I very much suspect they know we can see through it but don't care. Rich successful people tend not to care what others think
Rich yes, but it’s family money. Gino achievements to date are to take a club promoted to premier league by his father and load it with vast amounts of debt while simultaneously making a vast array of inexplicable costly decisions. He’s a rich kid playing with his father’s toy at our expense.
Maybe I've asked before and forgotten the answer but is the bit in bold really true? Gino's been here since the beginning I thought. Papa Pozzo seemed to have some marginal involvement in the early days but Gino was already involved in Udinese by that point too. I can't remember the last time we saw Pozzo Snr pictured at a Watford match. It must be knocking on 9 years?
I’ve seen this being consistently said and I agree it is a good achievement. But what is also consistently ignored when talking the above point up as some great statistic, is just how poor the Championship is these days. Sure you have 1/2 decent sides in there at any one time but it’s getting weaker and weaker. Yes we have a historical standing of perhaps being below the Top 20 sides in the country - but in those seasons we stayed up, how many of the the teams that went down should have been above us? I think it’s a good achievement. But I don’t think it’s as incredible as is often made out.
Not to mention the fact you’d surely have to be mad to predict we’ll spend 6 of the following 7 seasons in the prem. It was a good historical achievement but current trends suggest they won’t be able to sustain/repeat it. You can only dine on past glories so long, Ranieri won the PL but it didn’t help us much.
I think we would just be one of the "poor" teams in the championship without their ownership. "Poor" is a relative term and I agree that most of the teams in that league are "poor" when ranked against the company we've been keeping recently but I don't think it's poorer than the league we were struggling to stay in pre Pozzo ? Anyway I just made that post because, whilst I agree there have been plenty of poor decisions over the last 2-3 years, poor signings, poor manager appts according to some, but they must surely have been getting more right than wrong to have spent 6 out of 7 years in the prem ??
Agreed. Back down to the league that would represent a par performance for a club of our size, below where we have spent most of our recent history.
FFP has made it ‘poorer’ in the sense that it’s extremely high risk to chuck more money at it than your actual turnover allows, which for all Championship clubs is much of a muchness. Reading had a wage bill that was 110% of their turnover, they failed to get promoted so are now at now risk of relegation due to a 9 point deduction. Derby don’t need explaining. You just don’t get the teams chucking silly money at promotion that you did a decade ago, and when you do they have to get it right pretty much straight away or they end up with a points deduction.
Why can't people stick to the topic of the threads these days. This is another one where most of the posts have nothing to do with the title. Reading this forum is getting more frustrating than going to games.
Of course by recent history you’re conveniently excluding the 6 seasons out of 7 spent in the prem you were just trumpeting about.
Agree FFP removes the incentive to buy promotion and links spend to turnover. It will be interesting to see where that leaves us in the league (excl parachute adjustments). We were outspent before (on the basis we spent pretty much zilch) but relied on some real quality "loans" from Udinese.
??? No, you were talking about the next 6-7 years and I said "Back down to the league that would represent a par performance for a club of our size, below where we have spent most of our recent history." Unless you think a par performance for a club of our size should be in the prem ?
Yes agreed, sorry for my part. The same arguments have been had elsewhere with the same points being made by both sides.
It makes anybody wanting promotion from the championship more about vanity than anything else, and there aren’t a huge amount of people like that around. Mel Morris spent £200m of his own money and failed, that was £200m down the drain for him. If you base promotion to the Prem purely on a financial basis FFP makes the risk highly questionable. If you fail and end up with a points deduction, the club virtually falls apart and any investment up to that point goes down the drain. At least prior to FFP you could keep bankrolling and obtain the assets in the playing squad until you finally got promotion and then to an extent it washes its face, staying in the Prem is then a difference matter entirely of course.
That's my point. Happy to have the discussion about the merits of the owners, but not on every thread.
