Same comments were made about Silva. Xisco has had the same impact. Everton fans starting to moan about Carlo’s tactics. It wouldn’t happen again would it? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I think Xisco seems like a genuine and likable guy. Just watched his interview with the lovely Emma Saunders, and I have to say I couldn't understand a single word of what he said apart from 'team'. I think we've unearthed the Spanish Kenny Dalglish.
We have so many really personable, likeable individuals in our side along with Xisco. Would have been hugged to death had there been spectators at the Vic on Saturday.
Good article. Funny how the Guardian allows comments below some of their articles, but not others, can't understand the logic behind that.
Six months away from his kids... "My daughter asks why I never pick her up from school any more" :-( I'm not crying, it's just been raining on my face. Go get her, Xisco. You've earned it.
Xisco has Made this group of players likeable A dynamic front three Steely at the back Best home record in the country Tears of joy at being promoted Going to watch the youth teams the day after promotion Top in pretty much every stat since he has come in Yet there are people on an internet forum claiming he is poor tactically and shouldnt be managing us in the premier league, you couldnt make it up. Watford fans jheez...
In fairness, if she's been waiting for him in the school reception for 6 months I imagine the office staff are going to be pretty pissed off with him.
Giaretta (our sporting Director) was just interviewed in Italy and asked whether Munoz will stay. Sounds like no decision yet, but they are leaning towards keeping him on: Will Munoz continue in the Premier League? "He did a great job, but we believe in the group. The coach around him has highly professional and numerous resources: at a certain moment we were out of the playoffs, but then we recovered the ground. We are satisfied, I really think we will continue with him." You can read more here, though he doesn't really say anything else notable. https://m.tuttomercatoweb.com/serie...r-league-superlega-non-era-il-momento-1526443.
Chalobah on the BBC site and Bachmann just now on 5live really talking about how much of a difference Munoz made with his personality and getting the team together. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56830554
Now the Wobby have weighed in (partly concerning this interview, but they have also clearly go their own source) saying they’ve heard we’ll be sticking with him, and that the club doesn’t anticipate the Pro Licence issue being a problem. https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/19260553.watford-preparing-stick-xisco-munoz-head-coach/
Presumably now promotion is confirmed, Gino will release his family from whatever basement he has had them incarcerated in for the last four months.
He’s likeable. He’s so unbelievably likeable that nobody seems to be able to say anything else about him other than how likeable he is. A canary in the coal mine perhaps? It’s some of the actual team that I have an antipathy towards. I don’t think it’s a controversial opinion or even an ungrateful one to suggest that some of his substitutes have been questionable. I don’t assign the formation change as a mark of his genius because we all knew what needed doing. If he dropped Deeney for a disciplinary, then I’ll owe him that because imo that was the game changer. Up until I read that article I understood he was coincidentally injured. I’m glad there are suggestions he’ll get a shot next season because he’s deserved it but I reserve the right not to get overenthusiastic when things still don’t feel right to me. Feel free to jump in the pond or whatever (I personally celebrated with a Cuban cigar and some scotch), enjoy it our own ways and see what the summer brings.
It definitely isn't controversial, no. I'd also say it's not controversial to suggest that every head coach/manager Watford has ever had has made questionable substitutions and/or tactical errors, though, so I'm not sure what that tells us in isolation. I suspect Xisco is paying the price for the fans being isolated due to Covid, coupled with a negativity hangover from the entirely unnecessary relegation (I maintain that we should not have gone down with the squad we had). This has resulted in us over-emphasising his errors, as we're missing the feel-good factor that comes from live atmospheres. The man took us from terrible performances and the real risk of dropping out of the playoffs to being in touching distance of the title and already promoted with 2 games to spare, setting a new club record for home wins on the way and on the cusp of setting a divisional defensive record. For me, the results speak quite loudly. Yes, no one is perfect, but it's never productive to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Xisco has done wonderfully for us; we really couldn't have asked for much more.
Going by the interview from Bachmann on 5live last night (shortly after the guests waffled on for 5 minutes about the management changes and they we just get lucky ) it’s clear the players hated Ivic and his personality. He pretty much said Munoz was a better manager and man overall who treats players well.
Catastrophic stuff. Last time we stuck with a manager in the summer we got relegated. We are Watford. We sack who we like.
I remember @Burnsy being desperate for us to bring him in to take over from Ivic: http://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/xisco-munoz.57889/page-36#post-2963982 http://wfcforums.com/index.php?thre...want-to-replace-him.57880/page-3#post-2940820
It doesn't necessarily need to be as night-and-day as you suggest - Leeds this season have been doing very well while in large part sticking with their attacking style, albeit importantly they invested a decent amount in the summer to give them a few more players capable of playing the same style but at a higher level. Albeit, they have also learned to be a bit more cautious against in some games against the few top sides who prefer to counter attack (e.g. Man Utd). Norwich stuck to their principles despite not having improved their team from the Championship, particularly keeping a very frail defence, and did little to change their approach regardless of the opposition. One thing which has been good about our play under Xisco is we've generally been playing on the front foot, with a relatively attacking, at times fluid, free-flowing style, yet have managed to maintain our defensive solidity while doing so. Our biggest issue has been that we could still do with more goalscorers, as we haven't been scoring as many goals as our build-up play has generally deserved. As has been commented a number of times already, a couple of CFs, a goalscoring LW, and perhaps an upgrade at AM could sort this out. We're kind of facing the opposite problem to when we went up under Joka, whereby we were scoring goals for fun but also conceding a lot. However, after we got promoted we brought in an almost entirely new back line, with some excellent recruitment in Britos, Prodl, Ake (and, erm, Nyom). We'll need to pull off the same trick this season except in revamping our forward line. If we get that right while maintaining our relative solidity at the back (with a couple of tweaks in personnel there), then Munoz could have success next season without having to change too much tactically.
Isn’t that how Wolves did it as well? They had a very good record against the top sides, but for some reason dropped a lot of points against the bottom ones (eg an atrocious Huddersfield side did the double over them).
I listened to that - Bachmann was literally laughing about how bad it was under Ivic. Said he'd never experienced anything like it and it was total and utter negativity.
If he is staying on, you can only assume or at least hope he’ll get backed in the transfer market, otherwise what is the point? If we don’t suitably invest then he’s on a hiding to nothing, he’ll be out the door in five minutes with his legacy completely trashed, and we’ll be in the exact same boat as the last time, spending the rest of the season fire fighting from the relegation zone.