Based on this forum we must be the most miserable fanbase in the premier league

Fortunately the internet is an echo chamber, and negative points of view always come across more strongly than the positives. From reading some of the threads today you would think that we are already relegated. It seems to me that normally rational forum members get caught up in the hype and panic that surrounds the end of the transfer window.

These are posters whose opinions I value throughout the season, but on days like today find absolutely unbelievable. It is frustrating seeing us linked with loads of players and signing none of them, but at the end of the day we have absolutely no clue if the club were even in for a couple of the players we have been linked with, let alone the 20 odd in the last 2 days.

I personally am actually quite happy with the make up of the squad at the moment. We have a quality midfield when all are fit, and our first line defenders are up to the grade. People say we need a new striker, but that's complete and utter **** too. We didn't have trouble scoring goals last year, we had trouble keeping them out. I would have liked the club to add an extra centre back and shift Britos out but we cant have everything. Post world cup transfer markets are always inflated and with a short window this effect has been further exaggerated.

Look at the deals that have been going through; £30m for Jefferson Lerma ffs. He looked an absolute donkey at the world cup but Bournemouth are prepared to shell out the equivalent of 6 Chalobahs for him! Its ridiculous and I do not blame the Pozzos for trying to look for the rough diamonds at a cheaper price rather than buying some overpriced 8 carat rock.

Just because we are in the premiership doesn't mean we shouldn't live within our means, and I firmly believe the clubs hierarchy do not believe in making a deal if its not a good deal for the club. Much better than spending ludicrously on some of the **** out there.

At the end of the day if we finish somewhere between 10-15th then you have to look on the season as a success for a club our size. We will be fine.

 

Good man

I’m looking forward to the football being back on Saturday, a few beers and getting behind the team

Too many years of Football Manager and Twitter has broken the spirit of football

Nobody has ever seen Leandro Dendoncker play

 

Agreed. I'm looking forward to getting my free shirt, courtesy of MoPlay - the new players in sports betting, and cheering the boys on no matter the result.

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Win, lose or draw, we should clap the boys off and then we can check our massive acca action on the exclusive MoPlay app, on Android or iOS.

 

Optic when you say ‘we didn’t have trouble scoring goals last season’ were you offline and not following Watford from early January to the end of the season when we in fact failed to score in 9 consecutive away matches?

 

Somebody saw him twice 18 months ago!!

 

He looked tidy in the world cup.

 

Took the words right out of my mouth.

 

I think we will score in at least 8 away games this season. Get amazing odds on this and other Watford FC bets at MoPlay - the changing face of sports betting.

 

We didn't score a heap of goals, but we conceded far more. We had an unfit and unmotivated squad. I know you dislike Gracia but with a full pre-season I believe we could see something different this year. Have a little faith Malteser. Ironically you are one of the posters who comments I most enjoy reading however over the last 6 or so months its been a hard read on many occasions. It is fine to question the club, but sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture.

 

- Didn't have trouble scoring goals last season
- Didn't score a single goal in 9 consecutive away matches

Pick one.

 

We did go through a dry spell, however I think there are deeper reasons to this. Its not just because we don't have good strikers. We had an unmotivated, unfit and leaderless squad that was absolutely decimated by injuries. Buying an extra striker and sticking him in an already depleted squad doesn't = goals.

 

Already answered this above. I firmly believe the problems with last years team stem from a deeper problem in the squad rather than the fact our strikers couldn't find the back of the net.

 

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We have those very same leaders who you claim left us leaderless? And the same leaders trying to motivate a squad that was unmotivated?

I see the sentiment in your opening post but there’s quite a few contradictory statements.

 

Incorrect. Newcastle and Man Utd fans both seem very pi55ed off about their summer activity.

I'm sure there are a few other disappointed clubs as well - maybe Spurs and Cardiff?

 

All the indications from pre-season are that Deeney is fit and motivated. He wants to be here and wants to lead the team. At times last year I think you could question both his fitness and his focus. He knows this is a big year for him, and that he needs to step up as club captain.

The management is the same granted. However Gracia has had a full preseason with the squad to be able to get across his philosophy and style of play.

Everyone starts this season with a clean slate as far as I'm concerned. To be honest it completely hacks me off when some of our fanbase are writing us off without a ball being kicked. Yes we all would have loved to have signed the latest £60m talent out of South America but its not going to happen. Instead we signed Deulofeu, Sema, Navarro, Masina, Wilmot and a proven premiership keeper in Foster. For me that is an acceptable window. Not perfect but acceptable.

 

You are right, we don't know, but we can only judge on end product: the club have delivered very little while other clubs have been highly productive.

When fit - when will that be, if ever? Do we expect Chalobah to start the first game, or even Deulofeu? We are entirely invested in being able to field a full fit squad, which over the last two year we have failed to do.

What is our best back four? Have they even played together yet?

I don't think we've even improved our first 11. Masina doesn't seem like he'll start, and I think Foster has looked ropey in pre-season (IMO). To not improve the first eleven in a transfer window - at all - is frankly ludicrous.

