Valerien Ismael - Manager

The Department of Ear, Nose & Throat/Head & Neck Surgery at Watford General will be busy next season, at least for the first few games!

 

Now you know

 

" We don't HAVE any Wodericks or Wogers or Wudolph the wed nose weindeer!"

 

He’s never spent more than a season at a club in his entire managerial career. Suits Gino perfectly

 

Hopefully we see some progress on all aspects of the squad's fitness with someone not assuming 'the players know what they need to do to get fit enough.'

 

Dyche, Zola, Sannini, Garcia, McKinlay, Jokka, Flores, Mazzarri, Silva, Gracia, Flores, Mullins, Pearson, Mullins, Ivic, Munoz, Ranieri, Hodgson, Edwards, Bilic, Wilder and Ismael....Pozzos took over when we finished 11th in the Champ and, 22 managers later (arguably including Dyche, Mullins etc), we finish 11th in the Championship

With a lot more debt

 

And a lot of happy memories along the way too tbf

(until the last two seasons, obviously)

 

Aah, so now we know why you want Farioli so much; do you have a poster of him on your bedroom wall?

Also, phwoar!!:

 

AL seemingly at pains in his latest article in The Athletic make it clear this is a Pozzo hire, rather than Manga.

 

I don’t think that’s a fair read of the article. Outlines that Manga chose the shortlist and then Pozzo made the final decision with Manga’s advice. Manga is even quoted as leading the process.

Otherwise, why else is every single manager mentioned someone with extensive German experience, given that we’ve never appointed someone with any experience in Germany.

 

Same story on repeat. Journeyman head coach with a patchy track record, expected to stay only until a run of bad results and then replaced. His average term is 0.70 years, which is equivalent to about eight and a half months. Will be interesting to see if he survives that long!

 

I fear it could be some time before the majority of us here start to enjoy our football again.

 

No I fully understand and the clip is horrendous. Hopefully we will have a better quality of player than the Barnsley team but I will say it worked for them that season to get in the top 6. Fingers crossed.

 

To be honest that doesn't look too different to what we've had for most of this season. Skied crosses, aimless head tennis, scrappy play.

 

I won’t dispute that Manga may have provided the shortlist, but the article makes a number of references to Pozzo having the final say. I can’t see why that would be referenced if it wasn’t a point being made. Plenty have argued that the appointment of Manga will lead to Pozzo taking a step back. This raises doubt as to whether Manga will really have any power to shape things.

I suppose the angle I’m looking at this from is one of scepticism with regards to Pozzo being willing to hand over control to Manga, and allow him the time/power to reshape the squad as he

 

We can blame both of them then for this truly awful appointment

Both should hang their heads in shame.

 

Lol.

 

You appear to have cropped out an actual quote from Manga regarding his role in the process.

“As I have said before, everyone was part of the decision-making process to find a new head coach — which I led on behalf of the club,” Manga told The Athletic.

So Manga led the process and then Pozzo and the rest of the hierarchy ratified it. Don’t see a problem there. That would be pretty typical of a DoF/owner division. You could easily imagine, say, Tony Bloom and David Weir having a similar process.

We’ll have to see if Ismael is backed and if Manga is given space to back him. All are right to be sceptical. But this is not a Gino hire as some are desperate to claim. There is enough to be annoyed about at the club without clutching at straws.


So Manga led the process and then Pozzo and the rest of the hierarchy ratified it. Don’t see a problem there. That would be pretty typical of a DoF/owner division. You could easily imagine, say, Tony Bloom and David Weir having a similar process.

 

This appointment is one of the most disappointing under the Pozzo era.
At a time when wholesale player clearout and a change of Head Coach is needed.
A Head Coach with ambition, drive, authority, and a coaching record that has respect and looking to go forward with their career.
What does Pozzo do? He hires another deadbeat Coach who has Ice Age football tactics and lost the players respect at WBA and never lasted very long at any club he has coached at.
I am not sure if Ismael reads or is told of the fans response, but this appointment reeks of mediocrity in the extreme.
The season ended with hope of a summer of positive changes. To hire Ismael is not a good sign of things to come.

 

Boothroyd was direct and I enjoyed it very much - until we were promoted.

 

And why on earth would anyone able to tick all those boxes come to Watford right now? Pozzo's fishing in a very small pond for candidates these days.

 

The article literally says that Gino had the deciding vote. Despite what you say, there’s no mention of others ratifying the decision. Others were part of the process and due diligence, but it Gino had the final vote, as is pointed out in various ways across the article.

You can point to how things work at clubs who are successful and have a well-defined structure such as Brighton, but there’s nothing about our club structure or recent history that suggests there is value to be gained in keeping Gino at the head of the process. It certainly doesn’t say that VI was also Manga’s top choice.

 

Thought I'd do a little dive into the stats to see what we can expect from our new manager. Please note - this post won't be for everyone as there's a lot to digest!

