As I'd virtually thrown in the towel as far as our Prem status is concerned some weeks ago I was not too despondent about the result against Charlton as I thought in the 1st half we played the best football since Cardiff. The future is so bright that to be a Watford fan over the next few seasons is going to be a great experience. Revamped Ground Money in the Bank Talented Young Squad Ady The Best Supporters (if not the loudest) in SE England We have a young manager who by his own admission is learning all the time and must only improve. And I think that he has followed Arsene Wenger in some of his transfer dealings by preferring to bring in players for the future. Yesterday three players stood out for me: Priskin .... Should have been a regular starter after the postponed Wigan game Williams .... Showed yesterday why he was so highly rated at Forest Francis .... Playing just behind a sole striker may be his best position On the negative side I think the summer may see a few familiar faces exit the Vic ... we all know the ones, Macca can't remain promising all his career, Mahon's workrate can't hide his limitations (still no need for the pre-game booos :rant, Hendo .... Doris has been awesome but with MK back we will have more than enough options up front though like Sutton/Dublin I think he would make an excellent Centre Half, Lee ... Jobr will probably offer Coco a lift to Watford Juction, Albert Jarrett ... Will we ever know how good our 1st World War fighter ace was ??, Carlisle ... error prone in the Fizzy Pop his injury was probably a blessing for him (and us), Powell ... Zimmer Frame's go-faster stripes not enough to stop the ageing process for a player that was too old B4 we signed him.
the future is good, but i dont think powell will got, he will take more of a coaching role - i think h had alot to do with the improvement of stewart, marriap aand chambers.
I can't see Powell staying I'm afraid. There's a limit to how many former pro coaches any team needs on the books and we already have Chamberlain and Mackay. The way he was geeing up the Charlton fans wasn't too good I thought - fair enough if he wanted to ackowledge them but revving them up as well pre-match was a slightly ill judged gesture I thought. Agree with you Budfrog, with the exceptions of Carlisle and Hendo. Henderson will be dangerous in the Championship and Clarke will be an excellent 4th choice centre back I feel. Bye bye to Macca though (at last!) :sign16:
Our squad is very strong for the fizzy pop league and will romp it. Keep the depth as well. Every one was moaning how small our squad was this term. Now we can afford to have a bigger squad that will help for suspensions and injuries next season. Two things to look forward to and be excited about: 1) - FA cup final in Cardiff 2) -Romping the fizzy pop next season.
Well said bud. When you see a performance like the first half yesterday you have to be optimistic. We just ahve to learn to play that way for 90 minutes. I thought Song was superb for Charlton - what would we give to have someone like him next to Williams?
The championship will be a stronger league next year and it will be an excellent achievment if we do any better than last season.
Makay, Chamberlain to continue coaching roles, Powell to go back to the south lundon slum he seemed to love so much yesterday. I have no problem with him clapping the Charlton fans after many happy times there, however very OTT behaviour and he can now go @uck. Keepers 1st choice we will need to bring in. Back up Loach and Coco Defenders Shittu Jay Clarke Stewart Parkes Doyley Chambers Osbourne Parkes Marriapa Avinel Midfielders Francis Mahon Hammer Williams Smith Tigi Al Bang Williamson Cavali Rinaldi Forwards King Henderson Kabba Priskin Hoskins Moses Robinson Would give a squad of 31 allowing some younger / fringe players to go out on loan. OUT Macca Gill Blizz Campana Grant Jarret
Agree Jobby, but i would keep Macca but let Osborne go on loan for a season. Macca can hack it in the fizzy pop.
Cue Macca skinning a Championship defender, doing an unnecessary trick and then slamming the ball into the stand. It just gets boring after a while Paddy. He's been promising for years now and has failed to realise it. I don't quite understand how a player with so little input on any success over the past few years is so popular - especially as he spent most of those years being a lazy little twit who refused to track back. His time has been and gone in my opinion.
I agree with the first post. Jobr, isn't Rinaldi only on loan, or is there an option to sign if he impresses?
Couldn't agree more, i'm tired of his lack of end product and the way he regularly leaves the full back exposed which usually results in Stewart getting abused. 6 month loan and i think the option to extend. Whilst Cavalli and Avinal both on 18 month deals with the option to extend.
If he doesn't want to stay then he knows where the door is ... we don't want a single player who isn't 100% WFC :dismay:
I think the only players Aidy will get rid of are those that he believes aren’t good enough: 1) Basically most of the ones Jobr said (give or take) though I hope the vast majority especially Blizz and Macca go for cash (every little helps ) and not released on frees. 2) Any player Aidy feels isn’t loyal to the team e.g players who believe they are too good for the Championship and who aren’t convinced that we will be pushing for promotion. May include: Shittu – will West Brom show interest? Demerit, said he wanted to leave a while back, and even Francis who I think might be subject to a move to one of the promoted sides. Ideally most if not all the players will want to stay for at least a season, but if not I think we could get some good money. We used to sell players on the cheap, but the Ash sale showed that that is no longer the case (we got a highly inflated price for him imo!) Also going back to the original point, i think performances are just as important as results from now on, and i think good performances will get the crowd going more than uninspiring victories. And the future is bright!
