The ‘all New’ Duxbury Out Thread

To be honest, I'm not too fussed about the pile-on from YouTube fanboys and Palace die-hards.

 

Foster made plenty of mistakes, but Bachmann's performances were real duck-out-of-water atrocities. So odd, as he was pretty solid in the Championship.

 

Foster was atrocious as well. The odd decent save sure, but even Bachmann made those.

I don’t disagree that Foster may have been marginally better - but his attitude was clearly an issue and it’s actually mental how he kept his place in the side when he was behaving like that and not actually being a good GK to boot.

I’d have played a GK who probably contributed to what little positive atmosphere there was around the club like Angelini, over Foster (openly defying his bosses and annoying teammates) and Bachmann (publicly angling for a move).

Or more so - not spent £6m on a GK who we could have signed cheaper earlier in the season and brought him over immediately rather than have him playing out his season elsewhere.

Just mental decisions everywhere you look.

Duxbury now saying he noticed the culture etc was wrong DURING the season - it’s crazy how so little was done to reverse it as it happened.

 

Completely agree. Marginally, I think I trusted Foster a little bit more, but neither were near good enough and Foster clearly gave up caring.

 

As much of a nobhead as Foster is and as shameful as his conduct has been over the past few years he is more than within his rights to tell the hierarchy to do one given they were happily flogging this tat in the official club shop throughout last season

 

Foster should have been dropped as well as fined and Hodgson sacked.

That's how you deal with gross misconduct.

 

Actually think the latest article makes Duxbury, Giaretta and Gino look worse than Foster and Hodgson.

Horrendous leadership, and clearly leadership that has lost respect. Way too much player power over the past few years and this proves it. As someone who is a leader of a multimillion dollar organization, I have multiple staff that report to me. I would never accept that behaviour. This article literally proves that the players don’t take their hierarchy seriously. Asked him to not do it, did it anyway, fined him, kept doing it anyway, nothing done, so keeps doing it. Other players see that so they in turn think screw it, we can just put minimal effort in, they won’t do anything about it.

Not only does culture need to change in the dressing room, but we need a culture change in the boardroom as well.

Makes me think that all these young players that have seemingly had “poor attitudes” were just following the examples of senior players towards their authority. Monkey see monkey do. The board created this culture.

Foster knew he could do it and keep doing it as the consequences were never going to be that serious.

People mad at Foster, when we should be fuming with the board for allowing this culture to be created in the first place. Culture leaks from the top down.

 

Agreed with all apart from the last paragraph. As a (very) senior player, it’s Foster’s role to set the tone in the changing room and around the club, regardless of what is happening above him.

The man should have (and would have) known far better and no lack of leadership from his bosses changes what he did. He only gets that’s sort of pass if he’s an immature youth player. And he’s far from that. The guy deserves every negative comment put his way.

 

I'm sure Duxkbrie was furious about this and fined the shop for selling it but they wouldn't stop.

 

They opened the door to it by allowing Deeney to cultivate his hard talking pundit persona and letting him write a column in The Sun.

Good to know that we have to resort to contractual clauses to stop extra curricular nonsense rather than just having a culture where it isn't acceptable.

 

Trouble is, as we all know, most footballers are honed from an early age to be arrogant knobs chasing a mega pay day. Most don't get there but because they mainly concentrate on the next big payday we get the type of lazy, apathetic journeymen who just believe they are good, it's the other 10 that are rubbish - they dont put in the extra energy required.
I guess add to that the varying priorities of all the managers out there.... Gives the results we've seen in recent years.
Our future will hopefully be built around a young eager manager and a younger eager squad?....
What's not to like..?

 

The owner, Chairman, Sporting Director and their ‘agent’ mate.

 

Latest piece:

https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/s...ys-watford-managers-always-input-new-signings

I think it was mentioned at the supporters committee that there are three academy players they want to integrate into the first team. Any guesses who they would be? I ask because it's interesting that we won't be recruiting in those areas.

 

At a guess I’d say Shaq Forde (striker), Aidan Manning (midfielder) and Ryan Andrews (left or right back).

All three were given professional contracts recently.

