Can the Current Pozzo Model Work in Practice?

For the amount needed to buy us right now, I can't see it going to anyone other than a serious football conglomerate or Chinese/American megalomaniac who plan to invest even more. Would at least make things interesting. Anyway they'ed be better off buying a cheapo Champ or First Div club & do what Pozzo did.

In any event I think the tipping point for PL rights money vs player transfer fees & wages might have been or will shortly be reached or at least stay static for a while, because all the TV companies are losing, not gaining subscriptions & that will be reflected in future years in terms of what they can pay for PL/overseas rights.

Football clubs are not really a sensible investment now.

 

The fact is, the Pozzos have massively improved our fortunes. No question. However, that doesn't mean that they don't make mistakes or that there are things about their way of doing things which are extremely frustrating.

I have to say, I think that Gino is adapting the tried and tested model that Papa Pozzo adopted at Udinese, because buying a bunch of scouted, 3-5 million pound players from obscure leagues simply won't cut it in the Premier League.

We all know what the model is supposed to be, but we're not selling players (at least we haven't over the past 2 seasons) where we could have, I'm sure, because it was more important to maintain Premier League survival.

As fans, we'd clearly prefer to finish 10th or higher, but is the additional prize money enough of an incentive to steer the Pozzos away from their wheeler dealer ways? Buying a defence which costs upwards of £30m to improve our standing would probably not reap a ROI in terms of immediate income, so maybe they're happier to do it on the cheap and scrape in at 15-17th each season and hope they can get a few player trades executed to ramp up the profits?

I don't know. It's all very dull and I know we are far higher than we have any right to expect our club to be, but it would be nice if there were just a few more interesting things to look forward to than 3 nice wins a season, surrounded by endless ****** losses to awful teams and the occasional drubbing to a top side.

 

You may well be right. But if they have any ambitions to fill 30k seats every other week as potentially planned, they will need to change that philosophy.

 

Could you change your name to Bloodstone perhaps?

 

I would imagine that another summer where we pick up 3 or 4 Chalobah, Hughes, Richarlison or even Cleverley types will see the overall quality of our squad improve.

We have a midfield that contains some exceptional talents, which has come from sustained investment and has been enough to keep us up for 3 years now. If we see similar investment to our back line over the next couple of years, along with gradually adding to our attacking talent, I think we’ll be set for a sustained push at top 10 football. It’s going to be a process though, people seem to lose sight of that.

All this said, some stability on the coaching side of things would help a great deal. Another young, progressive coach in the Silva mold would work for me, even after the experience of this season.

 

Femenia too.

I’m mixed. We have no right to demand EPL football year on year. The Pozzo model has clearly been successful. We will always be grateful for what Gino’s already accomplished, and hopefully what he will accomplish further.

We are building our squad slowly and surely. When all of our players are fit, we are about 4 players off a Europa-position side.

However, I do see a number of problems. The most obvious to me at the moment is that we consistently fade at the end of the season.

Is this due to Gino’s insistence that we play a high intensity pressing game which cannot be maintained?

Do managers feel undermined by players complaining about the manager behind his back direct to Gino, or Gino’s micromanaging shadow hovering wherever they turn at the training ground?

Or is it a problem with buying players on the cheap? Do you get players with poor mental attributes who don’t think and can’t be bothered to keep pushing?

Are cheap player cheap because they are sick notes? Are we making our squad tired by overplaying the (few) fit ones, and not having anyone fit to bring off the bench? Are they always injured because they’re pushing too hard, due to the aforementioned training regime?

Or have we skimped on the costs of our medical care, and brought in the equivalent of Dr Nick from the Simpsons, who rules out players with bruises for half a season?

I don’t know the answers. My guess is that it is probably a combination of all of the above points.

I’d also guess that our fitness and high intensity pressing early in the season explains our great starts to the season to some extent. Why perhaps we have not, as yet, been in danger of relegation.

I just want Gino to sort it because it keeps turning decent seasons sour.

For a team whose manager tried to force through a move immediately after the window closed, until the last month we haven’t done that badly.