Will We Make The Play Offs?

Makes sense. 6th 7th or 8th being the most likely positions. Great to see we still have a 1% chance of finishing second .

 

PS In support of the pessimists perhaps?

Probability of finishing 5th to 9th - 48% (What you might call the 'likely half')
Probability of finishing better than 5th - 14%
Probability of finishing worse than 9th - 37%

 

If we don't go up this season, this is how expect the squad will look like:-

Sold
Sar
Pedro
Bachmann
Ngakia
Troost-Ekong
Bayo
Pussetto

Released
Bacuna
Gosling
Quina
Hungbo
Manaj
Fletcher
Baah

Returned loan
Hause
Davis
Araujo
Martins
Kamara
Choudhury

20 players out. Could received between £60-£70m for outgoing players.

Out of contract
Cathcart
Assombalonga

I think both Cathcart and Assombalonga will have their contracts extended.

Squad will be
GK- New keeper, Okoye, Hamer
LB - New left back, Morris
RB - Ferriera, Gaspar
CB - Cathcart, Porteous, Hoedt, Kabasele, Pollock, Sierralta
MF - Louza, Cleverley, TDB, Kone, Kayembe, new central midfielder
AMF - Asprilla, new AMF
LW - Sema, new left winger
RW - Kalu, new right winger
FW - Assombalonga, 3 new forwards

9 players in

Manga and Costa will have a lot of work to do in order to make us a serious promotion contender.

 

We will beat Burnley and Sheffield Utd.

And lose or draw all the others.

 

Very watfordy.

 

And for those more familiar with throwing pairs of dice, these throws have roughly equivalent probabilities:

5th to 9th - throw 5,6,8 or 9 (18 of 36 outcomes)
Better than 5th - throw 10 or 11 (5 of 36)
Worse than 9th - throw 2,3,4,7 or 12 (13 of 36)

 

And the new manager will have his work cut out too (including dealing with the lack of cohones under pressure).

And thanks for the useful prediction of our likely squad.

 

It’s this point that I really struggle to buy into.

A decent coach imparts his style/philosophy/tactics regardless of resource available. And you funnel it through the club. I’m not comparing them as coaches - but City etc, they will employ Guardiola’s philosophy from the 1st team through the youth sides etc. And if they have a yawning chasm of injuries, they won’t just abandon it. Because you ultimately lose time and ground by doing that.

Bilic hasn’t imparted any plan on Watford. Injuries are a fair excuse to a point - but he’s had a number of good players available through his tenure anyway and still hasn’t shown what he wants us to be. Frankly, the idea that a couple of players coming back from injury will mean he enacts a top tactical plan he’s been sitting on, is for the birds. Every club suffers injuries and rarely have every player available. It’s no excuse for not enacting on a plan to make the team the best they can be.

He’s been a really bad appointment in my opinion. And I don’t see it suddenly clicking either - it doesn’t have that feel to it. These players don’t deserve to see off another coach - we know where the deeper rooted issues lie. Bilic isn’t top of the list of problems….

….but that still doesn’t change the opinion for me that IF we want to go up, we need to just get a bouncy, happy character in situ (a la Xisxo). But that isn’t a long-term option.

The whole thing is a mess because the club don’t know what type of coach they want - and that means they don’t recruit for a coaches needs or wants. And that leads that coach to not bother imprinting what he wants on what he has. Hopefully Manga changes this but I still have my doubts over just how much influence Gino will allow him.

The owner ultimately has to decide on what he wants the football team to be. And stick to it.

 

In which case.... oh dear! (Feel free to substitute your expletives of choice.)

 

Not at this rate,no.

 

Yeah I agree with you to a degree here Burnsy. I think in defence of Bilic, he joined mid season and since he joined the players available each week has been quite different. In some degrees he’s not gone about things correctly because the team can’t learn to play a certain way without a consistent approach. But then occasionally his flexibility based on what we’ve got available has worked.

I’m not one to know much about what goes on at other clubs, I’d be interested to know how much of a tinker man he’s been, or whether as a general rule he sticks to a plan over a season.