Spot on ... still has a lot to learn positionally and gives away stupid FKicks and Pens. Still has what ... 2 years left on has contract, can't see a queue forming with their chequebooks. In his defence ... great athlete, rarely injured needs to cram a career in to less years than most.
A am looking forward a better stadium, i must admit. I would like to see some youngsters go out on loan in the future. I think we could link more with St Albans if they stay up and give them a few more prospects, For example, Theo would have done well there this season as they are short up front. As for players. I can see both our centre backs going. Jay has been found out a bit this year but could be good cover for someone like Shef utd, i would let him go for anything arounf 750k. Shittu, I reckon will go to someone like Celtic to replace Balde. I can actually see us selling him for 3mill as they have had a good champ league run. If Shittu does not go, I can see him and Carlisle becoming our first choice partnership. to go for me would be: Foster -Loan finished Malky - coaching perhaps still register him Osbourne Jay Powell Rinaldi Grant Gill Dom Jarret Kabba - Think Theo has potential to do his job Macca - 3 or 4th choice left mid at best now I could see us getting a bit of cask for these, enough to go out and sign a decent permenent keeper, which must be our priority.
Mat I am assuming you mean CASH as opposed to cask? Surely with all the money brought in from promotion, parachute money to come PLUS 10 million big ones from the sale of Ashley Young, we can already afford to go out and sign a decent permanent keeper? Hell we could put in a reasonable bid for Foster which im sure would tempt Man Utd if we really wanted to.... The only reason i bring this up is because people have terribly short memories and i can honestly see all the money from Ash's sale dissappearing into a big black hole which would make his sale even more harder to bear .
I agree we probably have a bit of money for the summer, and i think we will see some transfer activity, though i think we should sell the fringe players to raise more funds, so that a large chunk of the cash can go towards stabilising the infrastructure of the club (stadium etc). The Young sale was the first in my lifetime (after Dyer) that I felt we actually got an over inflated price for a player, and we wouldn't have got more than £2 million if we hadn't got promoted imo. Our debts are now paid off (thanks to this season) but we still need to make sure we are sustainable, and unfortunately for us, (but rightly imo) none of us know exactly how much of the promotion and (future) parachute money remains (having already been directed i assume).
ahhhhhhhhh im too late.... youve already been sucked in. We spent next to nothing b4 the sale of Ash. We've STILL got one of the lowest wages budgets in the Championship The clubs was building a platform for sustainability REGARDLESS of our promotion exploits HENCE the dirty great big whacking flats that are being built onto the Rook. My arguement is this.... Prior to Ashs sale, we had approx £5million ish in the kitty to spend on players. Now he's gone, thats £15million to spend. .......... AND I EXPECT TO SEE IT SPENT!
I think living up here has just made me more objective to certain subjects such as our financial position. Personally I think the board has done a good job off the pitch (at one time I didn’t) but don’t worry I haven’t been sucked in to the extent I follow blindly. I agree that in principle that the stadium money has all been allocated and I accept we have the low wage bill (even for the Championship) but Simpson has told the fans that, he isn't trying to hide that fact. But any extra money could go on further innovative improvements. I agree we might have as much as £15 million to spend on players but I know we wont spend that amount and don’t expect the board to do so to be honest (I doubt they'll just keep it for themselves as well!). We’d only spend a figure like that if we had good attendances making it sustainable to do so. I also always get slightly paranoid (after ******) when it's suggested we should spend large amounts of cash
I'm afraid I don't want us to go spending £15m this summer, as frankly that kind of money would be wasted on players needed in the Championship. In fact the last thing we want to do is go spending big because all it will do is encourage other clubs to push up their asking prices. Sure we need to spend a few million to sign key players, particularly a goalkeeper, though there has to be merit in moving on a lot of the deadwood around the periphery of the squad as well. There's no chance of us getting Foster so although a cheeky bid shouldn't be out of the question any eggs put in that basket will sadly not hatch. I'd be perfectly content for the club to sit on the money until next time round or to see it go into the wider stabilisation of the club.
Well said that man. Where is the sense of blowing all the money we've got on Championship players when we've already got a squad of championship players. Agreed we need to invest in a few areas, mainly a goalkeeper and a defender or two and preferably a decent right winger, but lets not forget this is largely the same squad, minus Ash and Springy that got us into the Prem. To be honest King James, i'm glad your not in charge of the money and where we spend it, afterall, we saw last time that blowing all our cash in one go leads to dire circumstances.
Have you forgot that we have spent: Priskin: Probably £1M Smith: £500k Shittu: Rising to £3M Francis: £1.5M Hoskins/Williamson: £1.2M Williams: I'm guessing £500k Kabba: £500k That's a total of more than £8M.
