Was Bilic a success, no, could he have been a success with proper backing...not definitely, he turned his nose up at Ferreira who seems like a fairly sensible deal, among other gripes, but boy would he have had a better shot at getting us up
Sorry, but l feel that you a blind to the issues surrounding the club, on and off the field. An awful squad of players, many of them not good enough for a team wishing for promotion out of the Championship. Debts possibly touching £150m. We are in a right mess. Gino Pozzo runs everything and appears dictatorial. It is his club, so there isn't anything the fans can do about it. Most of the Watford fans would never demonstrate or raise their voice in anger at a game. They just seem very happy to accept what is happening. Wilder is not the answer or the future. He is a Dinosaur. Interesting times once again at the Vic.
Such a busy day and evening I had no phone time. I have just this minute heard that Bilic has been sacked. What a redundancy bill WFC have! Wilder in. Know absolutely Jack about him other than, from a distance, he seemed to do well at Sheff Utd. How will our mob react to Mr Wilder? Maybe we get the benefit of a bounce and he can get a tune out of these underachieving players. There is always hope, I suppose.
Well your dream was pretty much a reality under Graham Taylor and to a lesser extent Ray Lewington (though not everyone rated him) and Malky. Trouble is only during the first GT era did we have both that dynamic and a team that was good enough to stay in the top flight. With the likes of GNW, Robbo, Page, Smith, Young, Bouazza, Doyley, Mariappa (first spell) and Sordell, plus some club favourites signed when they were still the right side of 25 (Mooney, Hyde, Heidar) at various points, for the most part we didn't have a team even good enough to challenge for promotion to the Prem, let alone stay up in it. The question is would you rather have had that kind of team or one largely of mercenaries and fair-weather players that played some of the best football at WFC post-1987 but didn't seem that committed to the club long-term or when the chips were down? However at Brentford, while none of their starting line-up last night were academy players and only four of them are British, the balance is far better and there is a spirit and togetherness that was not much in evidence during our recent top flight seasons, first half of 2015/16 and 2018/19 apart, so it is still possible to get both those vital ingredients even in this era of football at a club of our size or smaller.
I understand what you’re getting at, but I really think the enthusiasm for the club has been sucked out of the fans over several seasons by the way in which it is run. During the Covid hiatus, I thought when we all came back there would be a surge of interest just in getting back to live football again, but after the brief optimism of that opening Villa game it all turned to dust very quickly. Without that feeling of enthusiasm it’s hard to rail against what is happening - there seems no end in sight.
Not all but there’s ways to fail. He kinda failed with a whimper. I accept I am probably living in denial though, believing that eventually a manager will fix this is probably easier to take than expecting someone to takeover from Gino AND be the Brentford / Brighton mould type of owner.
Interesting to see that Wilder has been given a long term contract to the end of the season. Gino must finally have got his man.
I know quite a bit about him because I've taken a keen interest in lower/non-league football for a long time (not to the extent that I did during the few years after I'd got into football when I had too much time on my hands as a student, though). He's one of those managers that has really matured and progressed up the league (I think Darrell Clarke may turn out to be another one) but also one at times you still need to show patience and long-term thinking towards, as sometimes he won't achieve what you want instantly or appear slow in achieving the desired objective. Halifax (2002-08) - did a commendable job on very limited resources at a club that went bust shortly after he left, getting them to the 2005/06 Conference play-off final, but it was quite up and down (a couple of good seasons followed by bad ones) Oxford (2008-14) - got them promoted to the Football League, but even during the season they went up, there were a few rumblings of discontent from the fans as Stevenage eventually ran away with the title and they were a bit lucky that York did a job on the scum who would have been tougher opponents in the play-off final. Spent several seasons in League 2 flirting with the play-offs but he seemed to hit a ceiling with them and fans weren't too unhappy when he left Northampton (2014-16) - saved them from relegation to the Conference and got them promoted to League 1 the season after next, but he had a terrible run during the season in betwen that would have got any of our managers the sack and a midtable finish was probably disappointing given the form they showed to avoid relegation the previous season Sheffield United (2016-21) - easily his most impressive stint as manager, it went pear-shaped during the second season in the Prem, but probably hardly anyone would've kept them up. Not sure what went wrong at Boro this season but that's the only part of his career that's cause for concern. Overall certainly more consistent over his career than Bilic, but his shortest stint as manager between his brief spells at Alfreton and Boro was the two and a bit years at Northampton, and therein lies the problem - we have to go all the way back to Aidy to find a manager at Watford who lasted that long! Also from what I've seen from an interview when he was Northampton manager he may be a bit hard for the fans to warm to - he seems to be the committed but tough-talking type who rarely cracks a smile and who's had his differences with some of the people at the clubs he's worked at.
Lineker may well be keeping quiet for a little while after his latest comments. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/gary-lineker-sparks-bbc-impartiality-26414741
Doesn’t usually stop him ! So like most managers has some good and bad spells. He won’t be here to be fully judged I guess !
Very thorough history of Wilder’s management career. Not sure that there is anything to get too excited about for Watford fans. I fear a mid table damp squib of a run in, with Luton reaching the promised land for a season. Not our most glorious period, but thems the breaks for a fan of our club.
Bilic looked a beaten, unmotivated, clueless, shell of a man. However all our managers do after about 3 or 4 games.