The owners, recruitment and general attitude at the club are all in question, so again judging a manager in these situations can be quite hard.

Personally I would stick with Bilic and would love to see what he does with a settled squad.

Still optimistic enough at this stage.

 

WBA fans hated his in-game management (as we are now seeing) and also questioned his training methods due to injuries. Which makes me think his exasperation over our injuries is overplayed because he in-part knows, it’s down to him.

 

Interesting, as I say I don’t generally take much notice of managers and players from other clubs, so good to hear bits and pieces.

Think our injury record began before him though, but maybe he hasn’t helped it. Isn’t this why we have people like Gieralta hanging about though, to keep an eye on training etc?

Anyway, certainly not all out defending Bilic, but still happy enough to have him here and still keeping hold of my optimism and excitement for a promotion push.

 

Yeah, no worries! Game of opinions after all!

Personally think Bilic is on borrowed time and his name/reputation comes before his actual ability.

 

You may well be right but I'm so bored of us having 3 managers a year. We should have giving Edwards a lot more time.

 

Agreed . But he has gone . For now we should get behind Bilic IMO .

 

Clevs is out of contract too, isn't he?

 

It’s not the fans that decide. If our owner sacks another one, are you going to make your feelings known? Or demand we get behind the next one?

 

Good point . But I don't demand anything , I have an opinion the same as everyone else !

 

That’s why it’s rinse and repeat.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this TBF .
In my lifetime I have watched Watford when they were bottom of the old Division 4
Struggling to get promoted into the Premier League is a mild irritant by comparison.
This is not meant to be an attack on you or an endorsement of our owners BTW .
Like myself , you are entitled to your say

 

I think we will, but I don't think we'd win them so bit of a moot point - either way we'll be in the Championship next season.

 

Once we get the injured back I think we will canter into the play offs, no idea what will happen after that, a scum semi final would be interesting.

 

Player-manager Aug to Oct next season.

 

We may well make the play-offs. But after that, what next? If we were to go up, we'd make the 2021-22 relegation season look worthy of an open-top bus tour by comparison.

The squad needs a huge overhaul. It would need the equivalent of the summer of 2015 but on steroids. The Premier League has moved on so much in eight years. We'd have to do a Nottingham Forest-style supermarket sweep and hope for the best.

The alternative – staying down and rebuilding more gradually – may be more sustainable in the medium term but it comes with a huge amount of risk.

 

Could be wrong, but I’ve got him down as under contract until 2024.

 

Or nearly 8.25pm.

 

Surely a decent coach is able to change style/philosophy/tactics if resource is unavailable. Not having a pop at Edwards here but you can't play 3-5-2 without a RWB and moving your best LWB to that position just seems like burying your head in the sand. If something isn't working and you don't change, it probably won't work

 

I think we will make the play offs. Will we win them? Almost impossible to say at the moment as we don't know who the other teams are, we don't know who is in form, some teams may pick up injuries to key players. So many things can change between now and May. As for predicting results for the next 18 games, fairly futile. Interesting though in those predictions by @hornetboy1 is that he has us down to lose at QPR but win at Coventry despite the two sides being separated by one point in the league and both won at our place earlier in the season

 

All you have to say you don’t agree with the prediction. QPR have the habit of beating us home and away, and Coventry were in amazing form when they played us earlier. They are now on a bad run. Not sure why you’ve decided to point two two out for ridicule, but each to their own I suppose.

I think the 75 point final total will be there or thereabouts. If you think the final tally will be much higher or much lower then fair enough. We’ll find out in May.

 

All depends on the fitness of Louza and Pedro .

Those two stay fit along with Choudry in a 4231 is one of the best midfields in the league .
If any of those get another long term injury then the back up looks threadbare and the back up for Louza is zero as he is the only midfielder we have who is technically excellent , takes the ball on the back foot and progresses play .

 

Yes there's really no point in trying to assess our points on a game by game basis. We will win games "the pools panel" would have us down to lose and vice versa.