Gino Was Right

I am convinced it is Troy just because “Big Bad Bear” is exactly the pseudonym he would give himself

 

Cheerio. All the best m8.

 

Couple of out of contract League One signings is all it took:

 

Really doesn’t take much.

 

Pozzo knows how to deal with our magic fanbase.

 

"Keighley?!"

"KEIGHLEY!"

 

Ironically, our most successful patches under Pozzo were when he was sacking managers all the time. The downfall started because they didn’t sack Gracia after the cup final who had a terrible end of season which ultimately led to our relegation.

You could argue that Pozzo is nothing but consistent when it comes to changing who the manager is. It’s just everything else that changed.

 

'Terrible end of season'

Lost 1-0 to Arsenal at home. Conceded early, went down to 10 men immediately when Deeney got sent off, and actually played pretty well for the remainder of the game

Won 2-1 at Huddersfield

Drew 1-1 v Southampton after conceding straight from the kick-off

Lost 1-2 at home to Wolves in a game that was a toss of a coin anyway, and at the time, our slim hopes of Europe hinged on it

Lost 0-3 at Chelsea – nothing terribly unusual about that

Lost 1-4 to West Ham – a bad performance but with the cup final a week away perhaps understandable.

Which of these games should we have definitely won? Arguably Saints, Wolves and West Ham were winnable but they were also easy to lose in any season.

Before that run we lost to City, United and Liverpool away but took 13 points from the other 5 games in that 8 game run.

The cup final itself was horrendous but I swear if people reacted in 1984 the way they do today, people would have been calling for GT's head after losing 1-6 at Norwich the week before the Plymouth SF and 1-5 at Forest a couple of weeks before the final.

What a game it's become! Finish 11th in the PL and reach the cup final and people think the coach should have been sacked. Have a torrid run in the Championship from Christmas to the end of the season and people think the coach shouldn't have been sacked!

 

How did we start the following season?

 

I think our most successful period was before the Bayat tie in.

We were a lot more adventurous with our signings and, whilst the leadership plus player turnover was chaotic, it led to on pitch success. Changing coaches was typically just a refresh, preventing long term stagnation, though there was no need for a coach to build anything because they didn't have the power to do so anyway.

After the cup final season, if they'd signed a good striker and a good centre half, we may well have built on that success. Instead we got Wellbeck, that centre back I forget the name of and Sarr.

Then when we were struggling in the Prem, the Stability had no real plan for how to adapt. The model seems to have been built for adjusting a little if upward trajectory slows, rather than fixing a downward plummet.

 

Terribly, but there were a lot of factors involved in that which extended far beyond Gracia.

If your contention is that he had to be sacked after the FA Cup final the results and performances at the start of the new season only come into it if someone has the ability to see into the future.

Even with the terrible start the following season, Gracia's win % is higher than any other manager in the Premier League, narrowly edging QSF's first season.

 

Literally, what is this really based on? A tiny, tiny sample point, in the scheme of things, for about the first quarter of the season?

 

It just equals "I would like him to go on to be a successful manager somewhere else", I think.

 

You could see the way things were going and the trajectory was downward. Performances as well as results in those games you’ve mentioned before the final were terrible and the wheels were off. The cup final was a band aid over the obvious. Had he gone in the summer, I think we’re closer to staying up that year.

 

So 18 months of good management, then six weeks of patchy performances (only two of which were actually terrible) and that's it. Gone. Tracking trajectory over 30 days...!

As I say, what a game it's become! Build nothing, weather zero adversity, fire the head coach and start from scratch again and again and again.

Gracia wasn't responsible for that basket case of a summer but he carried the can for it.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Even at the time I didn't think April/May 2019 was that bad, so I'm certainly not going to indulge in rewriting how it felt to me at the time!

 

Covid (and the way we handled it) did for us more than anything else that season.

 

And deciding Pussetto was the answer to our problems when we were bang in touch. I’d say QSF2 did more damage than covid. All those winnable games at home setting up for a 0-0.

