If There Was A Protest Against The Owner….

Because he doesn't give a ****.

The club treats the fans with the contempt that many of them deserve.

 

Who though specifically? Which particular despot is making us lose 3-0 to Norwich? Give me some specific names and examples.

FFP means you can only spend so much within the limitations of your revenue, that hasn’t changed since we got promoted. It’s why Everton couldn’t spend a penny this season until they shifted Digne. Incidentally Everton have spent a lot of money, but are still struggling, but it’s all about money?

We’ve churned through about £700m and £50m of parachute payments since we first got promoted, yet are somehow worse than when we first got promoted and had the benefit of none of that. Meanwhile the TV money has stayed the same. Up to the Newcastle takeover only really Wolves and Leeds have joined the league and made a relative success of it, we used to compete well with Wolves and in fact one of our best ever displays in the PL was against them. All the other teams are pretty much the same with more or less the same owners as when we first got promoted and stayed up effortlessly for four seasons.

Your argument is illogical and makes little sense, especially without any actual examples and evidence to back it up. Just repeating the word money whilst completely ignoring the catalogue of glaring errors our owner had made over the past couple of years is a strange stance to take from someone who generally comes across as very intelligent.

 

Petchey was wealthier than Elton John but wanted the club to be self-financing because he had absolutely no interest in financing it. He built the two stands but only because the law required it, and he sold two of the best players to finance it.

No doubt he was financially sound but, when it came to the end, he was shrewd and ruthless. There had been a historical debt left on the books – money lent to the club by Elton John, the previous owner – that had never been reconciled or written off. Petchey inherited this debt and so when he came to selling the club back to the consortium, which had Elton as its figurehead, he insisted on the debt being paid to him. As owner, he was absolutely in his rights to do this because when he had bought the club he had bought that debt too, but the fact was that Elton / the consortium was in the bizarre position of repaying a debt that had been lent to the club by Elton in the first place. It nearly scuppered the takeover but Petchey wouldn't let it go.

To be fair to Petchey, when relegation was a distinct possibility under Roeder he allowed a few signings and loanees that really made the difference. Only once did Petchey push the boat out financially – spending 400 grand on Moralee, who was the floppiest of flops.

 

True, we shouldn’t be losing to Norwich like that, but in most respects we are simply being outgunned. Other teams have established players, we have punts.

 

I would love to fully understand the impact of Brexit on the recruitment model. I've spoken to a few people in the game who say it's clearly a factor for many smaller and medium-sized clubs but no one is prepared to fully explain or acknowledge how much things have changed.

Certainly the talented but unproven/less experienced European players now need to pass the work permit criteria whereas previously a European citizen could just sign regardless of the number of minutes they'd played for their national side. That has raised the bar for eligibility. I think it perhaps explains why we've signed mostly non-European international players in the past two windows, or an old but clearly eligible one like Kucka.

It's perhaps subtly shifted the types of players that are available to us in our price range and eliminated what had been a quite effective competitive advantage.

I also wonder if it explains why we went for Ranieri followed by Hodgson. We recruited Xisco just before the work permit rules changed and he wouldn't have qualified later on.

 

Let’s be brutally honest, Harry is a shadow of his former self. I still think he was given orders to tone down the act.

 

But that’s as much about bad decisions as it is money, which you don’t for some reason want to acknowledge.

The super bowl is on tonight featuring a team that has never won it, yet in the last decade a team like New England got to the super bowl five times. Kansas got to the last two and the divisional final this year. Yet the income from the league is divided evenly amongst the teams with a salary cap implemented that is the same for every team. The worst team from the previous year gets the pick the best player from college, or trade that pick for other picks to help strengthen their team where they think they need it the most.

Despite all this and the fact it operates in the exact opposite way to the PL, in that any advantage is given to teams like us with teams like Man City having the worst pick of any new players so being at the biggest disadvantage, you still get good teams and bad teams.

Why do you think you still get teams that make regular trips to the super bowl, and teams that have never even made it there, or haven’t even made the post season for decades, when there is no monetary advantage for any team and in fact the bad teams get a leg up to do better?

 

That's not me saying "Gino in because of Brexit," by the way. I think the owner and chief executive have a lot of work to do to explain what it is they are doing because at the moment it just looks like they're acting completely randomly hoping the next guess is the one that pays off and, as such, that is making it very hard to support the club or the team. I look at the team on the pitch and just don't know what it is I'm supposed to be supporting and, sadly, the same appears to be the case with the club too. What do we as a football team stand for? For the first time in many, many years I have no idea. (Yes, I note the community work and so on, but on a matchday, it all evaporates as soon as the players get on the pitch. What are we?)

 

Don't you mean the Ann Swanson stand?

