Was It All Worth It…

Been almost 11 years of their ownership.

Nobody can debate that the Pozzos saved us from insolvency, we’ve experienced some incredible highs including an FA Cup Final, whilst watching some of the best players that many of us have seen in a Watford shirt for 40 years and witnessed an infrastructure upgrade at WD18

Versus the most frustrating period of my supporting career, huge amounts of money spent on players that just don’t work out, no consistency in our strategy and a creation of a top down toxic environment which is obviously rubbing off on the squad. Then, to add, mid table will likely mean a wholsesale fire sale and leave us with an even more sub standard squad with a huge debt burden that will affect us moving forward

For me we needed somebody to come in and save us from the Red Helmet but the lows have outweighed the highs

 

I think the highs have outweighed the lows over the whole period, two promotions, a decent run in the prem, but the lows have all come recently so sitting here today, it all seems a bit rubbish, and worrying from a debt point of view.

 

Yes, the Deeney goal, Brighton victory and Semi final win, on top of some great memories of wins in the Premier league leaves good memories which is all that matters to me these days. Football is never final. One decade you might be down the next you are up.

 

Right now, I'd say sure, but I'll change my mind in the case of us falling into more serious difficulties

 

If you look at the entire period of their ownership, they are still in credit, but the last 4 years have been alarming.

I cannot fathom how an owner who was so ahead of the curve for 7 years, acts now like he’s had a lobotomy. It just doesn’t add up.

But looking at it holistically, the Pozzo’s have elevated the club. We were never a big Championship club. Not even in the GT/EJ era. We were always an over-achieving club. Now most see Watford as a big Championship club. A club with a lot going for it. That can all change of course, and I feel we’re heading in a backward direction, but I still carry some hope Gino can sort this mess out.

Communication is a huge problem, but is happily overlooked when we’re winning. So for me, it’s only a problem when we’re having a difficult time. Like now. Fans do need reassurance and confidence the owner has a viable plan. That’s all I would say the majority want. But the silence is deafening and disrespectful. It’s no wonder supporters are getting frustrated.

But we are an interesting club to follow. We have signed players that are well beyond our reach. We are an interesting option for a lot of players. The Pozzo’s do have a lot of sway in football circles, this is why I’m at such odds why they’ve made such a pig’s ear if the last 4 years. It’s been gross incompetence.

We’re not making the playoffs, something which seemed unthinkable a month ago. But in a way it might be a blessing. Gino will be forced to accept he’s got it badly wrong so he will have to change his ways. I think employing Manga is a huge statement of intent towards that.

So, the circle is now complete in an 11 year period. We’re back to where we started, albeit with a better stadium and training facilities, but with a bigger debt.

We now have to build again from scratch. No one can sugar-coat Gino has f&cked up over the past 4 years. But I believe he will sort it out somehow. He has to. He has a lot of money at stake.

Would I want a billionaire owner who only wants to invest in Watford and have no other distractions. Yes, that would be great, but how likely is that in all honesty. Would we go back to the Graham Simpson or salad boys level owners?

At least, even though it’s totally sh1t right now, the Pozzo’s give a platform where you can dream big things. It’s a possibility with them.

 

Yes absolutely worth it. But it's over and we need to move on quickly.

 

Do they? I guess people see us as a 'big' Championship club for now, sure, having parachute payments has delayed any massive crisis and has enabled us to keep hold of some players we otherwise wouldn't, but when those run out, what's left?

 

The bunker?

 

You mean like in 1940s Germany ?

 

Careful, you're not allowed to make that comparison!

 

I can’t imagine the amount of reports this post will get, knowing all the wokies on this forum.

 

The mods have suspended me while we agree a mutually agreeable posting strategy. Not too COG, not too BW. I’m assuming you guys will all support me and refuse to post until I’m back ??

 

Yes, it has been worth it. The last 11 years have been, at least statistically, the second most successful period 'on the pitch' for the club in its 140 year history. A decent run in the Premier League, an FA Cup final, a fourth stand, improvements to Vicarage Road and the training facilities... a spiky Lineker tweet every now and again (topical, I know) and a sense of disappointment that we will 'only' finish upper midtable in the Championship this season is a very reasonable price to pay (in my opinion).

Glory-hunting though it may sound, I'd rather have had the last 11 years and the disappointment of the last two seasons than a run of boring Championship/League One mediocrity in front of three stands, fielding 17 year old academy graduates who try really hard but aren't very good.

 

I think you're right here, that he majority has been good. But the drop off in the past 4 years is at the risk of undoing everything, not just from a fan credit perspective but actually from the very real prospect of the clubs financial security and therefore future. The debt we are carrying is very high for a club of our size and potential growth prospects.

I've worked for companies that have been caught in a death spiral like this where there is no direction and it lurches from one thing to another, often reactionary changes in the hope of "getting luck". Fortunately for me I've managed to get out before it was too late, but I've then watched from afar as invariably these companies have hit the wall and one in particular went completely under.

I'm not saying this will happen with Watford but something has changed, was it Pozzo Snr stepping away completely, or was it something else. Either way at present I can only see us heading one way. I've posted else where but I also don't buy into the optimism that Manga and Costa are the shining lights to save us, I simply don't think Pozzo will relinquish control like that whilst he's still involved

 

At this moment in time it’s just about worth it, but I think the scales are very much about to tip us into not worth it territory.

That said it’s essentially like a relationship that has turned bad, there were some good times and good memories that nothing in the present can take away, but right now its turned toxic, it’s no longer enjoyable and the past is no reason to want to carry on with it.

Unfortunately we don’t have the option of making Gino sell or supporting a different club.