Playing Style


Definitions of the above (the stats are coach specific so the West Brom chart is only for the games he managed rather than across the whole season):

• Deep circulation - tendency to move the ball around the back instead of playing long or vertical balls
• Wing play - tendency to use wings in build-up as opposed to keeping the ball and progressing centrally
• High retention - tendency to keep possession in the final 3rd for prolonged periods of time
• Crossing - tendency to enter the box via crosses
• Low block - tendency to drop into a passive, deep block when defending
• Counterpressing - tendency to react immediately after loosing possession and try to win it back
• Transitions - tendency to attack quickly after winning the ball as opposed to entering positional attack
• Long balls - tendency to use long passes from the back

Some interesting variations in the playstyles in his teams across the years - interestingly only Barnsley had super high Long Ball numbers with most of his teams actually playing the average amount of long balls you'd expect (a nice surprise that massages some of my concerns), crossing has been a staple across a majority of his teams, with the wingers not really involved in the build up play until they're needed to play that final ball.

Transitions have been a focal point of most of his teams, with only Besiktas really differing from that (and his time at Besiktas is limited to 10 games in that season so sample size could play an issue there). The "low block" is rarely favoured with the opposite stat "counterpressing" ranking highly, so we can expect a high press to win the ball back rather than dropping into a more structured defensive shape - not sure how well that'll fit our squad in its current shape! He doesn't favour moving the ball around the back (deep circulation) although Besiktas ranked higher in this metric than his previous teams

Pass Networks

This is a little complicated so my apologies, but the definitions and key is below:

• Marker - average position of where the player touches the ball (more color = more touches)
• Arrow - repeatable pass combination between the pair of players (more width = more passes)
• Forward Map - consists only of advancing passes (useful to spot which partnerships are crucial for team's progression)
• Build-Up & Creation Maps - consist of passes made only in the 1st or last phase of attack (useful for spotting small details and differences between phases)

Again there's only 10 games of data at Besiktas - where he favoured a 4-3-3 formation. As the Playing Style graphs indicated there was more build up play at the back than his time elsewhere, which we can see demonstrated in the "Overall" and "Build-Up Phase" pass maps. Noticeable that in the more attacking aspects of the game (Forward + Creation Phase) the team splits into 2 distinct units on each side of the pitch with the defensive midfielder dropping back and the striker waiting in the centre of the pitch.



At West Brom he favoured a 5-2-3 (or 3-4-3) with the wingers largely tucking inside with the wingbacks providing the width. The structure looks good, plenty of triangles, and again looks like 2 distinct groups of players on either side of the pitch in the Forward + Creation Phase, with 2 of the 3 CBs moving to provide cover for the wing-backs, leaving just a single CB protected by the 2 x DMs.



His time at Barnsley looks more chaotic with the wingers much closer to the striker (guess that's to do with the high amount of long balls seen in the Playing Style, with them playing off the striker). No idea what to make of the lone CB on the penalty spot in the Creation Phase though.



His time at LASK was a mix of what we saw at Barnsley and West Brom - wingers are pretty close to the striker, with the 2 distinct groups still on each side of the pitch.


I was gonna delve into player roles and what we're likely to need in each position but I've just been dumped a load of work and probably won't have time to finish this now so gonna post the above as is, hopefully it's interesting for some.

 

There are a handful of names listed in the article, all are German/have a background in German football like Manga. All play a style with an aggressive press and that is not focussed on possession. We have never hired a manager who is of a German background once out of 20 or whatever Pozzo managers, nor have we signed someone with an aggressive pressing style. Now maybe that is a coincidence and Gino in his self-perceived wisdom has decided that is the tack he wants to take now. Or, perhaps, Manga, who appreciates this style of play, sought to hire someone in that mould and who he felt he could work with. Leventhal certainly does use some cryptic deniable phrases to emphasise Pozzo’s role, but Manga clearly notes that he “led the process.” Not merely that he identified some candidates.

 

I agree. We can all dream .

 

We'll need our wastrels to run more this season than the pathetic efforts we've seen this season, now Edwards has gone, what's the excuse for when we utterly fail to reach those standards?

 

It takes a long long time to build up true fitness.
Edwards is good for the blame for the next 2 summers.

 

Based on Leventhal's Athletic article it seems most of the other managers on the shortlist either didn't want to join or couldn't join.

Hutter and Seoane were looking for a top-flight opportunity,
Farioli looking elsewhere.
Blessin sounds like he would have been a real possibility but might not have qualified for a work permit.
Struber might have been possible but not a favoured candidate.

Seems like Kosta Runjac and Bernd Hollerbach were two of the main other contenders, but both are also pretty random, older than Ismael, and would have required compensation. Just noticed that Hollerbach, like Ismael, also worked with Felix Magath before, so I suppose there's a link there.

Aside from Farioli, most of them from my limited knowledge seem to have the common features of a German background and attacking, high intensity play. So Ismael isn't entirely an outlier with regards to being someone Manga might have put forward as a candidate he could get behind.

 

He's the owner, so that'd be pretty obvious.

 

Another club somewhere will get lucky by hiring Farioli. Maybe Sunderland if they don’t go up.

 

I don't think Ismael's Barnsley were anything like us under GT.

They played a sort of kick and rush game. We had some genuinely skilful players on the wings and, when MoJo came, a real fox in the box.

 

Looking at reids' data above, it seems Ismael's Barnsley also had a fair bit more of a focus on long balls than his other clubs have had.