Hodgson Out

**** off Roy.

 

Steady on!

 

Has this old scrote gone yet?

 

Silva won some games and had us playing great stuff at times. Vialli didn't show such obvious disdain for us as Hodgson. Not that I necessarily agree, but I get the logic.

 

Normally I feel sorry for the old dinosaurs that cling on, trying to manage in the game that they love, even if they’re well past their sell-by date, and utterly hopeless at adapting to the ever-modernising approaches to the game.

None of my sympathy goes to Hodgson though, he chose to come out of retirement out of pure greed. Not one ounce of care in the world to keep us up.

A monumental c*nt of the highest order.

 

I think when WTWT said "hang on" he was referring to the fact that OptimisticHornet had Hodgson below Bassett in his estimation.

 

Exactly that, plus there was no mention of Mr. Integrity.

 

My biggest regret this season is not getting to see this old ******* get the corner flag treatment on our website and associated social media outlets.

A real shame.

 

From the excitement of the WFC v Chelsea match thread on The Athletic :



Jesus wept.

 

Tbf he has basically given his life to football in general with some good ( Fulham , various jobs abroad ) and bad (Liverpool/England) periods but this was definitely one job too far in terms of ability to improve things and motivation.

 

Yes, but you would think that with all this experience he would be willing and able to empathise with the supporters. It's not much to ask for and it should be one of the first things attempted, unless your arrogance and vanity are severely overinflated. In this manner, he reminds me of Bassett and Vialli, and for this reason he will be grouped with them as the 3 worst ever Watford FC appointments. QSF was a crap appointment second time around but you always knew he loved the fans and didn't go out of his way to antagonise us and for this reason he will always be given a warm reception when he comes to visit us.

 

When he was appointed, although I was against the idea I could at least see the logic of it. Very experienced old head, record of keeping average teams up, allegedly a good organiser of a defence etc. On a kind day you could at least see our club's thinking with this appointment, although it smacked of panic and an organisation with no semblance of even a medium-term plan.

And then he arrived...and it was downhill from almost the first minute.

Again on a kind day you might briefly think 'what if we get that handball decision in his first match and score the penalty and beat Burnley' but probably it would only have been a sticking plaster.

I'm afraid there wasn't one box he ticked. Performances didn't improve. The defence barely improved (if I'm being fair, there were 3 more clean sheets than his predecessors managed). The home form got worse. The in-game management got worse. And he didn't endear himself to anybody with his holier than thou, prickly and belittling approach to anybody who dared question his ineptitude.

Football is all about winning, and had we been winning then few would have got so annoyed with him waving to the Palace fans while ignoring us, or indeed Foster's videos or any of the other generally small distractions that actually in such a poor season suddenly assume greater annoyance. I'd have gladly suffered Hodgson's meandering press conferences had we actually won the match he was waffling on about in his usual detached 'hey I had nothing to do with this' style. But we weren't winning.

I've no doubt that one day we will all learn more about behind the scenes of these past few months, and I suspect the truth and dirty laundry might emerge that will show that few managers would have stood much of a chance to keep this poor squad up. However, I'm also sure that many would have put in a better effort than Hodgson did, both on and off the field, and for that I too include him in my list of our worst ever appointments.

He took the ineptitude of Bassett, the lack of charm of Mazzarri, the 'why have we appointed him' reaction to QSF part 2, the 'I really wish I were somewhere else' of Rodgers and Silva and the dull football of the bygone eras of Perryman, Lewington (in parts) and Ivic..and managed to combine them all!

I only wish he'd followed the example of another ex manager under Pozzo, a certain Scot, and disappeared after a week!

 

Yet the players apparently loved him compared to Ranieri..

Not that they showed it by getting results and putting in place whatever he told them to do .

 

A very well put together argument, I must say.

 

That doesn’t make sense - going by the way most of the players regressed under him I would have thought it was the exact opposite!

And going by the comments Roy made about this squad being the most difficult he’s ever worked with, it certainly didn’t seem like a harmonious relationship.

 

Interesting that you didn’t include Vialli in your references to ex-Watford managers, which makes sense - he was bad, but in a completely different way to Hodgson. His main failing was he didn’t seem to “get” Watford - I’m not sure that’s a problem with Roy, for all his faults, as he spent the previous four years managing a club not dissimilar in size and history to us.

And while I was generally a fan of Ray as manager, admittedly some of the performances under Roy & Ray are somewhat reminiscent of the worst ones under Lewington - the 4-1 home defeat against Palace (5-1 to the same team in 2003/04), 2-0 home defeat to Brighton (same scoreline to Preston, Ray’s last game) and 4-0 loss at Wolves (3-0 at Reading, Boxing Day 2004).

 

Fair point - it was a 2nd hand comment made by someone to me via a couple of players who didn’t play under Ranieri which probably explains their view !

 

Fair point. I don't think I was as anti Vialli as many were, but the main reason I didn't include him if I'm truthful was I couldn't think of a very very short summary to describe his failings and then compare them to Hodgson's! The two really seem to be chalk and cheese!

Ray did a good job in very difficult circumstances, and the cup runs are amazing, but there were times when the style of play wasn't great. I wouldn't blame him for this as he had hardly any budget and was forced to play a style that fitted his means. Towards the end in particular it wasn't great though, hence the comparison with Hodgson!

 

So Hodgson is the only Watford manager we haven’t sacked under Pozzo?

(I know you could argue neither were QSF first time or Joka, but with them I think they definitely wanted to stay on and they would’ve if we’d wanted them to)

 

QSF said in one of the Tale of the Vic books the Pozzos/Duxbury had stopped talking to him in about February so presume there was some sort of break down in relations hence the break clause coming into play .

 

Didn’t Sannino resign? Same with Zola and Garcia? Technically as you say I think Jokanovic and QSF came to the end of their contracts, but was that the same for Mazzari, in that the year two option not activated?

 

Hopefully we can convince him to stay to help out that forest green bloke

 

And yet he came back? I might have to check this out. Is it on Audible?

 

Not sure if it’s available on the net.

Yes would seem a bit strange but then we are an odd club atm!

 

Rumours abound that this whopper might make a return to Palace.

 

If true that would make 4 ex-Watford managers in the Prem.

 

Did he ever really leave them?

 

Would be 5

 

That would be truly hilarious, although just heard talk of that guy who is doing amazingly well in France and learnt everything from football manager might be in the frame? Would be interesting to see how it would work out with him.

 

Interesting juxtaposition with Hodgson who appeared to have learnt nothing by actually being a Football Manager.

 

Given a long enough timeline of Pozzo ownership it will eventually get to 20.

 

Hahahahhahahaha

 

It would be a fitting end to Woy's career if he oversaw the relegation of those sh1thouses

 

That sacking is worthy of Gino. (Not the sacking of Roy - that comes next, and will be worthy of the International Criminal Court.)