 

As much as I've been impressed with Manning & Andrews, I feel it'd be a bit early for them to be included within the squad. If anything I'd see those two going out on loan.

I would've thought the left-back Morris & Joseph Hungbo were more likely squad fillers along with Forde, and only because of the remarks re. Forde at the near end of last season am I including him.

If not Forde then it's possible Lo-Everton (if he signs the contract offered) or even Cukur (after he amassed a mighty 6 minutes in the latest set of internationals) could be the 3rd one.

I've not included Baah because he's always been included within 1st team squad lists but as he's been playing with the u23s I suppose it's not impossible to say he could have been recommended by Johnson & Gilligan.

 

Any idea how and why the scholars Jack Grieves, Tobi Adeyemo and Charlie Davis went on tour with a Spurs youth squad last month?

They're probably too young to be part of the first team already, but if the tour with Spurs was just to test their level and give them a bit more experience I wonder if they are three who could have been earmarked as youth players whose route to the first team the club have signalled they don't want blocked? From what I gather Grieves might be the most highly rated of our current prospects?

 

By all accounts, Andrew French is a good guy and journalist, and clearly the club are prepared to entertain him/feel it's now necessary to allow the Wobby, with him representing them, at least a meagre insight into the club. We weren't getting even anywhere near this level of contact/content before.

I also appreciate that we're not talking about politics, and this isn't Newsnight or a minister doing the studio rounds.

All that being said, apart from the odd tidbit about Foster and the hierarchy's view of his behaviour (something we've also debated, and frankly leaves them coming out looking roughly as silly as him, alongside any suspicions over the timing of Scott 'coming clean' over his true feelings on the matter and its potential role in reshaping a narrative), I'm not entirely sure what the point of this extensive interview was, when all it really is is a chance to have Duxbury give a further lengthy statement setting out the exact same claims, PR puff and, in some cases, misdirection, in a remarkably similar manner, as last time round.

Duxbury doesn't receive any further questioning on his answers, and most of his answers really boil down to 'no, actually, it's already fine as it is - it just doesn't work the way you think it does'. The problem is that it clearly does work, from all available evidence, at least partly in the way people think it does.

The Mogi question, as we noted the other day, is the prime example of this, and a huge red flag. Duxbury essentially gaslit the entire issue, and waved it away, without a second thought, or a second word from Andrew. His answer was hugely concerning, and frankly its content alone suggests to me that very little, if anything at all has changed, and the same old dodgy dealings and shrouded arrogance is the order of the day. To pretend openly, at this point, and to attempt to convince the fans of the fact that, you have no idea what Mogi Bayat's legal situation is, is damning.

And in response to that - nothing. People have pointed out here already that it's likely that this sudden appearance of the floodgates opening and Fuxbury letting us all in to the inner sanctum will entirely appear the dribbling Twitter and FB masses, and that is probably the case. But, part of the reason it would serve that function is because all these claims and 'answers' are put out, and just allowed to stand as fact.

Now, I very much appreciate the limitations French is probably under here - as with any journalist, he and/or the Wobby are concerned about access with the club, and Scott might very well have refused to allow any pushback to be either carried out or, at least, published. I'm not accusing Andrew of anything at all. But as a result of the way this has functioned, I can't really see how it is, in the end, anything other than an exercise in soft-pedalling the flaws in their approach and the mistakes they have made, and allow them to carry on wielding supreme executive power rather shambolically.

 

I did see they'd gone, even saw a photo of Grieves & Davis alongside what looked like Tom Hart (u18 lead coach) and a couple of Spurs players and another coach. The person posting the picture seems well up on Spurs news but he could only guess they were on trial. I did ask if he new who the 'Tom Hart' coach was but he didn't reply.

Several days later it was mooted all three players could have been playing as guests to give them experience (as you surmised) and likened to something similar happening with Ipswich youth players 1 or 2 years ago. I've not followed it up and can't say if this is common practice or not, or even if we've entered into an arrangement with Spurs for this to happen on a regular basis. It wasn't that long ago rumours surfaced we could have a closer working relationship with Arsenal so maybe it's something along those lines?

