Historically Bad Decisions

**** leadership

 

Hughes is an interesting one. 100% the sort of player we should’ve built around after relegation and fully agree he should be captain.

I don’t think the club were at all good to him.

 

Hughes would have stayed. I have first hand info on how that situation played out and he would 100% have stayed.

Cathcart shouldn’t have been the mainstay but what I mean was somebody along those lines. Somebody steady and reliable and unlikely to look for a move away.

The other thing we miss is the presence of a leader like Deeney. His time on the pitch was long gone but his leadership off it hasn’t been replaced.

 

Brexit.

 

I guess it’s pretty difficult to pick up prem quality players when you have practically nothing to spend. On paper King, Tufan and Sissoko looked like creative solutions but had no commitment to the cause. The signings in Jan were bizarre. Losing Hughes and Chalo also hurt us.

 

Just goes to show Footnall is a momentum thing, in 98/99 with 10 games to go we were nowhere near the playoff’s but a gritty win over Bolton having been 3-0 down with 20 minutes to go turning it around 4-3, then against the odds having two players sent off and beating John Aldridge’s Tranmere and the momentum was with us the majority of the following games were won and we were in the playoffs, then underdogs at Wembley and beating Bolton again. We have had other periods when the players are up for it and a bit like yesterday when the match kicked off Millwall were possessed with the ball maybe once being in their half before they scored!

The same with losing we looked beaten before we kick the ball in most of our recent games with our group of not bothered players! What do they lose if they don’t win, I presume they still have win bonus’s at stake, but their “ basic “ is still so high they are not exactly going to go without if they lose matches.

The only players that actually show they care are the likes of Pollock and Andrew’s (young players) who aren’t just going through the motions when they put on the shirt! Although @HappyHornet24 really annoys everyone (including me) with his I told you so attitude, our momentum I’m afraid is going the wrong way!

 

The Bolton 4-3 game was in 1993!

 

Oh I’m getting my historic comebacks confused, strange really as there haven’t been many of that magnitude!

 

This is my biggest problem with the way the club has been run

we finished 10/11th. 4 points off of a European spot. We had an amazing team. A few tweaks and we would have made it as an established top 10 team

what did we do? We signed Craig Dawson on a free and played Mariappa at right back

criminally inept

 

They are both still playing, one for Wolves in the P.L., the other for Salford in League two!.

 

If he’d been invisible that would’ve been a lot better, unfortunately his regular errors made him extremely visible, least not against Arsenal in the last game of the season.

 

There have been so many decisions made in the last 5/6 years that have contributed to losing our Premier League status and leaving us back where we started when Pozzo took over in 2012. For me one of the most crucial aspects of that has been the shoddy (and that’s putting it lightly) recruitment.

Even a blind man could have told you one of the biggest problems we had was the defence. A competent and strong defence is key to winning football matches as you cannot always rely on out scoring your opponent. We had to identify the key weaknesses and adjust accordingly- take Liverpool for instance. Klopp’s early days had Mignolet in goal and Sakho/Toure/Lovren at centre half. Weakness identified. What did they do? Went and bought Alisson and Van Dijk. Defence instantly improved. We obviously don’t have the ability to buy players like that but that’s not really my point- they saw what wasn’t good enough and upgraded.

As much as I like Sarr and want him to succeed in his career, he was bought as our record signing into a system and a manager which did not suit him. As he cost so much he had to play and that meant using wingers which changed the way we had to play. Hughes or Pereyra had to be shifted over to the left- a position which suited neither.

Signing players like:
Araujo- was never going to be able to adapt to English football
Manaj- pointless
Assombalonga- pointless

Letting Hughes and Chalobah go. Two experienced players who played a big role in getting us promoted in 2021 and then were booted out the door.

One last thing that I cannot let go of is the lack of leadership. Troy’s legs may have gone in 2019 but his voice certainly didn’t. He would be in everyone’s ear telling either his teammates what to do or telling opposition/the ref what he thought. When he left, the leadership and ability to fire others up went with him. It took Troost-Ekong after the Coventry game in 2021 to put their arses into gear and now he’s gone too. Hoedt is the only one we’ve got now who seems to have something resembling those qualities.

This club is in a sorry state, and I think it’s only going to get worse.

 

Woah woah woah.

Craig Dawson? Invisible?

 

Surely we could have found it if needed - whether it be by taking a loan against future transfer fees received or sending a player to Udinese. It was a case of there needing to be a will which needed to find a way.

 

and the difference between what Hughes was asking and what the club wanted to pay was negligible. But the club wanted to make a point apparently

whole host of mistakes made even before the fa cup final. It amazes me that it took some people 5 years of absolute turgid on field displays and off field mistakes before the penny dropped that Pozzo is a rotten apple

 

Gary Porter hattrick

 

Just learned that our top earner is Jamal Lewis on £50k per week. Gulp.

Apparently second is Tom Ince on £27k PW.

There's a couple to add to the list.

 

No chance this is true (the Ince part)

 

Sometimes players signed free or cheap get themselves a higher wage...

I really hope it's not the case

 

lol etc, Gino’s done it again.

 

Learned how?

 

Ince is probably right, Reading have been absolutely hammered for FFP and would’ve desperately needed him off their books (he signed a 3 year deal at the start of the 22 season with them) and he was probably on a very high wage (hence why they’re in so much ****) so would’ve taken a nominal £50k and Ince would’ve been happy as long as his wage wasn’t affected.

Although £27k seems nuts for such an awful player, it’s £1.5m a year, if we’d paid £1m for him and paid him £10k p/m I don’t think many would’ve been that shocked by it but it’s essentially the same differences

Unfortunately, as it turns out a £0 transfer fee and £0 p/w would’ve been too much.

 

The internet, so it must be true.

 

Scrap Z-Cars, the team should be running out to this:

 

I would imagine that's his wage at Newcastle, I expect us to be paying a decent percentage of that, but would be surprised if we were paying full whack.

 

That was 5 years earlier
I see that's already been mentioned. The Tranmere game was the catalyst. A nothing performance before Smart and somebody else I can't remember were sent off. The crown were up and we win the game. Loved that game

 

Richard Johnson was the other. One of the best Watford games.

 

Unless you know otherwise, this site is really interesting, Ince and Lewis do stand out like a sore thumb for the reasons already mentioned!
2023-2024 Watford Salaries and Contracts | Capology: Football Salaries & Finances

 

I really hope we aren't paying it all...

But even if we're only paying half of that he's still the biggest disappointment of the season in this squad

 

These salary sites do tend to be utter guesswork and speculation masquerading as information, though.

 

You could easily make a strong Pozzo X, but not an XI.

Britos is the only CB I'd say was PL quality.

Brighton were a very poor side for years but built from the back to avoid relegation. They may now suffer from going the other direction but there's enough quality for the moment.