I am happy to discuss anything in real life. But if someone keeps turning a conversation to one topic irrespective of the topic of the original discussion I would make my excuses and walk away. Those people are really boring.
Which massive clubs that currently occupy the positions in the EFL should be above us in your opinion?
2015/16 - Relegated were Newcastle, Villa and Norwich. Two clubs who are far bigger than us one of a similar standing 2016/17 - Relegated were Hull, Sunderland and Boro - One big club and two similar to us 2017/18 - Relegated were Swansea, Stoke and West Brom. 2 sides that had spent a good number of years in the top flight and the other I would say is similar to us 2018/19 - Relegated were Cardiff, Fulham and Huddersfield - This is the only season where I would have expected to finish above the teams that were relegated All sides bar 2018/19 are either of a similar level if not bigger or are historically big sides or had spent a number of years in the top flight. I would say we did fantastically well staying up for that long. Apologies @FromDiv4 - just seen your post about keeping the discussion in line with the title. Calvin Ramsey, never heard of him
I get that you don't rate them but this is a bit revisionist. Until the last season we never looked like going down. Even the Mazzarri season where we finished 17th, we just got too comfortable. They did all that without spending stupid amounts of money till Sarr. Also the championship was poor last year no doubt but how can you quantify that it's getting worse. There are lot of stats buffs here I'd like to see that point proven. There may be a case for it getting comparatively weaker, but I think that just makes a case for consistently staying up on a lower budget an achievement.
None "massive" but about 7 of the champ teams have bigger gates than us on a level playing field, as do about 4 of the League 1 sides, but lets debate this on a relevant forum.
We aren’t buying him. We are all too busy getting behind the team and supporting getting George Abbot into the side.
Well it can only be revisionist if I had indeed gone back over things are reassessed our achievements. I’m haven’t done that. But I look at the side we came above in those seasons as laid out above - and yes, it was a job well done to come above them and survive. The Pozzo’s get kudos for that. But also, a lot of those teams, I’d have been furious to have come below them so we only achieved what I’d have expected to. So whilst it’s still a good achievement to stay up in those seasons, I don’t think it’s mind-blowing or something we have done against the odds - and it often feels like that’s how it’s made out to be. I asked the question a few weeks ago and never really got a proper clear answer - if we are punching above our weight, who are the 20 sides that deserve to be above us from say, the last 10 years? Because I don’t think there are 20. And I think it’s pointless going beyond that.
Do you want me to go away and find all the clubs who have more financial backing and list them? Or if not purely about money then shall I list all the sides that are traditionally bigger and have larger fanbases? In both cases there are at least 20 clubs above us. The fact that Gino has able to have us consistently in that top 20 despite both of those things shows he's done something right and we are punching above our weight. Maybe we have come to the end of this model working but let's not rubbish our previous success because we disagree with our owners recent decisions.
Traditionally bigger teams and bigger fanbases doesn’t place them above us in the last 10 years. And whilst there are clubs with richer owners, that wealth isn’t poured entirely into the clubs they own. So whilst Sunderland may now have a wealthy young aristocrat owner, a small percentage of his wealth goes into the club. So do they have more financial power than us? I’d say no. So I don’t think there are 20 clubs that can be placed above us as being more worthy of the PL in the last 10 years. And you are being a bit disingenuous by saying ‘let’s not rubbish our previous success’ - because I haven’t done that. I have said they’ve done well to place us where they have. But I’m trying to put it into context and debate whether keeping us in the PL for 6 out of 7 seasons is somewhat overstated as being something truly amazing. It’s a good achievement. But I haven’t seen a queue of more worthy teams waiting to take our place - nor have I felt we have stayed up over more worthy teams the majority of years.
It’s a tricky one. If Watford and Sunderland are in Championship next season you’d expect Watford to finish higher. If both remain in the championship for another 3 years you’d expect Sunderland to finish higher in year 4. The incremental base income will chisel away over time all things being equal.
