What's Gone Wrong This Season?

I mean, you can count on the fingers of about 1 hand the amount of games we've genuinely played well in this season, but before the World Cup break we were at least doing a decent job of grinding out results, now, with our supposed best team, we just look utterly clueless even against some of the worst teams in this division. It's very easy to blame it on a lack of effort, and I'm sure that's a part of it, but it's just staggering how off the pace we've been since December

 

The moment everything unravelled for us...

 

Can we have a whats gone right thread instead please, will be so much shorter and less effort to read in a weeks time.

 

Revolving manager with different ethos each time but one consistent…..slooooow build up

too much micro managing from above

totally unbalanced squad and not enough decent quality

players that don’t care enough….

We are not a team…we are not even the sum of parts

read the above for any season over the last four years

 

Complete misuse of the loan market.

Choudhury, Kamara, Davis, Martins & Araujo. None have been successful.

 

Edwards pre-season apparently.

 

What's gone right more like it

 

I would add to this that the players, whilst not bad people, find it impossible to buy into the concept that is the Pozzo project. The main aim is to make money from turning over players at a profit and the football is secondary. This mindset feeds into the players and results in a lack of total commitment. In recent times, we have lost the edge in acquiring good young talent and the project looks have run its course. Some less exciting times ahead, I’m afraid.

 

i’m not disagreeing but how come it went so right for the first 5/6 years with the same ethos

 

All stemmed from conplacency and arrogance from hierarchy at start of season that squad was too good for the championship and a top two position was a given

 

The rest of the world has caught up with our scouting system, and now that advantage has gone, we're left with very little

 

The owner lost complete interest. Does he even go to games now?

 

Agreed. The majority couldn't give a flying F about playing for Watford.
I've witnessed some dark days watching Watford since the early 70's but even during the hardest times I don't think I've ever seen a bigger group of cowards wear the shirt. Where's the pride in being a winner.

 

So many things. Some major ones that come to mind, some with the benefit of hindsight, some were obvious at the time:

-Keeping Sarr. Perfect opportunity in retrospect to cash in on a depreciating asset, and rejuvenate the squad/reduce debt

-Giving Edwards a squad that didn't suit his system. The downgrade from Kiko to Gaspar killed any hope of having flying wing backs on both sides.

-Edwards pre season (trigger warning). While not the sole reason for the disaster of a season that followed, we looked noticeably unfit, and our injury record has been horrendous.

-Sacking Edwards/hiring in the first place. If, as has become clear, promotion was seen as At All Costs, why hire a project manager, with no experience of leading players used to playing at an elite level, under managers with elite-level CVs? Was always likely to be an issue with our egos. Once sacked, it reinforced the culture in the club that allows players to get away with poor performances/effort.

-The injuries. I've never seen anything like it. How much was down to pre season, or the medical team, or signing injury-prone players, is up for debate. But I'd be very surprised if we didn't get playoffs at least, if we'd had an even average injury record.

-The wasted WC break with Bilic. What were we doing?

-January recruitment. Again, if the target is promotion at all costs (the Wilder hail Mary suggests that's still the case), why bolster the starting line up with raw players, who have potential, but will need time to adjust? I have no problem with those types of signings (it's a move in the right direction), but it just speaks to muddled thinking.

-Several more things that are too depressing to continue to list

 

No doubt the board will blame Covid. That might hold some truth, but to blame that entirely would be totally wrong.

After that brilliant cup final season there were defensive issues that needed addressing. We signed Dawson but it wasn’t enough. We needed a defensive overhaul in the summer of 2019. It was so obvious.

For me, this is where it all started. We got ourselves in trouble. Sacked Gracia then panicked and hired QSF again. After that, the wheels of demise were firmly set in motion. We nearly got away with it though with Pearson. We were flying before Covid, but the break did affect us. We lost all momentum after that, so Covid did play a part, but as I’ve laid out, it’s not the entire story. I also believe the establishment did their level best to keep Villa in the league, which also played its part, but we put ourselves in the position where we could be relegated.

We did get out of jail though the following season. This probably fuelled the arrogance that our squad was too good for the Championship. Little was done to retain our Premier League position. Again, arrogance that our squad was strong enough to stay up. It wasn’t, clearly.

But that arrogance was still untarnished with SD proudly stating we’d win the league with Edwards.

The midfield was, and still is, woefully inadequate for a promotion challenge.

Maybe SD was making too many footballing decisions as I believe Gino has allowed him to choose some of our head coaches.

We’ve needed a good technical director for years. SD and Gino are not savvy enough. Maybe their prior 7 years of success made them think they could do no wrong and they were/are not humble enough to realise they are continually getting it wrong now.