 

No I wouldn’t and It would make me cringe if I’m honest

 

I think you, and by extension, a lot of our fans finally seeing this is amazing to me. It’s been like this since the cup final, perhaps even before. Fingers in ears and hands over eyes have led us to this point.

In an alternate universe, Deeney misses that penalty against Wolves. We end up finishing 7th and move to the next level. I wish he had missed it. Everything happening now goes back to that point.

 

Quite right too.

 

Can we form ourselves into legitimate fans group and submit 20 questions that we'd like answered by the board? Mine is, why are you such a smarmy sh1tbag Duxbury?

 

Nah, I've been here before. I didn't swallow the Cult of Simpson, Ashton and Boothroyd and let my season ticket lapse for a couple of seasons, for one thing. I could barely bring myself to watch the Dyche season because the football was literally appalling but I understood the constraints and the work going on behind the scenes to solve the Russo-Bassini conundrum.

There's a lot of revisionism about the end of the cup final season, as if we somehow had a choice between finishing seventh OR reaching an unwinnable cup final and chose the cup final option. That simply isn't how football works. Finishing 7th was always a long-ish shot and if you look back at how (relatively) tight the squad was back then I just think a few of the better players were running on fumes by the end. That spring, even as the league results slipped, was one of the best periods I've ever had supporting Watford. The anticipation and hope of a cup final appearance, the slim European dream that didn't truly fade until right near the end. That may never be repeated.

I also don't think 2019-20 was *that* bad. We were always likely to have a bad run and Pearson almost did enough to drag them out of it after some big self-inflicted mistakes. To say that the rot set in before we reached the cup final is barmy and requires, I think, a fair bit of retro-fitting.

 

Having said that, I have consistently said that there were some things the club got wrong in that period.

There was the Rocketman stunt before the Southampton game that I felt had no place before such a crucial game and I think Duxbury's extremely ill-advised email the morning after the cup final was indicative of a certain loss of focus on the work that had got them to where they were in the first place. So perhaps you're right. I just don't think it would have been proportionate to throw our toys out of the pram because we only averaged a point per game over the last seven games of the 2018-19 season.

 

With respect, I believe that is the revisionism right there. We played pretty poorly after reaching the final, and most of the fans on here, on social media and in person said that the players were ‘saving themselves for the final’. Media commentators said the same thing. It also happened in the run up to the semi final against Palace. A result drop off excused by other aspects.

I will always believe that had we not beaten Wolves, we’d have got closer to 7th. Much closer.

 

The best protest is to stop going to games if you do that or stop supporting the club financially if you live too far away and do that.

So much stuff going on in the world right now that if people cant be bothered to turn up and protest against them why would anyone be bothered to turn up to one based around a football club?

I really am 50/50 on the Pozzos, so many good things done for the club yet the manager and player situation is crazy. I dont like the way we treat players and I feel our association with Bayat will eventually bite us in the ar$e one day.

What they need to do in the summer is develop a 5 year plan based around promising young players that we develop ourselves rather than loaning them out hoping they get developed elsewhere. Get a manager that is a young but promising talent and give them at least 18 months to try to build something. I know this wont happen though.

Definitely getting relegated this season, will definitely be in the mix for promotion next season which is really our level under the current ownership.

 

I'm sure we'll be down well before the last home game by Leicester. I'd like to see an empty home end for that one.

 

Maybe you're right but there's absolutely no way of proving it one way or the other. It's just as valid to say we could have lost to Wolves at Wembley and then fallen away. There's absolutely nothing to say that defeat would have suddenly re-energised them to get the EIGHT additional points they needed in the remaining games to finish 7th. To qualify for Europe we'd have had to go from averaging 1pt per game over the final seven to averaging more than 2pts per game. Yes, we fell away but, if I remember rightly, we were 7th with four to play and would have needed two wins and two draws from the last four. Considering one was Chelsea away, that was never a gimme. It was nowhere near a gimme!

Getting "closer, much closer", to seventh would have meant what? Finishing 8th or 9th. And then what? No Europe and no cup final either in your parallel world.

The point is, no one *chose* to focus on the cup rather than the league. The game was there to be won and we won it in absolutely extraordinary fashion. That is a game I will remember to my dying breath. The sense of disbelief, of being with friends and family, to witness something that had happened just once before in more than a century of the club's history. That matters and means something.

 

Have you done anything different to any parent in the Family Stand, or OAP in the GT? Apart from booing a little more vociferously?

Organised a protest? Returned your season ticket?

 

Not to me. We got hammered 6-0. I’ve never watched the game on TV, I’ve never seen the goals on YouTube. It was horrific. I left at 3-0 and they scored again as I was walking out. I paid £100 for the privilege. It didn’t matter. Is that something to remember? Does it mean something to you? Is losing ok, is losing embarrassingly ok? Did waving the flags in ‘defiance’ and saying empty platitudes like ‘we’ll be back’ work for you? Even though they were meaningless and a year later we were relegated?

