Tom Cleverley - Head Coach

Thankfully it's not quite as manic as Beatlesmania.

 

Looks like they're reaching out beyond & before for a time and a word.

 

https://www.watfordfc.com/news/official-cleverley-confirmed-as-permanent-head-coach

 

Wow !
Permanent head coach until 6 games into the new season then ?!
I guess we couldn't convince any of our 6 first choices.
@Relegation Certs will be delighted.

 

I take it there'll be a bit of a shake-up then? Paul Robinson (our Paul, not one of the 1000s of other Paul Robinsons out there!) would be nice

 

We've gone for the cheap and easy option, colour me shocked. Tells you everything you need to know about the ambitions of the club, or lack there of.

We'll be in a right old state in the first 10 games of the season and he'll be out the door.

 

Well, I'm not 100% convinced but I'm very pleased for Tom and I hope he proves me wrong.

 

I'm both pleased and disappointed. Pleased as he's a likeable bloke who knows the club, has its best interests at heart, has potential to improve, and the players seem to like him. Disappointed as it suggests we're not going to be particularly ambitious next season, as if we were going to splash the cash in the transfer window you'd think we'd push the boat out more for a Diego Martinez.

This combined with the Elan Ricardo signing initially suggests next season the club's m.o. will continue along similar lines.

"A full first-team staffing structure for the 2024/25 season will be confirmed soon" it'll be interesting to see what kind of quality he can get to support him in the coaching roles at least.

 

The cheap option and the one with the least resistance against the owners, especially with the squad he'll be left with. Probably gone after 15 games, at least he'll get a whole season pay-off.

Best of luck of Tom, you'll need it.

 

Exactly this. Uninspiring appointment off the back of run of pretty average performances. The fact we're now chalking up draws against the 'top 7 in the league', as if that's as comparable or recognisable as the top 6 in the PL, just shows where our ambitions lie. You'd expect a Rotherham or a Plymouth (no offence to them, just thinking of clubs with relatively little history at this level) to make a statement like that when appointing their caretaker manager to the job full time.

 

Sorry but a statement like what? "Club X is delighted to confirm the permanent appointment of person Y as Head Coach" doesn't seem particularly unusual or objectionable wording...

 

Smashing news. First thing we’ve done right for quite a while.

Now show some patience with him. Like anybody learning a new job, he needs time. But he’s shown enough already to suggest he could be a success.

Good Luck Tom.

 

We know Pozzos want to sell
We know Pozzos won’t invest next season and will sell anything that’s worth a nickel or two
Id rather TC then another merry go round of managers that can’t deliver as they have the wrong players

and wasn’t he bought in by Elton…maybe he can have a quiet word

 

Read the sentence before the bit of my post you quoted and the answer will reveal itself.

 

Yeah Pozzo's aim next season will be 21st or above.

At least Cleverly can empathise with the players what a car crash of a club it is.

 

Good for him

 

Who realistically should we have gone for that's affordable

 

I like Tom as a character (and a player, before his legs fell off well before the end of his playing career). He's purported himself well during his brief interim period, and I like the fact that, for whatever reason, we have not been relegated. I'd love to see him go on to be a successful manager/head coach. Hell, even prove to be an innovative, rip-roaring genius of a tactician and leader of men.

That being noted, we really haven't seen any particular evidence of that so far. This is mildly depressing, for me, because as a few others have already said, it seems as though it marks the level of ambition we are approaching next season with. The takeaway from this seems to be 'get ready for another year of dull, frustrating treading water with the mild punctuation of excitement associated with spending a few weeks/months looking down with a distant sense of dread'. Asprilla will leave, another promising young player is set to come in to learn how to actually play in a half-decent league, flatter to deceive a lot, and eventually show just enough to get plucked by a real team where he'll show his actual worth whilst not particularly having contributed to anything much here, all told. So, it's player-trading business as usual for Gino.

The first of two caveats to this are that, a la my theory on (one of the main reasons) why Eustace wasn't appointed, unlike most coaches Cleverley means something to the broader fanbase. If Gino is prepared to fucck him about as much as he has all the others, it will expose him to a popularity battle that's more damaging to him in the eyes of fans, and that he has a far greater chance of losing, than with a usual run-of-the-mill hire. Perhaps that means he'll get fairer treatment than most.