For the future, if Manga is given total control of the footballing decisions, things might improve. That’s really the only hope now, unless Gino decides to sell of course, then it’s anyone’s guess as to what happens then.

 

Even in the Championship our crowds are average, so we mustn't have lost that much from Covid, but when you're in a precarious financial position to start with, you can't afford to lose anything I guess

 

I think people are kind of missing the point, what I mean is how come we were in a decent position in the middle of the season, not playing particularly well, but also not playing horrendously badly, but yet we come back from the World Cup and suddenly we look out of our depth against bottom half teams

 

Other clubs have a better handle on recruitment and have passed us by. To be fair to the Pozzos, it was somewhat of a novel approach in the UK, when they arrived here, having used the concept at Udinese. If you are a young and ambitious player from South America, Asia or Africa, Watford may have looked like a great option a number of years ago, not so at the moment. What is clear is that we need a completely new plan and dynamic. Hopefully Ben Manga’s skills will kick start an innovative and successful period, if finances allow.

 

Everything.

 

You probably have a point there, it wasn't our heaviest defeat by any means (not even our heaviest defeat against Millwall this season!), but it was a bruising one and one we haven't recovered from. Hull in the first game back from the break was a disappointing one (if I remember correctly, barring Manaj fluffing a sitter we faded in the second half after a slightly brighter first half), but it wasn't as bad a performance as we've seen of late, and Huddersfield away was certainly better than Huddersfield at home!

 

You've put that in the wrong thread!

 

Crap signings on top of a massively overrated squad of losers.

A lot of the players who are the most hyped are amongst the worst - Sarr, Kamara, Davis, Martins etc.

 

Signing players without considering their ability to gel together and become greater than the sum of their parts. The likes of Luton and Millwall have inferior raw squads but a far greater slickness and unity which has been laid bare. Our high turnover of playing staff with little connection to the club or the Championship has been a glaring shortfall this season and needs a pressing rethink in the summer.

 

Plenty of errors, but getting rid of Edwards was the single most stupid one.

 

How's Ethan Laird been doing of late? Started off the season like a train on fire like the rest of the QPR team, haven't heard much of him of late, although he'd have fit the Edwards system better than Gaspar

 

I don't think there are many, if any, people who think Edwards could have succeeded here, but not backing him sufficiently in the window was clearly stupid

 

No reason why we wouldn't have had a better season with him than without, poor squad building or not

 

I mean, we (understandably, given the squad restraints) never played well under him, I did think that Bilic would have been a better short-term option, but that didn't really work out...

 

He was injured for a while but it seems he just generally experienced a downturn in form like the rest of the QPR team. I think Gaspar is better than many say, and the signing hasn't been disastrous by any stretch of the imagination. Laird did seem a stronger option even at the time however. Age too plays a part - we opted for a 31 year old rather than a 20 year old which, yet again, means less scope for greater resale value in the long term.

 

I like Gaspar, he's grown into the right-back role, and he's even done diligently as a midfielder, and I'd keep him as he seems like he'll be a good influence on what should be a young squad next season, but he was never going to fit as a wingback in a back 3 system

 

Arrogance from the hierarchy. Genuinely believed that b******* about having the best squad in Championship history.

Ignoring the needs of Edwards in pre-season. They hired a project manager and completely disregarded the project.

Corruption. I don’t know what else you can call the Bayat dealings. I’m sure it stems from the above points. When you’re going to p*** the league anyway, why not siphon off a few mil?

Internal power struggles. Pozzo, Duxbury, now Manga. All have their own ideas - our leadership isn’t unified.

Years of festering player power. We’ve very carefully cultured a toxic culture with multiple head coach sackings, bad characters in the dressing room, ridiculous wages, and broken promises from above.

All have combined to this abomination. And our finances mean things will only get worse.

 

Injuries and referees. We've been so unlucky this season.

Seriously though. Everything above and more. So many wrong decisions on and off the pitch. The transfer policy is as kamikaze as Bachmans foray into the opposition penalty box. But not as funny. The board only know one way of operation and they got lucky a few times before it's collapsed. The best credit they get is that they've "tried" to change it at board level. But what they ended up doing is bringing in the idea of the right path but not getting anywhere near a coherent plan. Without having the gumption to stick with it, the knowledge to support it and the self perception to question it.

With Edwards they gave him the wrong ingredients and wrong kitchen to make anything palatable. Then with Bilic they burnt down the kitchen and then shat in the oven. Before buying an air fryer and hoping it would make a nice ice cream. Now the diners have left without enjoying the food and the chefs can't be ****ed working in this joint.