 

It's easy to point to 2019 as to the turning point of where everything went wrong, but I think the Mazzarri era is where the cracks really started to show, it was when Deeney's slide started yet we still relied on him (and it's also when our injury issues started, the Quique season we were very lucky on that front, but since then it seems as though a stubbed toe is a career-threatening injury). When Silva came here he very quickly realised he was never going to be able to do what he wanted, and so we canned him, and ultimately I think the Gracia era was a purple patch under a manager who worked miracles which all fell flat before long, culminating in us falling into the Championship with a rotten hangover

 

The best post i have read on here for a long time. A perfect summary of where we are without hysterics or over reaction. Thank you hornetboy1!

 

Excellent point about communication. The lack of it in times of underachievement promotes speculation, conspiracy theories and enhanced dissatisfaction.

 

Personally I’ve had some incredible moments supporting Watford since the Pozzos took over. And that is what supporting Watford is about because we are never likely to actually win any silverware . So for me at this point it has definitely been worth it . My only caveat is that if the very existence of the club falls into jeopardy at any point , which I believe at the moment is not the case , then nothing is worth risking that

 

I mean, clubs have gone bust before, but that's a very drastic situation, USUALLY, someone steps in to stop that from happening when it gets really bad for clubs...personally I think we'll end up in League 1 at some point in the not too distant future, and it won't be easy to get out of there

 

Yes, for the Deeney moment alone.

Even that, I used to get excited about the likes of Michael Bryan & Sean Murray potentially being first teamers.

I can’t express how far fetched the thought of ever seeing the likes of Deulofeu and Pereyra in a Watford shirt seemed.

However, we have totally lost our class, with success it was okay but now we are a tacky, embarrassing shell of a club to support. You need some values to fall back on when things don’t go well, ala Norwich, we don’t have any.

 

No. Because it's all hollow.

We got promoted and spent a few years getting battered in the prem, but the cost has been seeing our club turned into a staging post for an international trafficking operation.

We develop no players, we have no identity as a club beyond our ridiculous manager sacking and the fans are treated as a sort of accepted burden, rather than the lifeblood of the club.

The owner has shown how arrogant and contemptuous of the Watford faithful he is and has shown that he has no regard for the historic values of wfc that GT instilled and which had lasted a good 25 years before he came on the scene.

We are now a hollow shell of a club. None of the current squad really identify as Watford player for me, outside of maybe Cathcart and Cleverley, who have wound up on long contracts beyond their usefulness.

The rest will hope that when they hang up their boots, they are remembered somewhere else and for something different and that Watford is a mere footnote on their playing career.

No youth, no players to connect with, no coach to believe in.

We just turn up week after week, pay our money and take our medicine.

That's all being a wfc fan has been reduced to.

 

This question is being asked too early. Give it two seasons when we are an awful Huddersfield standard team with either massive debt we can’t pay off, or in administration and that is the time to ask the question. It is too early to see the impact of these wretched people’s mismanagement.

The Pozzo endgame is afoot.

 

The question can be asked any time, it’s just that the answer may change.
Given your mindset, it has been asked too early as it won’t give you the answer you want it to….not yet…

 

I have three. Two personal small ones and one that I think is a direct contributor to where we find ourselves.

Not keeping Vydra for the Prem off the bench.

Not buying Ake like Bournemouth did.

Buying Sarr instead of two centre backs that summer, especially for a manager who didn’t want wingers. This show of arrogance was a greedy, vein move and has massively backfired.

If we had, we’d have stayed up and then welcomed Suarez, Estupinan & Cucho to freshen the squad up. Could have let Masina, Deeney & Gray go and had £25m worth of defensive talent not named Sarr in the squad.

 

Worst C0ldplay song ever.

 

Yawnmongers surely ?

 

Disagree. The toll has already been paid. What will come to pass is already in motion. Will just be easier to ask the question after it happens so it will be more obvious.

 

In a competitive field.

 

The use of the past tense was it, in the question implies to me that it (the Pozzo reign and all that entails) is over. Unfortunately, it is not.

If asked has it been worth it to date? I would say yes. But, and it’s a huge but, my great fear is that when Gino finally departs, we will be in such a state that it will not have been worth it overall.

 

I could handle dropping to league 1 . We’ve been there before . We could have gone there anyway without all the good moments. It’s kind of part of the cycle of supporting a club like Watford . I’d rather it didn’t happen in the near future though and there’s no inevitability about it .

 

The problem for me with suggesting the past decade has elevated us, or indeed that that is something that is even possible outside being taken over by a petro-state and permanently financially inflated, is the example of clubs like Stoke City.

When they were relegated in 2018, they had played in the Premier League for 10 consecutive seasons. They had a squad boasting players of the reputation/notoriety/calibre of Xherdan Shaqiri, Bojan, and Eric Choupo-Moting (recently seen scoring the winner for Bayern Munich against PSG in the Champions League Rof16!). Now, they're looking forward to a 6th consecutive season at Championship level, having been utterly unremarkable at any point since.

They spent a full decade in the top flight; effectively double our own period (although it ended up being 5 consecutive and 6 in 10, the ignominy of that 6th add-on season hardly helped stretch out the popular perception of us a top-flight institution). And what did they have to show for it? Nothing at all. Increased prestige? Hardly. An ongoing draw for players? A quick look at their current squad tells us that isn't the case. Why should we be any different, without our literal presence in the Premier League?

If there is an impending financial reckoning coming, which seems increasingly likely (although, of course, not yet confirmed) that will be the ultimate marker, and also the ultimate answer to whether it was worth it. At that point, we/Gino will effectively be Paul Walker at the end of the very first drag race he takes part in in 'The Fast and the Furious'.