Even that is rose-tinted imagination glasses, quite possibly, though. As @Burnsy, among others with insight, has previously attested - Gino's brain is that broken, and he really doesn't think anyone else's opinions is worth anything at all. So he'll probably just as likely do the dirty on Clevs at the first opportunity regardless, given how hardwired it is into his DNA.

The second is, of course, that Tom has neither the players nor the fabled preseason to implement any of his actual methods so far, and that when he receives them, he will turn out to be the Basingstoke/Bradford Guardiola. Stranger things have happened at sea. Like mermaids, or Scylla and Charybdis.

 

I'm not completely convinced this is the right move, but I'd rather have Tom in charge than some nobody from the Serie B who talks gibberish and gets sacked after 6 games. At least we have continuation over the summer break too for once.

We have got to sort out our toothless attack otherwise we are in big trouble next season. Whether you are Pozzo in or Pozzo out, it's clearer than ever that he has run out of ideas and doesn't know how to turn us into a force to be reckoned with again.

 

Not sure what people want but I’m very happy this.
Do the naysayers expect Pep or want another never heard of,
or never to be heard of again random foreign coach ?
TC has conducted himself very well and has got the same bunch of players
that Val had playing an improved brand of football. Yes only one win but
only one loss that was unfair.
The squad is light on numbers partially due to Val not wanting to bring in
players that weren’t to his exact specification. TC will hopefully have a say
in who comes and goes in the summer and a pre season to work with them.
There are rumours of a sale but at the moment that’s all they are, rumours.
The reality is that we are where historically we would be looking at our history
in my lifetime ( 62 years ) ,mid table Tier 2. And do you what ,I’ll take that if
I see what I’ve seen from the players since TC took over. We are not a club in a position
to finance a major promotion push by spending a fortune in the summer.
But a well coached slightly improved squad could well give us an enjoyable season.
Here’s to three points on Saturday and roll on next season.
You Orn’s.

 

Ultimately this is the circle completing itself, back to appointing recently retired players like Malky and Dyche as our manager and scrabbling around the lower end of the league, because we don’t have the money or pull to do anything else.

 

Well obviously not no, you do realise it’s not a binary choice between the best manager in the world, and our youth team coach? There are several thousand shades of grey in between.

 

Found our level.

 

Haha, what do I know!

 

Expect us to announce the signing of a prolific striker at Clevs' insistence next then!

 

That's not quite all it says or how it says it though - it adds the noteworthy point that we also managed 4 clean sheets across the games for instance, which is not actually too shabby.

Rotherham and Plymouth also can't point to any interim managers of theirs as being former Man Utd players and England internationals.

Just focusing on your re-wording of one part of the statement is doing a bit of dis-service to Tom imo.

 

Again, where is there anything credible that says the Pozzo’s want to sell? We don’t ‘know’ that at all. The the contrary, most things that people with contacts hear is that they aren’t looking to sell.

 

Dangerous appointment for Pozzo. The fans won’t turn on Cleverley in quite the same way as they would the others. Sack him undeservedly and there might be a boo or two. It won’t stop the ‘give me a shirt’ merchants though.

 

There been a lot of people recently clamouring for Tom to be appointed (me including), things have taken an upturn since he took over in difficult circumstances, if winning games was expected straight away the job wouldn’t have been available, he had done well only losing to a joke of a goal in the 99th minute at Southampton. Let’s get behind him and hope he is around for more than until when things get a bit sticky. Which they undoubtedly will!

 

Without naming a source I have been told that they very much want to sell but with a 120m asking price.

 

The squad is the shittest it's been since the Pozzos took over and the last remnants of the Prem money have gone, so even with the prospect of an early payoff, the job is as unattractive as it's been in yonks, so Clev is clearly the cheap option, but it doesn't mean that he's a bad option, he's done decently so far with a squad which, albeit is likely to be better than what he'll have next season, but a) isn't his own, b) haven't had a pre-season with him, and c) was on a terrible run before he came in. Anything above 22nd is the aim for next season really, feel he'll be absolutely fine for that

 

The problem is Gino will want more than that