back 4 once. If he’s open to switching things up and using other systems that’s great, but let’s not pretend he doesn’t prefer a 3-5-2.
Maybe he plays formations to suit the players he had. Forest Green had very good wing backs and a front two who thrived on crosses in to the box so he plays 3-5-2. Because it worked there he thought he would like to use it again so tried with us but with Sarr and Pedro still here feels we can use another system which is great. Doesn’t excuse the lack of a RWB but might explain the use of certain formations
