Tom Cleverley - Head Coach

Really? Good lord. I think it will be pretty much the only song anybody is singing

 

Reads like a WatfordTalk post from back in the day.

 

I agree, but from the outside, I can tell him it will be for the best. He'll get another championship job under better conditions and he'll be able to succeed far better than he could here.

 

Thankfully I don't have to pay as I'm involved with the clubs youth teams, and the beer is reasonably priced. I can tolerate it

 

Thing is, it is possible for Cleverley (and the supporters) to appreciate the many things Pozzo's ownership has improved, or brought us, while also believing that he's run out of steam, is surrounded by acolytes and people who just want to ensure the gravy continues to flow in their direction.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with saying that the training ground has improved, the stadium has improved, and acknowledging that we've had some glorious days and seen some great players. That's just a fact.

Pozzo and Duxbury's issue now is how they get out while people still appreciate those positives more than they dislike the negatives of the past few years of mismanagement.

Maybe Pozzo won't care in 10 years' time but every day he refuses to invest in the squad, runs things into the ground, undermines the management, and saddles the club with players who are just the physical equivalent of trading cards, his legacy unravels.

As for Duxbury, he is the executive in charge of this mess. A club that has lurched from crisis to disaster, says what it expedient at the time, hoping no one remembers later, or calls them to account. Yesterday's statement was the weirdest thing I've seen them do in a long while. Backing the manager in such a manner as to suggest he's in charge until about 4.56pm on Saturday but what happens after that is pure speculation.

 

This!

Many of us have probably been unhappy with our boss at various times of our life, but it’s hardly sensible to advertise that fact publicly. I worked in the media where it would have been incredibly easy to make a choice comment or two about my employers that a million or so people would hear immediately, but hardly good for my career prospects. Tom is no different. It’s his first managerial job at a club he loves, why would he risk throwing that away by having a very public fight in the media.

Also, sometimes what isn’t said is more powerful than what is.

 

Literally you can't. Imaginatively you can.

 

BBC on the case: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c3vpdez5pgdo

200 responses, 199 backed Cleverly.

Turns out @Relegation Certs real name is in fact Roger, which is a surprise.

 

Welcome to the concept of comic hyperbole! You'll love it here.

 

Yeah, there will be losers who will just fall in line unfortunately. In my eyes we just sing it louder tomorrow and I am going and I will be. The statement says a lot about the owners.

 

Well, thank you. Even more welcome to the world of contranyms. Please make yourself figuratively at home.

 

Sounds to me like the sort of stuff captured pilots say when videoed whilst held hostage by the enemy.

 

It's literally or nothing for me, I'm afraid

 

"of course your jobs safe Tommy.. get outta here..."

 

It was revenge for anti-Gino chants, and a lot of other things. And there was nothing that we could do about it. Pacheta was a European journey man manager, and Tommy wasn't. And we had to sit still and take it. It was among the Italians. It was real carlos kickaball ****.

 

They even fired Tommy at the end of January, so his mother couldn't give him a transfer window at the funeral.

 

I think most people who have attended the games long term feel the same way .

 

Might as well go back to merging this thread with the Cleverley Out one. We all know what’s coming!

 

Or not.

Merge this with the Cleverley Out thread or the Cleverley Out thread with this? The other thread was started by the strange part-troll whose compulsive sexual desire and loneliness drives his tired, screeching posts.

Has it all gone a bit quieter now that Gino has spoken? Fans are stunned, not necessarily because of what he’s said, but the fact that he’s actually spoken and put his own name to words about backing Cleverley. But Pozzo’s statement today, welcome though it is, doesn’t actually mean anything if there’s no new players in. He lines up a new coach, ready to spend severance money, but doesn’t seem willing to buy a single new player for a position in which we need one. Difficult to see how this pans out for the good of the football club, given that Pozzo may change his mind on some things, but will never change his approach.

Is it possible that Duxbury actually persuaded him to make this statement and has challenged him to stick with it and not make the CEO look like a fool again?

 

Maybe it was all just speculation and there was never anything in it ?

 

Do you believe that?

 

I will just reiterate my belief that Gino never came anywhere near that statement, other than from a diktat on high vaguely approving some kind of fluff-support paragraph to the comms department (then executed about as poorly as it could possibly be). I don't think it counts as Gino 'having spoken', to be honest, and that detachment will be an extra bit of wiggle room when he still does what he was going to do some time shortly.

It's not even like timing is an issue, because as you say he's clearly not intending to furnish the head coach with anything he needs to have a go at success, or even compensate for the mounting injuries, so sack and replace now, or sack and replace in 3 weeks time - it's immaterial to Gino Putzo.

 

Dunno. It does seem odd that he’d decided to sack TC and had agreed to replace him with this Spanish guy and then changed his mind last minute with the guy poised to be appointed as a result of a luke warm adverse reaction from the fanbase and a few emails ?

 

Or maybe they were in negotiations with said Spaniard and things weren’t quite as far advanced as reported?
Certainly no smoke without fire

also don’t believe todays statement means anything. If we lose another 2 or 3 TC will be gone, and we have a very hard run…

 

I expect Pozzo spends his life planning who his next manager could be if he decided to fire the incumbant. I don't doubt that TC will be gone by the end of the season unless there are some bizarrely positive results against the odds over the next couple of months.

 

There’s no way anyone at this club puts their job on the line by faking statements from the owner.

He may not have logged into the clubs accounts and posted it himself, and it may be a slightly tarted up version of an ‘on the record’ statement. But he will have known it was being done and won’t say anything he hasn’t said himself in as many words.

 

Managers have agents these days.

It could well be a verbal agreement was reached weeks ago (as is being claimed) but we have sat on it. And his agent has now made his move and released the story to the media expecting it would push things along after midweek.

But Gino hasn’t bitten and instead not taken kindly to the manoeuvring being done.

 

I'm not for a second suggesting they have faked a statement - as I said, it will have come from a diktat on high very broadly approving them to create a statement to represent his sentiment, in the way that corporate comms/PR departments very regularly work when it comes to official quotes.

 

More coaching changes. Aranalde returns, Robbo demoted to analyst work.

 

LOL.

I’d call it a circus. But that would be harsh to clowns and acrobats.

 

https://x.com/WatfordFC/status/1884542926459392073?t=IBK_J6Zkq9HRCjlhAmXDLA&s=19

The official link to it.

 

Can almost guarantee this Assistant Coach was agreed pre-Coventry. Pushing 1 fan favourite out of eyesight.

They’ll give Tom until the end of the season now with no tools which he has asked for, and then replace him in the summer thanking him for his efforts.