Grieves of course made the bench for the home game against Everton (alongside the impressive Adrian Blake) so he's obviously impressing someone in training and as you say, it looks like he's been earmarked as a talent. Also, I don't think they'd stick a 10 minute Youtube video up with an academy player if they didn't see him progressing.
I've not seen enough to form an opinion one way or the other of him, only that he's quick in what he does (ie. doesn't appear ponderous on the ball), is athletic and the last time I saw him he showed some nifty footwork by moving the ball quickly under close control to fox his marker.

I've not seen Davis play and Adeyemo I've seen just once. He signed up with an agent last season so that could be an indicator of discussions with WFC or possibly other clubs sniffing around, only time will tell on that one.

Thinking of how Richard Johnson got a lot of the young players out on loan last season, it could well be the club are trying to get as many 1st & 2nd year scholars out of the comfort zone of the u18 league we're part of and making them react to new experiences against/with players who are probably of a higher standard, which can only be a good thing.

Apologies for the ramble and not having a definitive answer to your query!

 

I will say that, I strongly suspect that one of the reasons the Fux can publicly throw about his comfort with the financial situation of the club this relegation compared to last is because he is planning with promotion as a necessity/guarantee within the next season or, at a serious stretch, two, and some of the proclamations attributed to him do seem to lend weight to that, as far as I can recall.

 

Latest Peter Crouch podcast involves him going through his last Stoke contract. Had a relegation clause in there for wages to be reduced by 45% and said that's absolutely standard so quite how we got ourselves in the position where none of our players had them is gross incompetence.

Also said that, there was a clause that players had to live within 35 miles of the training ground unless given written permission (even if it wasn't necessarily strictly enforced).

Made me think about player power at Watford. Deeney and Foster both with their extra curricular activities, both living a couple of hours away from London Colney.

Think we cut our senior players far too much slack and rather than setting a good example we allowed them to do exactly the opposite (also includes Deeney turning up to every pre season massively out of shape).

 

I remember the notion of relegation clauses being fairly standard was the prevailing opinion on here until someone posted a source a while back which claimed that they are not, in fact, commonplace. Can't remember the source now unfortunately, but I remember being surprised at the time. I have a vague recollection of it being the Athletic but that might be completely off.

 

The Man at ESSO.

 

That was over by the time GT came back in the 90s. He had a wrangle with Jason Lee over it but lost.

 

I’m finding these every day little stories in the Watford observer quite refreshing…… Duxbury is saying fall the right things, if they follow through with them I think we might be in for some good times again

 

Not sure GT “lost”. Lee refused to move after signing so GT kicked him out at the start of his second season (after that goal at Pompey). They were the rules. You complied or left.

 

You might be right. In GT’s first spell I think his rule was that all players had to live within 15 miles of Watford. I’m not sure but I didn’t think that was still in place/enforceable by 1998.

 

One thing about this new approach from the club re: young players is that it sets the scene for us not spending much money…. We will sell Sarr and replace with Hungbo, Dennis will be replaced by Asprilla maybe. Cathcart by Pollock, cleverly and Kucka by Dele-Bashiru and Quina ….. sure we need a number 9 and will probably loan one in and at RWB it will be one of a choice of about 6 from Udinese, maybe the lad they took from Derby …. While I welcome us utilising youth players, I get the feeling we will chuck them in at the deep end without the support around them. Hopefully i am somewhat proved wrong and we strike a good balance.

oh and GT insisted players lives within a certain distance from the club training ground. 1. Due to the journey time not being good for the player and 2. So ideally they lived within the local community with which they worked. I imagine it’s un-enforceable now and a violation of their human rights

 

IIRC, that was the reason that Lee, still very much first team material up to that point, was sold.

 

It does seem like it should be a violation of their human rights to make them live in Watford - I think the European Court is using a similar argument to prevent the current UK deportations to Rwanda.

 

I still don't like the slippery snekky charlatan

 

It was Lee who lost. He wouldn't make the move south for whatever reason so despite him being one of our best players the previous season he was moved on. Nobody was allowed to be bigger than the club in the GT days.