I'm not expecting us to spend lots of money, but we haven't even got any good loan deals in. Here we are, scrapping around at the end of the window for Jake Livermore, with the only reason being we messed up with Cleverly's fitness.

We're now in a situation that we are probably forced to play Deeney and Gray together so they aren't completely ineffective, at the cost of benching objectively better players. Okaka is still in the squad despite the club repeatedly trying to shift him over the last year.

Is Kaboul alive?

I'm not asking for us act like Wolves or Fulham, that is completely out of reach, but there is no excuse for not being organised. Even if we concluded our business early, at least there would be a clear plan. The fact that there has been a slew of rumours out in the last few days suggests the club haven't really got a plan at all.

Our best eleven is probably good enough to stay up, but I doubt we'll ever see it. My hopes are on Gracia getting the best out of Success and Peneranda (if they are in the squad). The notion that we will push for top 10 or even Europe, as was sold to poor Doucoure, is fantasy.

Whinge over -- looking forward to the season starting. Really hope I'm wrong and we get see some decent football from players that care.

 

See comments about echo chamber etc. For what its worth I completely agree, I think there are plenty of fans disappointed out there. However that doesn't necessarily mean the club isn't right.

 

But that's what I'm saying, I bet we were not even in for the majority of these players. It is all agent talk, and because we hadn't really signed anyone recently we were obviously easy pickings. We possibly enquired about a few but its not like we let every transfer get to the business end before pulling the plug.

 

Already posted and discussed in this thread:

http://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/media-watford-predictions-2018-2019.54851/page-2#post-2664272

 

But this isn't even true? Which clubs are you looking at? Bar Fulham and Wolves everyone has struggled this window to get decent acquisitions at reasonable prices. That's why im saying its a massive echo chamber, everyone is in the same boat.

 

We'll stay up with ease.

 

Brighton: Andone
Huddersfield: Kongolo
Burnley: Gibson
Palace: Guaita / Meyer

All players the strengthen first teams at what I would say are reasonable prices given the current state of things.

 

If our squad is so great why did the Pozzos spend the last 48 hours trying desperately to get any players they could in on the cheap?

We're basically last years team minus Richarlison. Our manager can barely get the team to score away let alone win a game. Glaring problems are left and a repeat of any of the injury problems of the last two seasons would leave us in a really dire state. I don't want us to spend fortunes, but there were options there to maybe rethink the attack or defence that we were too cheap to explore. I feel like we've reached the point where a lot of Udinese fans feel they are at, where the model may see you scrape safety each year but offers no real chance at progression.

 

And we signed Deulofeu, Masina and foster all of whom i would argue other than maybe Meyer are better players than you have named.

 

Miserable or honest Opti?

Without goals you go down, last year the strikers were appalling, we've not upgraded them. Last year the midfield kept us up but are mostly crocked now.
Last year we ended with the only goals scored in the last 5 matches against a Newcastle team on the beach.

What are we supposed to say to that? I'll be f***** if I'm going to be anything other than seriously miffed.

 

Do you really believe we were in for everyone of those players? Get real yellowkicks.

 

Definitely miserable Diamond. There is plenty to be optimistic about. The season hasn’t even started ffs.

 

But we've not had to 'scrape safety' in any of our 3 seasons so far?

I'm pretty sure we still have to pay the injured players. They don't just disappear off the wage bill. And we don't have a massive budget as it is. I expect most decent options saw us coming with the Richie money burning a hole in Gino's pocket. Every number will have had a zero added to it when we came knocking I bet.

It's pretty obvious the reason there's been more attempts in the last 48hrs is just dictated by the market. It's been constipated for weeks. And we all know most clubs only sell once someone higher up the chain moves. We seem to have been looking for short or medium term cover until the injured players return.

 

We clearly made offers for JWP and Livermore. We clearly made a centre midfielder our priority and yet still failed to get one over the line.

 

With Deolefeu and Sema we have better routes to get the strikers in. We saw with Del at the end of the year that we were playing better. Sema has looked very capable in pre season of linking with and feeding the strikers.

We shouldn't need new forwards if the ones we have work better with the service.

 

Anyway this is all artbitrary, we clearly should have addressed certain areas, we didn't. Hopefully we stay relatively injury free and stay up. Coyh

 

Our medical team shoukd be sacked.
We will not survive this season.
The club is not going forward at all.
Are the 'For Sale' signs going up soon?
4 -0 Brighton on Saturday.
Who cares if this forum is miserable? The signings, injuries(still) and outlook of the club make us so.
There is a term in skiing called 'freefall'. It is the fastest way down the slope. We are on that slope. No soft landing at the bottom.

 

I’m with you, yes a £30m striker would have been nice, but we have signed 6 or 7 new players and are arguably at least as good a squad as we were at the beginning of last year (although seem to be plagued by injury again)

Bit of a shame to see Rich go but we would have been mad not to sell

Looking forward to seeing us play this year, don’t see why we will struggle