 

Craig Dawson

 

Interesting

 

I just struggle with some of the excesses. I know that you can't please everyone all the time and Gino doesnt seem to be able to please anyone. We owe Gino something like 50 Million pounds. By wheeling and dealing in the transfer market he has made 200 Million pounds for the club, which has kept us solvent. I think he deserves more respect.
Of course I want to see my team top of the league but in reality Gino is not the chairman with most money these days, so we have to be clever, find young players, develop, sell at a profit and hope you grow as a club.
For the lovers of Tom Cleverly I get it that he was a nice guy with some Watford pedigree but if we are all being honest the football last season was dire. Tom himself said we were lucky to get some of the early wins. The results from the Coventry game which we won, were terrible. 18 games, 13 goals scored, 13 points out of 54. There is hardly a coach in the land that would not have been sacked. Fans wanted us to give Cleverly more time he did that in January and it simply did not work. I wish him well somewhere else.
Not only was the results bad but the endless tippy tapping around at the back was rediculous. There was one game that I was so bored I counted how many times did endless passing end up with a long ball that we lost that was 7 in only one half of football. Portsmouth fans could not believe how bad we were for example.
Those people that sang the Gino out songs and the i dont care about Gino songs and then the pro cleverly and anti Gino songs, did you really feel you were helping. How would you feel as an owner that has sunk a fortune into the club.
Just be careful what you wish for. Go talk to a Reading fan etc.

 

If anyone ever somehow needed any further proof that bigbaddie is this forum's most successful troll, right here is something of a shark-jumping moment. Let us all agree never to engage with it again and, in doing so, create a harmonious socialist utopia right here on wfcforums.com message board.

 

Yeah. That’s all it is. Based on the fact that he’s our Tom, and a club legend and the fact that he wished the DJ bloke all the best for his cancer. Oh, and the fact that he got previously underperforming players performing, united the squad and the fans, and gained a fairly healthy points total until the owner undermined him, failed to back him, didn’t get him a striker etc etc. blah blah blah. It’s all been said before and we decide which narrative we want to believe…

It’s my personal opinion that he should have been given another season at Watford, and I expect that he will do well somewhere. That is all.

 

I suppose it was hilarious in your head when you were typing it..............

 

Haha, are you really that triggered by a single word?

 

He hasn't sunk millions into the club for the good of his health or as a favour.

He's also not the chairman. You're using the language of yesteryear. He's the owner of a network of companies that own the football club. He has rights without the legal responsibility of having to be on the board of those companies.

There are opaque arrangements with an agent who does a disproportionate amount of business with the club. Again, is that in the interests of Watford Football Club or is it in the interests of a small number of individuals?

While he doesn't have to explain anything to anyone, the fact he doesn't speaks volumes about him and the sort of organisation he owns. He issued a statement following Cleverley's sacking that was, apparently. written by Duxbury's PR guru, ex-NOTW reporter Paul McCarthy.

 

On that note, perhaps worth re-upping something highlighted previously on this thread (I think) that speaks to Gino's beneficence and how the genius of all his dealings, including with one totally unbiased and unconnected agent, have been done 'for the club' and 'to keep us solvent': https://www.fhs-sw1.org.uk/news/moroccan-desert-fundraising-challenge/



Not that I really need to, as, of course, as I recently pointed out once again, those suggestions are purely ingenious in their simplicity, if wildly repetitive and dull, trolling!

 

Why are you so upset by someone having different views to you. Just because you repeat what you say time and time again it doesn't make it Chumlax's eternal truth. It also doesnt make you right.
Isn't it about time to stop being so negative and get behind the club without constant negativity.

 

He's never been any different - even in the early years he very rarely said anything. I'm not sure the way he operates is too dissimilar to how he has always operated - it just doesn't work any more.

His methods are outdated, and so is his wealth in football terms.

 

There's a lack of transparency around Mogi. But I wouldn't allow open protests of my property if I owned a football club and most owners don't. Likewise all clubs reduce their back office staff when times are tough and grow it when they go up. And thermos flasks have been a bit of a meme on here but that's down to the bureaucrats on the stadium safety board, which is nothing to do with Gino.