Perhaps I’m being unfair and some of the above doesn’t apply to you. You seem like a nice sort on here. But really, it cycles back to Burnsy’s original question. Would people join a protest, no, they wouldn’t. Because not enough of our fans hate watching their team lose.

 

I dare say so and if true, then just one more straw to heap on the back of the "I Hate Pozzo" camel.

Also I suspect that Roy being here doesn't help. Sour faced old owl probably hates a joyful mascot as much as he despises goals and fun football.

 

It set in the summer before. There was a game at the back end of the Silva/Gracia season (Huddersfield I think it was), where the center backs were running around like headless chickens. Up went the cry from the forum "Gino knows what he is doing. Gino is not an idiot, he can see it. Gino will sort it in the summer" blah blah blah. What business did Pozzo do in terms of defense that summer? He gave Britos a contract extention, and nothing else.

Incredibly nearly a full FOUR seasons after these discussions Craig Cathcart starts week in, week out for the team. Two years after these discussions Marriappa was busy blasting the ball into his own net to cost us a vital win at Brighton. And Kabasele as we speak remains first cab off the rank (with a lengthy contract extension in his pocket) should the mighty Cathcart pick up knock.

It really isn't barmy to suggest Pozzo was beginning to make very poor decisions before the cup final season. You just need to look close enough. Gracia worked miracles with that defense.

 

This is it. Gino and Scott need to do a fans forum. Answer random questions from supporters, rather than picking and choosing what to address.

To answer the question posed in this thread, no. I wouldn't protest. It would have to get to Bassini levels of incompetence for me to join in.

 

Yep that's what I've done. Barnet away yesterday. Cracking result and atmosphere.

 

I’ve absolutely no interest in the Superbowl. Not a care about it in the World.

We’ve been punching above our weight and now we are not. That’s it really. Could we be better run? Of course. Have we made bad decisions? Yes. But I’ve got better things to protest about.

I don’t have to go is the bottom line, but I’m not quite ready to give up on Hodgson/Sarr/Louza giving us one more roll of the dice.

 

It’s very interesting how easy it appears to be for our fans to support another team.

 

Does that say more about Watford fans or the state of the club?

 

You don’t have to have an interest in the super bowl, I wasn’t asking you to take an interest in it. I’ve laid it all out for you in black and white and still you skirt the question.

 

I am coming round to the idea that we would benefit from a change. While I think Gino could turn it round if he was willing to make changes, I don't think he ever will. I'm not even sure what our model is now. When they came in we all assumed they would continue what they done at Udinese and get players with great potential to use us as a stepping stone. But that's not really happened, they don't employ head coaches that take any risks and so young players never get the chance.

We also look so toxic from the outside that some teams no longer want to negotiate with us and I'm sure by extension players don't want to play for us if they have other options.

However, I think a protest would just makes us look worse. Gino isn't going to buckle from a protest and the football world will laugh at us calling us entitled further making the club look worse.

I know this is a bit non committal but I don't know what the answer is. I also could be wrong.

 

I want Duxbury out mainly, he’s a CEO who’s failing.

I want the lies addressed, you made a statement that said we will have a squad full of young, hungry players.

Our team yesterday had a 38 year old, 33, 34, 32, 32 & 30.

What happened? He must hold some accountability for his words.

 

Or the state of football in general, plenty of fans from across the board choosing to support a local non league side

 

We know how are owners work, and have done since day 1. Wheather you like it or not is another question, but they are not bad owners. They have clearly made mistakes of course.

Focusing on our own youth players won't work. All the good ones will go to other prem clubs. At best we may have lower half champ quality left. The big clubs hover up any half decent player by offering them big wages and agents big fees. (My mates an agent and some of the amounts these kids get paid is unbelievable. The kid thinks he's made it and the parents think they have won the lottery. 5 years letter there playing league 2 football but driving top of the range sports cars!)

I don't know what an interview with the owners, as has been suggested, would achieve. We know what the strategy is, we know whst the plan is, it's clear. It hasn't worked this year obviously, but that is because the plan has been executed badly in terms of player recruitment and the timings of the hiring and fireings of the head coach / managers. They have the experience to get this right going forward

Personally, I want us to be the best we can be, so in the premiership. I don't buy into the train of thought that life is better bobbing around in the championship. If you do, fine, but I don't. Apart from our current model, the only alternative I can see is if some rich person/state wants to buy us as a kind of toy thing and is happy to spunk loads of money to (try to) keep watford in the premership. I have not heard any rumours of this happening.

We have had some bad owners in the past, but our current owners are Not bad. They do need to improve though.