Leventhal’s piece this morning says: Pozzo hasn’t been attending games for ‘personal reasons’. Pozzo didn’t sack him face-to-face…he got Giaretta to do it. The players were disgruntled pre-Preston as £300 had been deducted from every players salary for food provided at the training ground. £150 for staff. Not the amount they are upset about - more the fact that they weren’t told and find it ‘inexplicable’. Club declined to comment. Claims there is a power struggle taking place between Manga and Giaretta who are known to keep their distance at games. Bilic was angered by the Nigerian HC being invited to watch training on Jan 6th without any consultation - he also had concerns about the ‘sanctity’ of the dressing room on match days. Pellistri’s agent visited London Colney for talks over a move - Bilic very surprised it didn’t happen. Bilic played a role in signing Araujo and Jorge Mendes is surprised by the sacking.
How can you ever expect any manager to be able to build a decent style of play or consistently get results when the boards definition of 'hell or high water' is 10 games? Switching managers twice in a season just going to leave players more confused and having to get used to yet another playstyle of Wilder or whoever comes next after him if we sack him. Taking accountability off players as per usual too - every time the team comes into a bad run of results manager will get fired every single time. Surely players are acutely aware that if they don't perform will probably be left at managers door anyway and not be their fault. Even if we do scrape into the Prem (incredibly unlikely but hey) - so what? We will just be straight back down again after sacking 4 managers. Building a long term effective project takes time.
Just read a lifting the lid piece on the sacking by AL and The Athletic. Apparently, in the lead up to the Preston match, players were deducted £300 from their wage packets for food in the canteen, which apparently went down like a lead balloon. The relationship between Manga and Giaretta is already strained. Bilic is due a £400k payout and his staff a further £250k. The Nigerian coach, Peseiro, was given permission to watch a training session without Bilic’s consent, which angered him. Other issues surrounding the sanctity of the dressing room on match days also caused friction. Gino has been away from the club recently, for personal reasons, but came back on Monday with axe in hand.
I’d love to know what Giaretta actually does. In all seriousness. He seems to be simply employed to be Pozzo’s axe carrier and chief pisser-off of everyone he comes across. Like his predecessor before him. Also, loving the unannounced tenner a day charge to the players for the lunch that they can’t even choose. But I’m sure we’re totally fine financially.
There are such levels of contradiction with this owner. He's not completely mental as our last one, but he shows such petulance and is a control freak it seems. I can't understand why he cannot see what upsets people. He will dock players wages, without consultation, for food. It's the principle as we all know they can afford it, but things like that will always piss players off. Has he learned nothing from the withholding of bonuses? That cost him a relegation. He will fly players in luxury to away games, yet does these other ridiculous things. Happy to shell out compensation packages like confetti, yet will not invest in a Cat One academy. Happy to spend £5m on crap like Okoye and Bayo, yet turns his nose up at Ivan Toney. Will develop the stadium and call stands after our former greats, but refuses to speak to the fans, even via press releases. We've had 7 unbelievably good years but the last 4 have been a total disaster. Contradictions aplenty.
The last time Gino had the bright idea to take away money from the players that they had rightfully earned it resulted in us losing our best manager in decades, being relegated and the start of this dreadful period. Still, lessons learned and all that.
Basically no one gets on with each other then and almost seek to annoy or avoid one another. Great team building and unity there! Good way to build up morale and trust between club and players .. If all true of course .
The club is a shambles with a despotic tyrant at the helm who has lost the plot. He gave us a great period in the clubs history but that is well and truly over now. How long are some people going to let that period excuse anything and everything that is happening now?
Basically, if things were a shambles when we went down the first time, they are 10 times worse now. Gino's response to failure seems to do something ever more stupid each time. He's incapable of learning from his mistakes.
Hasn't quite worked out but anyone who beats the scum 4-0 deserves a free pass. Wilder has an opportunity to beat them too. Take it!
Apparently been going on at our club and others for a while (according to Ben Foster ) but presumably there has been an increase on the charges which has upset them ?
It’s deeply odd that Pozzo will sh1tcan a manager as soon as he hits a bad patch, but his own supporters give him endless free passes for a bad patch that is now approaching four years in length.
Only reason Gino wants promotion is the cash. Let's be honest, we could lose every game (or close to it) go through six managers and finish bottom, and to him the cash injection would of been a success. Last time we had a decent amount to spend on the squad was when we bought Sarr. We keep talking about a re-build and I agree it needs to happen, but if we don't go up this season, we will have a even less chance of it next season as most of our better players will be sold to cover the cost of not going up, Sure, we will get one windfall of parachute payments but this will not be that much. Unless we have a very good Summer window and start next season very well, I think we all know the consiquences of failing to go up next season as well.
Fans were clapping off players and holding up their ‘please give me your shirt’ signs when we set a new global standard in consecutive home defeats last season. The attending fanbase don’t care. It’s a hobby for them. Same as similar sized clubs like Reading. Why would anyone start supporting Watford?
I had actually forgotten until the Leventhal article this morning that it's 3 out of the last 4 seasons that we have required the services of 3 head coaches. In most of those cases I was an active manager-outer at the time (given individual micro-level context), but regardless, in the wider picture, that is shamefully embarrassing. What it says about our planning, analysis, and the way the club is run, is scarcely worth thinking about.
There are fans who will say it was right to sack Edwards, right to hire Bilic, right to sack him, right to hire wilder, all because they were Gino’s decisions and they can’t bear to accept he’s lost the plot. Then when we finish 10th with the best championship team in history they’ll double down on it all once more, and blame injuries, or Edwards for not getting the players fit enough in pre-season.
